The Struggle for Missional Living on the Mission Field

Not all missionaries are missional. Shocking? Perhaps. It’s a sad reality. Living missionally is our intention. We get stuck. Busyness and activity take over. We wake up and wonder why we are here, sacrificing, far away from family and home.

What does it mean to live a missional lifestyle? How do we get back to doing what we came to the mission field to do? Living like we dreamed we would live among those we are called to?

Mission Drift

Mission drift doesn’t just happen to churches or organizations. It can happen in a missionary’s life as well. We lose our way and end up doing many good things, but accomplishing little of true missional purpose.

We need to courageously and honestly take stock and realign ourselves to God’s missional purposes for our lives. Ministry jobs to do, and families to care for, are a given. If we want to live faithfully, fruitfully, and fulfilled on the mission field, however, we must daily choose to live a missional lifestyle. It isn’t automatic, and it’s easy to drift from this path.

Too Much on My Plate

Some years ago, my life was full. Very full in fact. We were homeschooling our kids. That took hours each day. Leading the YWAM Frontier Missions work in our region meant our home had a constant stream of guests coming through. Short-term teams needed to be hosted. Then there was ongoing language study, email, and organizational meetings.

Not to mention, the reality that doing life in the place we lived took time. Grocery shopping meant hours at the market. Bringing home vegetables on a rickshaw, soaking them in iodine water for twenty minutes, then cleaning and putting them away, it all took time. My to-do list never seemed to have fewer than twenty items on it. As soon as I crossed off a few, new things were added.

How was I to live missionally with so much on my plate? What was the point of learning the language if I was rushing around, too busy to stop and talk to anyone about Jesus? My neighbors seemed open to a relationship, but my life had no space for it.

My husband’s life was busy too. He carried many responsibilities that kept him on the move, going to meetings, traveling, or working late into the night on his computer. Our lives were full, but were we living missionally? Had we drifted away from why we were there in the first place?

Defining Missional

The term missional has increasingly grown in usage. Being missional is not the same as being a missionary. The term missionary requires a clear definition. Everything is Mission has done a great job of reminding us of this (see the Nov/Dec edition of Mission Frontiers for more on this).

Ed Stetzer did a series in Christianity Today on the term missional. It gives us the history of this word’s use. The term missional developed out of a concept known as Missio Dei. It is basically the understanding that God is on mission. It is His mission, not ours. We join Him in it.

Stetzer writes, “Mission is not, therefore, primarily an activity of the church, but an attribute of God. Mission is a movement of God to the world, the church being the instrument for mission.”

God reaches out to the lost and brings them into His family through us. He then does His miraculous work of transformation, healing, and redemption. Our job in being missional is to partner and engage with God as He does His work in the lives of those around us.

Living Missionally is an Intentional Choice

Living missionally means to intentionally participate with God in His work of drawing people to Himself. This is true whether you are a missionary or a layperson. We join the Lord, in active ways, as He establishes His Kingdom in the lives and communities of those around us.

You may be thinking. If I am here…if I came to the mission field, am I not living missionally? Not necessarily. Here are some questions to ask as you consider how missionally you are living on the field.

Questions to Consider

• Are you actively partnering with God to love your neighbors?
• Do you know their names?
• Do you pray for them regularly?
• Are most of your relationships with the unsaved or are 90% with other missionaries and Christians?
• How often do you engage in intentional spiritual conversations with the lost around you?
• Are you actively making disciples and training them to disciple others?
• Do you demonstrate love for the poor in practical ways?

If you answered yes to most of these, you are living missionally. If most of your answers were no, perhaps you need to realign.

Take Time to Assess

Why not set aside an hour this week to prayerfully think through the questions above? You may have your own questions to add to the list. Ask God to give you the courage and wisdom to make changes in the coming months.

If you long to be trained further in how to make disciples, check out my online course.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on missional living on the mission field in the comments below! Or add them to the Missionary Life Facebook group.