Receiving Missionaries Home Again
Churches pray long and hard that the Lord will raise up missionaries to be sent out to other lands. The work of prayer is taxing, as is the labor to train, send, and support laborers. Then, we must be equipped to receive them back again at the completion of their mission, however long. How do local churches prepare to care for returning missionaries? The congregation I serve receives workers home every year from short-term assignments and occasionally from long-term assignments. Each time, we wrestle with how best to serve them and the congregation.
Neal Pirolo wrote Serving as Senders in 1991 to equip churches that are sending laborers in the harvest. He saw another need, and in 2000 he wrote The Reentry Team; Caring for Your Returning Missionaries. Pirolo’s work enables sound thinking for those who receive returning missionaries. If readers only digest his first three chapters, they will profit immensely.
Pirolo draws principles from Acts 14:24-28 to guide our ministry to returning missionaries as sending churches. Antioch sent these men on their first missionary journey at the leading of the Holy Spirit as recorded at the beginning of Acts 13. At the end of Acts 14, we learn how the church in Antioch ministered to Paul and Barnabas after they returned.
Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples. (Acts 14:24-28)
I found one of Pirolo’s several observations to be especially helpful to creating a culture of caring reception within a congregation. He notes that after the missionaries returned “they declared all that God had done with them.” We must let returning missionaries declare ALL that God has done with them. Declaring and rehashing these events was good for the church and for Paul and Barnabas. While it began with the gathered church, it surely took them more time and emotional energy to unpack what the Lord had done with them. In fact, they were still reporting the same things to others as they went to Jerusalem as their next stop (Acts 15:4).
The application for us as local congregations is to be sensitive to allow returning missionaries time to tell what God has done with them. Those memories won’t spring to mind all at once. The emotions that accompany them will take time to experience. So, we as churches need to give returning missionaries opportunities to report to the whole congregation. But, we need to give opportunities for sharing in smaller groups too. Those opportunities may be intentionally created over a meal in a home, through giving a presentation to the monthly seniors’ lunch that a congregation hosts, through a sharing time with the youth group, in a time of reflection with your local missions committee, over coffee with a small group of prayer supporters, as part of a regular small group Bible study, in a shepherding visit with the elder. We need to create spaces and situations where the work of God will be drawn out of them so that they are able to understand what the Lord has done and how he would have them to serve him next.
In addition to reporting what God has done with them, these moments of caring reflection will open doors to navigate whatever reverse culture shock these servants are experiencing.
Most of all, local congregations need to develop a mindset to minister to returning missionaries by being willing to listen and to ask good questions to help recall everything God has done. Even if members of the congregation don’t do everything perfectly to shepherd these loved ones, missionaries will still know that they are loved and cared for by God’s people. So, as the people of God, let us seek to learn all that the Lord has done with our missionaries as they return from their service in the field.