Thriving in Cross-Cultural Ministry – Staying 1 of 3

Installment 14: Staying 1 of 3

Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

 – Psalm 37:3-5

It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life.

– Elisabeth Elliot

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Reminder: Your fellowship, sending organization, or team may not align with my advice. Trust your leaders as you respectfully share what you learn.

If you missed the first of the Leaving series, or would like to see all three parts in one place, visit bit.ly/4aXWTjQ.

Your onboarding is completed, and you are starting into the long haul. Maybe you have been on the field a while and want ideas to help with your longevity. As time passes, your work country becomes more home than your passport country. You may have children on the field for whom your passport country has no sense of “home.” In this period of years, William Bradbury’s words are important to remember as a ministry worker.

If you are in full time ministry and Jesus is not the source of your identity and grounding, you will reach a point of failure thriving in your new country where you may never be fully accepted.

• Parenting, marriage, and singleness contribute substantially to long-term thriving, carrying their own challenges, and will be addressed in separate chapters.
• Finances, reimbursements, operational stuff will also have their own chapter.
• Get/use a shared calendar with your roommate(s) or spouse
  • Helpful in scheduling and for security to know where someone I scheduled to be
• You must have vision alignment with your ministry team’s vision
  • Leaders come and go. Do not join a team for the leader.
  • Theological misalignment will become problematic over time
    • This does not mean you should not work with other teams and support each other, but alignment on your core team is important
• Make it a goal to work yourself out of your job, to replace you with a local partner
• Is your stated priority abiding, then sharing, then language, then admin? Does your week reflect that prioritization?
• Track your time in thirty-minute intervals for two-weeks to see if your practice aligns with your plan
• Often during the first period of time, language  has an out-sized focus to prepare you to meet your long term focus structure.
• Develop new relationships quickly and deeply, recognizing people come and go often.
  • Better to have had several good but short relationships than none.
  • Developing close meaningful relationships with locals connects you to your location, creating a desire to stay when times get tough.
• You may have heard that it takes 5, 7 or 9 years to produce spiritual fruit.
• Do not compare. God has a unique plan for you.
• Do not tick off the years. This is data and averages can have wide spans.
• Do the work God has called you to do. Leave the fruit to him.
  • Read about Jim Elliot for an example of what God is doing that you might not see.

The next article will discuss hobbies, travel, debriefs, and more.

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This article is part of a series. For prior articles, resources, and the author’s biography, visit bit.ly/4aXWTjQ

Books by this author: www.dharakalauthor.org

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Reliant or any other entity with which he is affiliated.

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