12 Job Skills Missionaries Gain on the Mission Field

Bethany DuVal • Aug 07, 2019

If you’re looking for a job, you’ve probably heard this advice: Just reframe your job skills to fit the job you’re looking at! But if you’re like a lot of missionaries, you probably have this lingering feeling that other people just don’t get it .

What value could the business world see in leading a home Bible study? Or raising kids in a foreign country? Or planting a church? Or any number of other ministries?

Well, today you’re going to find out.

Recently, I talked with career coaches, HR experts and former missionaries to create a solid list of transferrable skills most missionaries have. These reframes are tried and true — and they’ll look great on your resume.

Check out the list to see what matches your ministry life. And if it sparks fresh ideas, make sure to share them in the comments below!

Management

Even if you’re not an official leader within your sending organization, you’ve probably led people on the mission field in some capacity. Maybe you organized an outreach event, or you led a short-term mission trip or you organized the Sunday school program at your church. Look back at the times when you had to create a program from scratch or make a plan for your team. What were your goals, and what were your outcomes?

Mark Griffin, president of In His Name HR , says, “An entrepreneur should love that type of person, to say, ‘Hey, we’re starting this … new thing, and you’re someone who can get a lot of energy around a lot of people to go in a certain direction.’”

Sales and Networking

This one may seem a little uncomfortable at first. After all, missionaries don’t sell the Gospel. But here are some salesy things you probably have done on the mission field : struck up genuine conversations with strangers, put people at ease, explained foreign concepts in easy-to-understand language, walked people through big decisions and taught people how to share their experiences with others.

At the end of the day, sales is about building relationships. And if you’ve built a support team and served on the mission field, you know what that’s all about.

Adaptability

“If you can walk into another culture and learn to adapt, you can walk into a workplace and learn to adapt. Same thing. And a lot of people can’t,” says business consultant and missionary field trainer Ali Llewellyn .

As a missionary, you proved that you’re able to work in unfamiliar situations with unfamiliar people — and find solutions in the midst of discomfort . That’s valuable in any field.

This street in Japan shows how Japanese culture looks very different from American culture. The people are dressed differently, signs are in Japanese, and there are many colorful signs.

Because of their experience with other cultures, missionaries know how to adapt to new environments quickly and easily.

Interpreting

The more the world globalizes, the more need there is for interpreters . This is especially true in metropolitan areas like Dallas, Texas, where Dr. Dottie Schulz works as a missionary care specialist for the Missions Resource Network . Schulz tells missionaries to send their resumes to police departments, schools with foreign students, English as a second language programs and hospitals.

“You never know what kind of niche might be available, so [missionaries] should list every language that they speak,” Schulz says.

Logistics

Julia Pferdehirt of Because Justice Matters shared about a young missionary who insisted she wasn’t qualified to do anything. But when Pferdehirt dove into the missionary’s experiences, the missionary shared how she had coordinated multiple three-month-long mission trips for 15 to 20 people at a time. She planned all the travel, visas, financial planning, lodging, food and coordination with local ministries. From that Pferdehirt and the missionary came up with a two-page list of transferrable skills.

Llewellyn encourages missionary moms to consider all the logistics they coordinated to move and settle their family overseas. These are valuable, management-level skills.

Training, Teaching and Public Speaking

There are a lot of areas a missionary could pull from here: speaking at churches during home assignment, teaching Bible studies, training church workers and leaders, teaching Sunday school classes, preaching on Sunday morning.

If you have a bachelor’s or advanced degree, these experiences can open doors for teaching jobs. But your experience can also open doors for jobs in corporate training or management consulting.

Whether it’s for teaching, fundraising or relationship-building, missionaries often have speaking that can open doors for them in the job market.

Innovation

If a company wants someone who thinks differently, a missionary is their prime candidate. No matter your ministry, you had to learn a new culture, figure out the local needs and find locally appropriate solutions . “Be clear … that you had no instruction manual and took initiative, which directly related to your success,” says Diana Waks, a research manager at the staffing agency Vanderbloemen .

When former missionary Brett Richstone applied for jobs, he openly shared about his three years in South Africa. The company that hired him saw it as proof that he could make bold moves.

Raising Up New Leaders

The best leaders don’t just see their own potential; they see the potential in others. Where have you had to identify potential indigenous leaders? How have you trained and supported them? When you gave them the reigns, what kind of success did you see?

Raising up new leaders is a highly valued skill in the business world — and one that few people can show that they’ve done successfully. If you’ve planted a church, this is an area where you can shine.

