When is the last time that you have looked at your Individual Growth Plan (IGP) or your Annual Ministry Plan (AMP)? Does it still adequately describe what you want to learn and what you want to accomplish in the remainder of this year? When we put together our plans at the beginning of 2021, most of us had little clarity about what we would or would not be able to do in 2021. The pandemic has so severely disrupted our plans for 2020, you may have been reluctant to make any plans at all.

Now that we are halfway through 2021, it is time to revisit those plans and make some adjustments. What new ministry initiatives will you be able to launch this fall? What new ideas would you like to explore and maybe get some training in? Have you seen some possibilities for engaging in some of the Community Transformation Initiatives in your ministry area? SEND U can provide you with a coach to help you develop a new ministry plan. I am also always ready to help you find a good book or some training resource to better equip you for your new ministry idea.

Just in case you are reluctant to ever change your IGP, let me assure you that it is not inspired (or at least it is not infallible). We make imperfect plans because we have imperfect knowledge about the future. We all need to make course adjustments along the way, particularly as the context and opportunities change. The important thing is that we are intentional in pursuing ongoing learning and development.

For those of you who have read “The Culture Map,” you may think that my suggestion that the IGP can and should be changed halfway through the year is characteristic of my “little d” decision-making style. According to Erin Meyer, cultures that are more top-down where the boss makes the decision, decisions can be easily changed (a little “d” decision). In cultures that are more consensual, the decision-making process takes longer, but it is also much harder to change a decision (a Big “D” decision). So does that mean that some cultures tend to struggle more with changing their goals at the mid-point of the year? Or do “little d” and “Big D” decision-making styles only apply to group decisions, and not to IGPs? What do you think?

Gary Ridley is willing to facilitate his online course on animism this fall in either October or November. It is a short 8-day course and costs only $35. You can learn more about the course on the Grow2Serve website. Gary will be retiring from SEND and stepping off the SEND U team at the end of 2021, so this is likely your last chance to take the course with him. If you are interested, either add your name to the sign-up list on the Grow2Serve page or contact Gary Ridley directly.

After 18 months of not conducting any in-person training, SEND U was able to plan and hold its first onsite training in July. Our Member Orientation Program (MOP 202) was hosted at Ward Church in Northville, Michigan, less than 10 km from the SEND Farmington campus. Participants and facilitators stayed at a nearby hotel. The last in-person training event that we had led was the M Consultation in December 2019 in the Philippines.

It was wonderful to do the training in person again. Connecting with people in person definitely has its advantages. Learning is much more interactive when people are physically present at the training event. Discussion flows much more easily. We can be a part of so many more conversations when we are all in the same room together. The trainees were able to visit various ethnic churches, an East Indian community and do a few other interactive training exercises that would have been impossible online. These interactive learning experiences help to make the training more enjoyable and more memorable. We got to know our new members in a much deeper way, and they got to know us as more than just talking heads on a screen. We couldn't do everything that we normally do in an onsite MOP 202. For example, we were not able to visit a mosque. But the extended time together over meals and while traveling or walking back and forth from the hotel together provided innumerable opportunities to appreciate the unique way that God has prepared and equipped each person for cross-cultural ministry.

This last MOP also stood out because we had so many experienced field missionaries listening in as observers! The majority of our guests were from Eurasia, and some of them were there with the intention of learning how to replicate MOP in the Slavic world in the future! We welcome observers and value their feedback on how we can improve our training.

The SEND U team is planning another in-person MOP 202 in Michigan at Ward Church from July 11-22, 2022. Again, we will have room for observers for all or part of the MOP Training.

Will we be scheduling a winter MOP 202 in February of 2022? We have not yet made a final decision. We do not yet know if we will have enough candidates to warrant planning an in-person MOP. But based on what we now know, it is unlikely that we will be planning a Member Orientation Program in the Philippines. It is quite possible that we may plan another MOP 202V - using video calls once a week. If so, MOP 202V would begin on February 21 and continue for 6 weeks until April 1, 2022.

SEND U would like to add some additional training resources to our SEND U wiki on these topics. Thank you to those of you who sent in suggestions. But we need more. Do you have any good books, training materials or online training courses that you would like to recommend to your fellow SEND missionaries on these two topics? Please send your recommendations to Ken at kguenther@send.org.

• early Sept - mid-November - Women's book group - The group will meet for 90 minutes once a week to review a chapter of the book “7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership". The group will be facilitated by Jenny Baker. Please contact Jenny with any questions and to sign up for this Sojourner group. Registration will be open until August 31st.
• Sept 13-20 - Learning Culture through Purposeful Observation - a one-week online course designed to help new missionaries begin to put into practice their culture-learning skills. Requires 4-6 hours of learning time. All SEND long-term members are asked to take this course as part of MOP (MOP 301) about 6 months after arriving on the field.
• Sept 22-24 - Mission Leaders Conference - The Missio Nexus Mission Leaders Conference provides leaders from the North American missions community a place to network and catalyze relationships in global missions. The 2021 conference is entitled “Innovate” and is hosted in Dallas, Texas.
• Sept 29-Oct 6 - Contextualization and Culture Study - an 8-day online course that addresses foundational concepts of contextualization and its importance for effective ministry.
• Nov 15-22 - Learning Culture through Purposeful Observation - another edition of the same course listed above.
  Jan 10 - Feb 12, 2022 - Team Leader as Supervisor online course. This 5-week course is focused on equipping the team leader with the tools to serve more effectively as a supervisor or manager of people. It builds on the Team Leader Orientation course, but TLO is not required as a prerequisite. The training is led by Ken Guenther. The price for SEND missionaries is $30 (please ask Ken for a coupon).

All these can be found on the SEND U Training Events page on the SEND U wiki.