10 WAYS TO AVOID BECOMING A MISSIONARY.

(Adapted and updated from: Dinnen, Stewart. How are you doing ? Bromley: STL Books, 1984)

Avoid being convicted

Skilfully avoid the command in John 4:35 to take a long hard look at the fields. This is not only depressing but it is unsettling, and could lead to genuine missionary concern. (John 4:35 "Do you not say, Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.")

Have a good healthy (socially legitimate) target ahead of you, such as higher qualifications, promotion, bigger home, better car, higher salary, or providing for the future. Get married as soon as possible so you can devote your life to the socially accepted norm of settling down, establishing a career and raising a family. Never expose yourself to personal contact with missionaries. Their testimonies are disturbing, and the situations they describe tend to contrast with the materialistic living of the western world. Develop a closed-door mentality. Remember North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China and other closed countries. (Forget the many countries still open to missionaries and never listen to talk about creative access countries.) Always keep in mind your own past failures. It is unreasonable to expect you will ever be any better. This means never study the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Jonah, Peter or Mark: who were all drop-outs at one stage, but didn't stay that way. Always look at missionaries as super-spiritual people with tremendous gifts and saintly characters. This will heighten your sense of inadequacy and remove any guilt complex about not being one of them.

Finally, if you do become a little concerned about missionary work:

Listen to those who feel you are indispensable where you are, and that your local church can't do without you. Start worrying about money, after all the Rand is very weak. Go out right away without any training. You'll soon be home again, but no one will be able to blame you for not trying!

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nib

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Answers

And if these reasons do not deter you, What is the first step? I feel the calling... to share the Love of Jesus with those who do not know of his Gift.

Jesse

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001