In September, I (Ken) had an opportunity to hear Andrew Brunson speak about the preparation of those we send out to work among Muslims. Andrew Brunson was the American church planter and pastor who was imprisoned for 2 years by the Turkish authorities from 2016-2018. He was charged with aiding the coup attempt on the Turkish president, although there was no evidence that he had done so. You may have prayed for his release as millions of believers did around the world. He was allowed to return to America on October 12, 2018, after much pressure on Turkey by the American government. Brunson was one of the main speakers at a mission leaders conference that Ken attended. You can watch the presentation at this link.

In his talk, Brunson talked about the critical importance of focusing on the heart and pursuing intimacy with Christ as the missionary's first priority. He believes this is even more important in missionary preparation than knowledge about the Scriptures, culture or ministry strategy. I would agree. We spend a lot of time in our pre-field training on cultivating that intimacy with God. Often when I am emphasizing daily devotional habits and giving our MOPers multiple opportunities to practice meditating on the Word and prayer, I wonder if this is too simplistic. They already know all this! But then I read the evaluations at the end of our training, and I see how much the MOPers appreciated the emphasis on developing their personal intimacy with God. Repeatedly, they have affirmed the value of practicing right away what we were teaching them.

What are ways we can return to the focus on our hearts and our intimacy with Christ? What spiritual practices are you using to cultivate a heart towards Christ?

Our MOP program has recently undergone a revision of our section on singleness. Singles make a significant percentage of the missionary workforce. Although Paul and Jesus seem to make it clear that there are definite advantages to being single for the sake of the kingdom of God, Scripture also puts a high value on marriage and families. In MOP, we cover what the Bible says about the importance and blessing of bearing offspring, and how singles can participate in this blessing. In this session, the development of the theme of offspring is traced throughout the Scriptures, concluding with how singles uniquely point to the realities of the age to come. We are excited to integrate the teachings of Dr. Barry Danylak who has done groundbreaking work in this area. If you haven't done much reading on this, we encourage you to check out the wiki for more resources as well as this organization who offers additional seminars and resources.

Speaking of singleness, Ruth Kirtland and I (Beth) had the opportunity to attend an excellent session at MissioNexus on “Multi-situational Teams.” This term is how Suzy Grumelot describes teams that are composed of marrieds and singles working together. Her recently published book with Sue Eenigenburg, called Sacred Siblings, unpacks the results from a recent survey of nearly 300 missionaries in 12 agencies. The book highlights 16 differences in perspectives of marrieds and singles and gives practical ways to value one another's contributions. This is a practical resource for both married and singles to create more effective teams.

We still have room for a couple more people in the course Team Leader as Supervisor. This course is going to be facilitated by Ken from January 6 - February 15, 2020. Click here to add your name to fill out the application. This course will look at the concept of steward leadership, and different aspects and skills needed in providing oversight, including setting clear expectations, providing regular accountability, offering feedback and promoting the growth of the people on one’s team.