FEBC Global

Most people who want to be missionaries look at training, like Bible school, short-term mission trips, and other cross-cultural experiences. They also try to decide which country or what field to pursue and start looking at mission agencies to see where there are openings. While those are not terrible things to consider, there is something that is more basic than all of that. It is the most basic and most essential part of being a missionary.

                The primary concern of a potential missionary should be spiritual formation. One missionary candidate was given insightful advice from a sending agency not to come back until he regularly spends at least two hours a day in prayer. Although I do not believe you can put a quantitative requirement on spiritual formation, I do believe that how much time one spends in prayer could be a barometer of where that person’s values are. Does that person regard his personal relationship with Jesus Christ as of utmost importance? It shows in the time spent with his Savior. Time spent communicating with Him should be a beautiful time of full surrender and intimate communion with the Father.

This intimate time becomes increasingly natural as the potential missionary spends more time in God’s Word. This time in God’s Word is not just a cursory glance at a chapter or a set of verses. One gets to know the Father better by spending time looking at a passage, looking at all the nuances of various words and phrases, and understanding the context to understand our Father, the great Creator of this universe and this world system.

Personal Bible study and prayer also bring a person in closer communion with Christ, which allows that person to share things about Christ more freely. The goal of mission work is to introduce nonbelievers to Christ and make disciples. If the worker is not a disciple himself, he will not be able to lead another person to be a disciple of Christ.

The mission agency and the church that have done due diligence will look at spiritual formation as a prime indicator of a person’s success on the mission field. It is a person’s spiritual fitness that will determine the person’s ability to deal with pressures and stresses in the field. It will determine how well a person will get along with others in the working environment of the field of service.

So, the first step in becoming a missionary is spending time in the Word and in prayer. Become intimate with the God of Creation. Get alone with Him; listen to Him speak through His Word; speak to Him in prayer about everything. Those whose responsibility will be to teach the Word of God must be familiar with the Word himself, correctly handling the Word of Truth.