Consulting

When Llewellyn started her business consulting career, she was a youth pastor who had studied missions in seminary. NASA was looking for someone who could help their science labs communicate. It didn’t seem like a natural fit. But Llewellyn quickly realized that each lab was like its own culture. She told NASA they needed someone who could learn cultures and help them understand each other — just like a missionary does.

She got the job.

As a missionary, you’ve learned to observe people, what they do, what they value and what problems they face . Those are exactly the kinds of skills people are looking for in consultants.

A group of people sit down together for a picnic dinner in the park.

Missionaries spend a lot of time working closely with other people. Through this, they learn how different people work, which is a perfect skill to have in a consulting job.

Fundraising

Nonprofits comprise the third largest sector of the U.S. workforce . And what do most nonprofit need? Fundraisers. Share how you raised your own support by building a network . Talk about the special projects you funded through appeals in your newsletter. The connection is easy and measurable.

Writing

To be clear, this isn’t for every missionary who’s written a newsletter. But this could be for missionaries who have written well-read blogs, Bible curriculums, life skills series and sermons. You may consider putting this on your resume if you played a key role in your ministry’s internal or external communications. If you want to build up your writing skills now, try reaching out to your missions organization or other missions blogs for writing opportunities.

Cross-Cultural Understanding

When Llewellyn advises returning missionaries, she encourages them to look into international business. Many of them don’t feel qualified because they don’t have business experience, but Llewellyn insists, “ The business part you can pick up. You have the international part .”

As a missionary, you know how to learn cultures, communicate within them and build intercultural teams. And those are skills every international business needs.

Putting It All Together

This list is just the start. Once you start digging into your ministry experiences, you’re bound to find many more transferrable skills. As you do, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Learn the language of your desired industry. Part of reframing your skills means leaving behind missionary-speak and using terms that will be familiar and comfortable for the people interviewing you. So, read industry publications and talk with people in the industry. Learn their buzzwords and what they value. You might even make a connection that will help you find a job.
Remember that you aren’t the only one in the midst of transition. “The person sitting next to you might be in their second or third career, new to the workforce, a returning veteran or a parent stepping back in the office,” Waks says. Employers are learning to appreciate employees with rich life experiences. The fact that you didn’t gain your skills in an office may just be what helps you stand out!
Find ways to share your story. People connect through stories, not lists of skills. Think of anecdotes that illustrate your skills. Share a short illustration in your cover letter. Call people on the phone to introduce yourself. And when you’re invited for a sit-down interview, let them see the real you: a passionate, creative, smart individual who might just be everything they’re looking for.

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Bridging Dissonance: Finding Connection in Music and the Gospel

By Emily Sheddan • 18 Jul, 2024

TEAM worker Luke Standridge and his fellow musicians use music to build connections to faith in Japan. In music terms, dissonance creates movement or even suspense in a song. It invites tension. That tension is what helps grab our ear’s attention and the interchanging of these notes with pleasant melodious parts is what makes music such a delight. In a similar way, God is using music to grab people’s attention and catalyze Gospel impact in the largely unreached nation of Japan. TEAM Global Worker, Luke Standridge moved to Japan in 2019 with no clear direction on how he was going to use his passion for composing music while doing ministry. However, after Luke got involved with a local church and began developing deep friendships, the Lord opened unimaginable doors for Luke that in time, coordinating his creative skills with sharing the Word. “People Need to Come to Japan!” Growing up as one of ten kids in a family that was heavily involved in ministry and missions, Luke never considered that it would one day be a part of his own journey. In 2016, via a Japanese language learning class in Indiana, Luke and his brother had the opportunity to travel to Japan. Hearing, learning, and using the language in the context of Japanese culture was the goal. While it was Luke’s first international trip – even his first trip on a plane - it was also his first time hearing about the spiritual condition of the Japanese people. “And just through that, God did a huge 180 change on my heart,” says Luke. “More people should come here as global workers. People need to come to Japan!” The call God was laying on Luke’s heart is echoed when looking at the spiritual landscape of Japan. The nation is home to the second largest unreached people group in the world. It is one of the most difficult places for the Gospel to take hold and grow. Japan is also home to a deep and rich culture that prizes creative arts from pottery to ink to music to anime – a fact that would help Luke find his niche in life and ministry. God’s Guiding Hand In the short three-month timespan of that first trip, Luke found that opportunities came naturally to share about life, and people’s curiosity for Christianity grew. “I left Japan knowing I just had to come back,” Luke shares. “Even if I didn’t get back to the same area, I knew Japan was where God wanted me to be.” The Lord is good all the time and all the time the Lord is good. His plans do not fail. Luke returned to Japan in 2019, and less than a week after arriving, he was put in touch with a renowned composer in Japan. The composer saw some of Luke’s music and invited him to help write the music for a beloved in-country animated show. But God wasn’t finished yet! Fast forward a year, and more connections and opportunities allowed Luke to help with music for Pokémon - a franchise that has brand recognition around the world and was being developed into a TV series in Japan. Luke recalls how the Lord began using these connections in the production world to open doors for Gospel conversations. One night while having dinner in downtown Tokyo with famous artists and composers from all around the country, Luke was asked about his ministry-focused visa. This was a rare opportunity in a setting with people otherwise uninterested in Christianity. Luke shares, “The whole time I could see God’s hand in guiding the entire thing.”

