In the course of thirty years of exposure to the world of missions, including seven and a half years on the field, Dave and Irene Lewis have developed relationships with hundreds of missionaries, ex-missionaries, and missionary candidates. Their stories have consistently held several things in common: periods of loneliness on the field, difficult relationships with some of their co-workers, frequent feelings of fruitlessness and futility, periods of spiritual dryness, and a loss of heart or motivation. Interestingly, these are the very issues that account for the largest percentage of missionary attrition—and all of them can be eased by members of the body of Christ coming alongside their missionary friends to love, encourage, exhort and reprove.
Discussions with missionaries, missionary sending agencies, pastors, and local church members revealed a problem that perpetuates preventable attrition. When a church sends one of its members to an agency for training and deployment, it often assumes that the agency will provide the necessary pastoral care. Agencies, on the other hand, often assume that the local church will be responsible for such care. The result? Missionaries fall through the cracks, with neither the church nor the agency providing adequate spiritual oversight. Many times, even when a local church does recognize its responsibility to care for the harvest force, it is at a loss as to how to relate to the real needs of people living in far different circumstances than their own.
There are two aspects to the nurturing relationship that we promote between sending churches and their missionaries. They can be summarized by the words prevention and promotion. Unnecessary attrition is a negative issue that we strive to prevent, but even missionaries who stay on the job need to continue to grow in their walk with God. By promoting good spiritual hygiene and encouraging on-going development, we can contribute to the transformation process and help avoid attrition at the same time. Both of these aspects are achieved as the body of Christ comes alongside the harvest force and practices the one-another principles of scripture.