I have enjoyed this blog series on the characteristics of an effective missionary. I believe each characteristic is important! This week’s post will be no exception. An effective missionary keeps in contact. We are living in an era when staying in contact is so easy! With the technology and widespread use of it, we are able to communicate in an instant. If it is via email or website, most people don’t even have to wait to get home, they can get updates on their phones. This is so common place, that it almost sounds silly that I am making a big deal out of it, but this is relatively new. 50 years ago, missionaries could not communicate with ease. In 2022, we can be almost anywhere in the world and keep people up to date with what is going on in the ministry. 

Today there is no excuse that we have to not communicate with others and communicate often. There may be a few exceptions, but they are few and far between. At the drafting of this blog post, I am sitting in the airport in Los Angeles, California. Lord willing we will be taking off in a few hours to head back to Atlanta. We have enjoyed the meetings with churches we have been in through this past week, but we are also looking forward to Atlanta (even if it is for a day or two). This morning, from California, we have already been in contact with people in Argentina, Leslie spoke with a missionary friend who was just in New York City, and I am hearing from friends in other countries via a text message group. It is amazing how easy it is to stay in contact with others. 

With that in mind, an effective missionary should stay in contact. I am going to break this down into two categories. 

• Monthly prayer letters sent through the mail. Sending a one page prayer letter each month is easy. There is always something to share that is going on in the ministry. When a missionary is on deputation, he should be traveling and can share how God is working as he raises funds to go to the mission field. When he is learning the language and culture, there are things that he can share about things he is learning and the small opportunities he has to witness, and when he is planting a church, there are many things going on to share as well. Most churches ask that missionaries send a prayer letter a minimum of once every three months. I think we can do better than that. Prayer letters should be sent every month, there is no reason not to. If you want people praying for you and the ministry God has given you, then you need to keep people up to date with specifics, so they can pray for people by name, and pray for specific events, etc. An effective missionary sends prayer letters to partnering churches monthly. 
• Emails should be sent weekly. Physical prayer letters have a cost (although it is not that much). Emails are free! An effective missionary keeps people up to date each week. You do not have to write a novel, just a short paragraph about what has happened, or what is coming up. Be specific and be consistent. Be specific about the the names of people you are working with and about the special events that you are holding, be it a special day or an evangelistic campaign. Be consistent in sending quick update emails each week. 

There are other ways that missionaries can stay in touch. Some use social media, some directly message faithful prayer warriors. Both are great options. The point is that it is easy to communicate with others. An effective missionary keeps in contact with those who are “holding the rope” back home.  

I know it may sound strange, but Wednesday was the first day of Spring in Argentina (in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are reversed). It is a day that people celebrate throughout the country, winter is finally over and the flowers are beginning to bloom! To celebrate, the ladies ministry held a special Spring Bible Study at the home of one of the leaders. It was a blessing and encouragement to the ladies, they gathered together, prayed for specific prayer requests and one of them taught a Bible lesson. I am thankful to the Lord for special days like this! Thank you for praying for the ministry in Argentina.

Serving Together,

Patrick, Leslie, Lily, Piper, Ivy, and Isla Henry

Leslie and I are in California, we have meetings in Victorville, Sacramento, and San José. It is a blessing to be here and to enjoy this beautiful part of the country as we share what God has done and is doing in the ministry in Argentina!

A missionary must learn the language of the people he serves in order to be effective. This is not an option. I know first hand, that learning any language is not easy, it is a process that takes a life time. There are many words that I do not know in English. If that is true about my mother tongue, how much more true is it about the second language I have learned? But just because it is hard, or just because it takes time, doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth it. A missionary who serves a people but doesn’t know their language is limited. Some will tell you that they can minister to nationals through an interpreter. This can be true, but only to a point. Here is an illustration, if a man wants to talk to the missionary about a sensitive subject, something that is taking everything inside him to go to the pastor to talk to him, do you think he will share something so private with a peer to interpret the conversation? The answer is no! I would never be able to do it either. The people that the missionary serves must be able to go to him in confidence and share their heart, even in private sometimes. As we all know, this is such a hard thing to do. I am thankful for my Pastor, but if the only way I could speak to him was through an interpreter, the threat of a peer (the interpreter) knowing about that “private issue or struggle” would only cause me to keep quiet, which can lead to a lot of pain!

Learning a language is a process, and “fluency” is not a line the language learner crosses one day, but is made up of different stages. There is always more to learn! So there are important questions that come up with a missionary and language learning…

• “How does one learn a language?”
• “What are some effective ways to learn a language?”
• “When is a missionary ready to start a church?”