Connecting in a New Kind of “Neighborhood”

By Lorena de la Rosa and Suzanne Pearson • 13 Jun, 2024

Through creative arts and other forms of innovative outreach, “The Neighborhood” is creating connections to the Gospel and the love of Jesus. CONNECTION. It’s a common word with powerful implications. Dictionary.com defines connection as a joining or linking together; a relationship between people or objects that unites or binds them together. God has created each of us with a deep need for connection with Him as well as connection with others. Hebrews 10:24-25 speaks to this, as the writer exhorts, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” This God-given need for connection lies at the heart of a creative and innovative ministry in Japan known as “The Neighborhood.” TEAM Japan global worker, Kelly and her family created The Neighborhood as a place where connections are formed through creative arts, educational opportunities, and simply just providing a space for people to be together. A Family Calling The journey to the creation of The Neighborhood began over 5,000 miles away from Tokyo, in California where Kelly, her husband Jeff, and their five children were living. The kids were the first to sense God’s calling to missions, and asked why their family wasn’t serving in this way. How Kelly and her family came to TEAM is a God-story in and of itself. “God placed a TEAM Japan worker at our lunch table the same week that the kids posed that question to us,” Kelly recalls. “We had never heard of TEAM and so we thought, ‘let’s check this out.’ After that, God just kept confirming that we were supposed to be here.” After a period of fundraising and with much excitement, the family of seven moved to Japan in 2014. For the first five years, Kelly and Jeff served as a part of other TEAM ministry initiatives, but they began to sense a stirring for something new. Creating The Neighborhood Kelly and her family truly have a deep gift for hospitality, and regularly opened up their home to others they met in Tokyo. They saw a great need for people to have a place to gather and connect, and they wondered what doors the Lord might be opening for them to meet that need. “About a year before we were to return the States on home assignment, we were just really thinking about our future in Japan,” Kelly says. “We saw a need for people to have a ‘third place’ – a place that’s not home and it’s not work. They didn’t have a church community or any other place where they could meet people and just connect.” Kelly goes on to explain that in Japan, the culture is such that people don’t generally invite each other into their homes, but as her family did so, people embraced that opportunity. “This idea formed in all of our hearts of a student ministry center – a place where we can create community and learning,” says Kelly. “It was born out of what we were already doing in our home, but seeing how we could expand it and have better space.” God’s Provision What happened next is a true testament to God’s provision. Kelly, Jeff, and the kids returned to the States and began sharing their vision for The Neighborhood with their supporters and churches who responded generously. Upon returning to Japan, the search was on for the right space. “We had a Christian realtor that we told our dream to, and he just went looking for it,” Kelly recalls. When the realtor found a 5-story apartment building, he said, “It’s kind of out of your budget but it has what you need and want.” The Lord provided the funds and the family moved into the space in November 2019. They now occupy all but the ground floor, with living space for their family as well as classrooms, areas to study or hang out, and guest rooms for exchange students or others who need a place to stay overnight. The first floor is occupied by a pizza shop – a welcome amenity for the many groups and students who visit The Neighborhood. “It’s very convenient!” Kelly says with a laugh. The Neighborhood began to see lots of activity right away until the pandemic hit in early 2020. During the height of the quarantine, Kelly and Jeff used the time to redecorate the space and plant gardens outside the building. Then as the restrictions eased, they invited individual students or families over for meals and fellowship. It wasn’t until March 2023 that The Neighborhood was able to fully open again as intended. Kelly shares that despite the setbacks of COVID, the Lord continued to provide the funds to pay the rent.