Hello SEND-ers,

SEND U is much more than just leadership training, but I have been involved in two leadership training events in the past month, so I will highlight them in this edition of Training Tracks. At Directors' Council, we looked at how we can better incorporate the generation called “Millennials” or Generation Y (those born between 1980 and 2000) into our mission. For us Boomers, this generation is the age of our children, but almost all of our areas now have a significant percentage of members from this generation. We have every reason to be excited about the potential these young people bring to our mission, but we also recognize that there are significant differences in the way they (some of you) think. A great resource to understand this generation and their contribution to missions is a free Mission Exchange webinar entitled “Reset with this Student Generation: Engaging Millennials in Missions.” A quick summary of this topic can be found in David Mays' book review of the book, “The M-Factor.”

This year, SEND U has coordinated two regional training seminars for team leaders. We are calling them BELT or Becoming an Effective Leader of a Team. The first was held in June in Germany for all the SEND Eurasia leaders. This past month, the Asia Regional Equipping Seminar was held in Taiwan and about 40 field and team leaders and their spouses gathered in Taichung from all of our Asia fields. We are pleased with the evaluations we have received, although we also see areas where we can improve the training. But of course, the real test is whether these training events result in more effective teams engaging the unreached and establishing reproducing churches. My great desire is that SEND U will do more than just provide resources and offer programs, but will make a lasting impact on our effectiveness in accomplishing the mission of SEND : Mobilize, Engage & Establish.

A major topic in both BELT training events was intrinsic motivation, or the study of what encourages both leaders and team members to stay passionate about the task. Missionaries, above all people, should be passionate about what they do, right? But as many of us have experienced, we can lose that internal motivation, and it is not always because our relationship with our Lord is suffering. It is helpful to understand the characteristics of an assignment that contribute to the renewal or the waning of our passion. If you are interested in understanding this topic better, you are welcome to look at the resource articles that we provided as pre-seminar and follow-up reading for those who came to ARES. All the ARES resources are on the SEND U wiki.

A book that I would highly recommend on the subject of identifying our passion in ministry is Steve Moore's newest book, “Who is my Neighbor? Being a Good Samaritan in a Connected World.” Rather than describing the contents of the book, I will just direct you to my October 14 blog post.

While we were in Taiwan, a number of women in Farmington were going through Entrust training in “Facilitating Relational Learning”. Here is what Sherri Divozzo said about this training:
I’ve just completed the first of four recommended modules of Entrust Training targeting women in shepherding roles to equip and empower them to better serve women in their ministry settings. “Facilitating Relational Learning” challenged me to reconsider the value of learning in peer groups within relationships and to reassess what a well-functioning small group looks like. We practiced using the skills modeled before us by the Entrust facilitators and which we studied beforehand in our homework. I think we successfully created a culture of evaluation of one another that was encouraging and free of performance anxiety so that we were aided to improve as the week long training went along. I would highly recommend this training to every woman wanting to improve her skills in facilitating relational learning within the home, local church or missionary community, especially when focused on women-to-women discipleship!

All for now. Keep learning,

Ken

Ken Guenther
SENDU Director
based in Kiev, Ukraine