Here is how I answer these questions…

How do I learn a language? You learn a language by practicing. This is the key to learning a language. Most people point to language school as the key. While this is important, it is no where near as important as practicing the language. You practice the language by listening, talking, reading, and writing. First off listening and talking. These two things should take up the majority of the missionaries time when he first arrives to the field. A language school teaches you rules, but at the end of the day you still will not be able to understand others or articulate your thoughts by being in language school. It is all about practice, listen and talk, do it again, spend hours listening and talking. At first you will not understand anything, but in time you will understand a few words. Practice, then practice more, then practice more. You learn a language by practicing it!

What are some effective ways I can learn a language? If you learn a language by practicing it, the most effective way to learn the language is staying around people that speak the language. Pray for someone who will take you under their wing, someone who will teach you how to speak, who will correct you with every mistake, no matter how small. You need to spend a minimum of 50 hours a week in the language, and the vast majority of that should be interaction with other people. This is the most effective way to learn a language.

When is a missionary ready to start a church? Leslie and I were married on June 19, 2004. It wasn’t long before people started asking us when we thought we would have a baby. People would tell us, “If you wait until your are ready to have a baby, you will never have one.” This is the same thought I have about church planting. The missionary will never be “fully ready”. There is always room for improvement and experience. but after two years, it should be time to start a church. Those first two years are vital to the missionaries ministry, but that is for another post (one that I wrote a last month). Once those first two yers are over, I believe it is a good time to start the first church.

Speaking the language of the national people should not be an option. Dear missionary friend, give yourself to learning the language, practice the language by listening, talking, reading, and writing. You will get it. An effective missionary learns the language.

The last blog was about how an effective missionary prepares for the future by saving for his return from the field (specifically for retirement). This is so he is not a burden on those churches that have faithfully supported him. This post continues the thought about preparing for the future, but more specifically in the context of the ministry on the field.

There is coming a day when we will no longer serve in Argentina. It may come by death, it may come by God’s guiding into another ministry, or a health problem, or something else. Although I have no plans to leave Argentina, I know each day that passes brings me closer to that departure. That being said, I must focus on preparing the ministry for that eventual departure. There is so much to be done, but two things specifically stick out in my mind. One is setting up patterns that the churches and ministry will follow and the other is setting up leadership to continue the ministry.

Setting up patterns to follow. This is such a broad topic, but the ministry needs patterns to follow. This is true in the context of each local church. A missionary plants a church and sets up patterns to follow. This includes everything down to the order of each service, to how the offering is counted, to how the money is used from the offering, to how discipleship is done, to what curriculum is used in discipleship, to much, much more. The missionary sets the pattern as to what time services begin and end. The missionary will leave, even if it is for a furlough, so patterns must be put into place to guide the church to not just continue in his absence, but to advance the Gospel and grow. This is much easier said than done, but it is necessary. But to set up patterns for an entire ministry is even more important. How does a missionary go about doing so? I am not there yet, and I don’t really know. I realize that is not a good answer, but it is a truthful one. We have planted one church, we hope to plant three more churches during our next term. There is so much I have learned and so much more that I need to learn. I do believe it is important to set up patterns for local churches to continue to thrive and for the ministry as a whole to continue progressing forward. I know that everything we do in one way is setting up patterns. I know that God will guide us. I am thankful for the Holy Spirit, who will lead us in all of this and give us wisdom beyond our years. I am also thankful for missionaries who are “further down the road” than we are. Receiving counsel from such men is invaluable! Patterns must be set up to follow for the ministry to continue to thrive long after the missionary is gone.

Setting up leaders to continue the ministry: “Every thing rises and falls on leadership.” – Lee Roberson. God uses men to complete His purpose. I think of the Old Testament. God used Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, and to guide them through 40 years of wandering in the desert. When He took Moses home to be with Him, He used Joshua. Joshua was already serving under Moses, and as the leader, God used Him to bring Israel into the Promised Land and to conquer specific areas. After Joshua, things got complicated. There was no Moses or Joshua to “take the reins” and it shows. The people did that which was right in their own eyes, the regional leaders (judges) liberated their people from bondage, but few of them led them to God. It was a mess! God did use some, including Samuel to guide the people spiritually, but it wasn’t like it was under Moses or Joshua. David would become King, and after Him there were good Kings and bad ones. The defining quality of each king was whether he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord. God uses men to complete His plan, so missionaries need to develop men to lead the ministry. This means giving men the opportunity to serve and to shine. This means teaching and training so that others are doing the work, and not the missionary. An effective missionary sets up leaders to continue the ministry.

Again, so much more can be said about this topic, but the point is that effective missionaries set up patterns to follow and leadership to continue the ministry in their absence. Missionary brother, the day is coming when we will no longer be on the field, let us do all we can to set things up in the ministry for God’s work to continue!