Brigada participant, Karissa, wrote this past week to ask where one should turn to learn more about the practical side of becoming a missionary. Answers to her question could range from the “daily life” questions all the way to how to learn a foreign language and how to avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings. In fact, she could also need to know the ultra-practical side of just … how to live life in rustic environments. Obviously, it’s a very broad topic — but where would you send her for starters? Would you ask her to begin by visiting a site like
http://www.askamissionary.com/
Are there other sites like this? … or will she have to go in person to an onsite training experience hosted by someone like
or
Where would you send her? (Please click “Comment” under the web or app version of this item. Thanks!)
See also the Center for Intercultural Training for cross-cultural and second language acquisition training.
I recommend On Being a Missionary by Thomas Hale. a little dated but very comprehensive.
Here is one for those living in Canada, or interested in pre-field training in a country other than the US.
MissionPrep – missionprep.ca
Email: director@missionprep.ca
Cross Cultural Adaptation, Language Acquisition and Re-View (Reentry) all take place in Guelph, just outside of Toronto, in a densely multicultural metropolitan area.
We have used them and have been very pleased.
Center for Intercultural Training
http://www.cit-online.org
At Missions Resource Network, we practically train potential missionaries, especially those wanting to engage in disciple making. However, our training is not web based. We do mostly through face to face or video conferencing, with heavy reliance on self-paced discovery learning.
Search for missionary training at
http://www.trainforchrist.org/public/index.php?option=com_evangelical&view=coursesearch&SCat=C600&SIncIntl=1
also http://www.missionarytraining.org
EQUIP 10-month missionary training, which emphasizes hands on experience. Each participant will be on a team living amongst an unreached people group in NYC and will apply CPM principles throughout the 10-months. It focuses on cross-cultural ministry skills (reproducible methodology), character/leadership development, and spiritual maturity.
The Equip training through International Project!! NYC emulates the stresses of living in a new country, it is filled with UPGs, it provides freedom to experiment with a variety of ways to engage foreigners. We learned how to do an ethnographic survey and then expected to create a ministry plan for how we would engage a UPG. We learned and were expected to share each week how we did with using Shemah statements, orally sharing Bible stories, and our testimonies. We started real Discovery Bible Study groups with spiritually hungry students from East Asia through the campuses. We learned what it feels like to work on a team. I could go on and on as this training really accelerated me to live overseas. https://internationalproject.org/equip-missionary-training/