As promised in our September Training Tracks, SEND is super excited to launch a major upgrade to the Team Launch Toolkit. It is now called the “Teaming Toolkit”. The old name implied that it was only for brand new teams, when in reality, it can be profitably used by any ministry team that is seeking to clarify its vision, set goals, understand differences, improve effectiveness and communication, and resolve conflicts.

What has changed in the new version of the Teaming Toolkit?

1. The handouts have all been redesigned to include graphics and color and are now in fill-able PDF format.
2. Each of the modules now has an accompanying PowerPoint presentation.
3. All of the modules have been revised and edited to remove typos and broken links.
4. The Teaming Toolkit has a beautiful webpage on SharePoint which clearly presents all the handouts, facilitator's guides, PowerPoints, preparatory work and additional resources. Here you will also find a few endorsements from SEND leaders for the Teaming Toolkit.

“If conflict is one of the top reasons that missionaries leave the field, then it should be one of our primary focuses to make a preemptive strike by discussing how our differences are actually a beautiful way that we reflect our Creator and taking the time to form a plan for how we will address conflict before the conflict happens. These are just two examples of the many advantages you'll find in the Teaming Toolkit.” Nathan Garrett

“Teams that devote time to working on the team set themselves up well for long term ministry effectiveness. The Teaming Toolkit is an essential resource to help your team move through the stages from forming to performing.” Jonathan Mangels

“The Teaming Toolkit helps the teams reflect on themselves (personality), their team, and their relationships and to understand how they can work together, complement each other, and function as a team. It helps to understand better oneself and one another, builds trust, and deepens relationships.” Gerald Haupt

Checkout the Teaming Toolkit

What do you consider to be the most important characteristic of an effective missionary? Andy McCullough argues that humility is the foundational attitude for mission work in his book Global Humility.

Want to explore this idea more? Join Bethany Reedy for an online discussion on the book Global Humility on Thursday, November 16 at either 8 am or 8 pm EST. You can sign up for the discussion here.

You can purchase the book here, and if you are interested in checking out some of the highlights of the book, check out this article on the SEND U blog.

The last week of September, Ken and Jenny were able to attend Missio Nexus Conference SHIFT 2023 in Florida. There were many great speakers, workshops on various topics and many opportunities to network with other church and mission leaders. Most of these will likely be available on the Missio Nexus website in the coming weeks.

One of the workshops we attended talked about the best training practices to reduce missionary turnover. Andrea Sears presented her findings from a survey she conducted in 2017 with over 700 missionaries who had left their mission field of service. She identified many different areas that contributed to the decision to leave the field–including family and team issues, financial concerns, unmet expectations and health concerns (physical, mental & spiritual). Mental health was the area with the highest number of significant factors impacting the decision to leave the field. 59% of those surveyed said that they had experienced burn-out and this experience influenced 74% of them to leave the mission field. The next highest area was related to teaming. 71% of missionaries surveyed felt that they had received too little member care and 75% of these said that this affected their decision to leave. For each of the factors that contributed to attrition, Andrea Sears suggested ways that training could help mitigate these factors.

These are important issues that tie into both training and member care. In fact, another of the workshops looked at the ways that member care departments and training departments could and should work together. In this workshop, Alanna Brown and Ken shared about a new online workshop that we are developing to train team leaders in member care. Jon Winter is taking the lead on developing this workshop for SEND U. Look for it early in 2024.

1. Info for US Members
2. Lencioni and Consensus
3. A definition of success for SEND Far East Russia
4. Ethnography
5. A Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO)

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

Nov 2-4 - Helping Muslim Neighbors to Understand and Know Jesus

• Stoney Church in Detroit, MI. Common Ground is excited to announce that registration is open for the next several conferences on “Helping Muslim Neighbours to Understand and Know Jesus”. The attachment linked has expanded details and an invitation for the conferences.

Nov 13-20 - Learning Culture Through Purposeful Observation (EC1)

• Learning Culture through Purposeful Observation is a one-week Grow2Serve online course designed to help you as a new missionary or cross-cultural worker to begin to put into practice your culture-learning skills. The course asks you to make an investment of 4-6 hours of learning time. First, you’ll review some basic concepts of culture and participant observation. Next, you’ll get to practice observation and assessment through a fiction-based activity. And the final task is a guided observation project on-site at a venue of your choice — a Christian gathering, a social event, a public place, etc.

Dec 4-15 - Facilitating Online with Grow2Serve

• This course is designed to fulfill this general learning outcome: Understand the core roles and skills of an online facilitator and the tools available through Grow2Serve to succeed in the task. The course asks you to invest 8-12 hours of learning time over a 14-day period.

Jan 10-13, 2024 - Helping Muslim Neighbors to Understand and Know Jesus

• Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston, TX. Common Ground is excited to announce that registration is open for the next several conferences on “Helping Muslim Neighbours to Understand and Know Jesus”. The attachment linked has expanded details and an invitation for the conferences.

Feb 12-Mar 16 - Team Leader as Supervisor

• This 5-week online course (30-35 hours) is focused on equipping the missions team leader with the tools to serve more effectively as a supervisor or manager of people. It 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. The course is facilitated by Ken Guenther. SEND members get more than a 50% discount. Contact Kim for the code to get the discount.

Keep learning,

Ken Guenther
based in Saskatchewan, Canada

Jenny Baker
based in Yukon, Canada