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!

We will be at our home church this Sunday! We are sent from Victory Baptist Church in Loganville, Georgia. Leslie has been a member since she was 13 years old. I started attending when I was 18 years old. It is where we each served and grew in our youth, it is where we met and where we were married, it is where we call home! I was also an Assistant Pastor at Victory for 8 years. This is a special place for us! We are grateful for the opportunity to be at our home church. Pastor Lawrence has asked me to preach both the Sunday morning services, the Sunday evening service, and a special Spanish service! We love our home church and look forward to being there on Sunday!

In Argentina, the men at Faith Baptist Church will be having a men’s fellowship on Saturday. We do love these special services. September brings the beginning of Spring in Argentina, and although it brings a lot of rain it also brings opportunities to invite people to church. Pray with us that God use the evangelistic outreach at Faith Baptist Church this Spring!

Serving Together,

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

I have been posting different articles on characteristics of an effective missionary. There are characteristics that effective missionaries have. They can be in different countries, serve in different ways, sent from different churches, and have different backgrounds that make them each unique, but they still have certain characteristics in common. This post in the series will have several parts, and it is about the future. Effective missionaries prepare for the future, and when I use the word “future”, I am referring to the missionaries departure from the field. We will not be on the field forever. I know that one day I will not be in Argentina. It may be that the Lord direct us to a different ministry, it may be that He take us home to be with Him, it may be that we grow so old we are not able to effectively serve, meaning we would need to return to the states. In our case, we have no plans to leave Argentina, but we know, one way or another, our final day in Argentina will come. That being said, we need to prepare for that day.

So the missionary needs to prepare for the future, for the day when they are no longer serving on the mission field. This includes preparing the ministry, obviously the goal is that the ministry is not dependent on the missionary, that the missionary advances in the power of the Holy Spirit long after the missionary is gone. This also includes preparation for retirement, or for their return to their native country. We will address the preparation of the ministry by the missionary for his departure in an upcoming post, but today I will be focusing on the preparations an effective missionary makes for their return to their homeland.

An effective missionary prepares for his future retirement. This is a controversial view, but I believe it to be a biblical view. I don’t know of a biblical commandment to save for retirement, but I do believe there are biblical principles that point to the wisdom of doing so. The Bible teaches that the wise man prepares for the future.

“There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; But a foolish man spendeth it up.” Proverbs 21:20

“⁶  Go to the ant, thou sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise: ⁷  Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, ⁸ Provideth her meat in the summer, And gathereth her food in the harvest.” Proverbs 6:6-8

“⁷ For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; ⁸ Neither did we eat any man’s bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: ⁹ Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us.” 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9

An effective missionary will save to prepare for his retirement. Why? The pushback would be that the missionary should trust God, that God will take care of him. I say “Amen!” to that, but God also gives us principles in His Word to live by. We all believe we should take care of our health, we shouldn’t just eat and lay around and say “God will take care of me.” We all change the oil in are cars, we don’t just keep driving them thinking that God will take care of it. There is responsibility on our part to do specific things. God will take care of us? Amen! He has also given us Truth to follow and to put into practice.

So why save for retirement? We are blessed to be supported by wonderful churches across the United States. I have been in a few churches, where they would love to take on a missionary, but they are not able to because they are supporting a retired missionary couple. The couple served God faithfully on the field for years, even decades, and now they are not able to do so, so they returned to the States, but there is a problem, they never saved for retirement, and they have no way of supporting themselves in this stage of their lives. This puts our supporting churches in a difficult situation. I think we would all have a hard time discounting support of a faithful missionary family who needs it now that they have retired, n doing so, they are not able to move forward in world evangelism. Please don’t get me wrong, if a church decides to support a retired missionary, it is a great blessing, but it should be because they want to, not because they feel like they have to. If we as missionaries prepare now for the future, and save up for retirement, if/when that day comes, the churches that have faithfully supported them will not bear the burden of their retirement years. So is it a sin not to save for retirement? Of course not! I don’t think it is a sin to not save for retirement, however I do believe it is something a missionary should do to be effective from the beginning to the end.

As missionaries, we should work hard, prepare for the future, and make responsable decisions that will glorify God and advance the Gospel.