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Global Mission Handbook: A Guide for Crosscultural Service ReviewI'm really torn about this book. On one hand, it has quite a bit of good
material on various aspects of considering international missionary work.
On another, I found it often difficult to get through.
Part of it is that, I realize that I just don't like books that are in a
short article format--it feels like more of a personality thing than
anything else. I prefer things that are going to carry more of an
on-going theme or subject matter to great depth. At the same time, it
feels like individual articles are easier to pass on to others than a
whole book. However, given the abundance of articles in this book, I
feel like it's less likely that I'll remember an individual article when
the appropriate occasion arises. There definitely were individual pieces
that I found inspiring or could imagine being useful, I just don't know
that I'll keep track of them to come back to.
Another reason that I'm torn about it is that while it gives
non-traditional missionary types some room to apply this book to their
lives, it feels like there's a clear push toward missionaries who are
focused on evangelistic church-planting to unreached peoples. At points
in the book, there's some suggestion that some readers might have skills
or gifts that might point them toward a variety of missionary roles.
However, in the worksheet for the 'ministry role and assignment' chapter,
the first question is 'do you know some missionaries who are attempting
to reach an unreached people group?' Somewhere late in the book it's
acknowledged to some degree that the authors have strong personal
convictions about the need for this particular type of ministry. But as
someone who feels more led to a marketplace missionary approach and not
to what would be considered 'an unreached people group', it felt somewhat
off putting to have the book feel like it was pushing that particular
missionary call without explicitly getting into why that was the case and
addressing the issues involved in that.
I felt this way about some of the emphasis on the value of going to a
Christian undergraduate institution as well. Like the bias toward that
direction was present without really stating it and therefore dealing
more with the issues involved. There was one article that compared
multiple educational routes, but many other articles implied that the
Christian education route was the better one to choose. I probably have
my own biases toward secular undergraduate education that play into how I
feel, but I just wish that there could have been more of straightforward
argument and then the issue could have been left alone.
Finally, in terms of critique, I feel like I don't know who this book
would apply to in its entirety. Perhaps it's not supposed to. I feel
like the individual articles themselves might all have an appropriate
audience. But I just don't see the book as a whole applying well to say,
undergraduates who are considering missions in some form. I first
starting reading the book in the context of a church based class for
undergraduate students who were attending the Urbana Missions Convention
and I struggled with feeling like the book was actually relevant to them.
It felt like the book is most useful to those who are pretty serious in
their commitment and conviction to go onto the missions field rather than
students who were just considering missions. Even though the students I
was interacting with were committed to their lives of faith and their
fellowship (many were student leaders), it felt like their rather
undeveloped level of self-knowledge about their gifts and call make the
book beyond where they're at in terms of considering missions.
In reflecting on to whom I would recommend the book, I could imagine
recommending portions of the book to some mid-twenty somethings who were
already fairly certain that they want to be involved in international
missions, at least in the short term, people who work with those in that
situation (I know some people who run internships for that kind of
group), or even people who have been on the field for a bit and were
dealing with certain issues. But with all of those groups, there will be
significant portions of the book which would seem very relevant and then
portions that would not be relevant at all. The only group I could see
the book being helpful to as a whole are perhaps missions pastors who
would interact with missions minded people and missionaries at a
wide-range of life stages and considerations of missions.
In the end, I feel like the book is best seen as a reference book.
Rather than sitting down and reading through the entire book, it feels
like it's best used by reading the relevant portions or recommending the
relevant portions when they are most appropriate. In that form, there
are some very good pieces and a lot of wise and experienced missionary
perspective. I now know resources I will recommend if I have friends
raising children in the mission field. Taylor's story about his father
finishing well brought me to tears. I felt like I learned some things
about current issues in the missionary force--particularly in the trend
toward short-term missions and away from career missionaries. I even
appreciated the recommended book list at the end.
However, I feel like I have hesitations on giving the whole book to
college students or very recent grads considering the field. Maybe I
underestimate them, but I feel like a lot of it would feel beyond their
life-stage. And at a time when many students are looking for community
development in missions or hybrid service and evangelism types of roles,
I feel like this book would in some ways discredit their passions or
interests.
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