Good Member Care is Crucial to Missionary Success

Jessica Hulbert • Nov 30, 2016

Member care is the emotional, mental and spiritual support a missionary receives from their church and sending organization throughout the entire missionary journey.

When done well, member care contributes to overall missionary success. But a lack of good member care can have detrimental effects on missionaries and their ministries.

When pursuing mission work — whether through sending or serving — it is important to prioritize member care before, during and after time spent on the field.

TEAM missions coach Stephanie Maher gained a passion for good member care while growing up in a military family and spending three years as a missionary herself. She earned her master’s in Christian formation and soul care and now works with churches as they develop and implement plans to support their missionaries. She also provides coaching for missionaries at the beginning of their journeys.

Recently, I sat down with Stephanie to hear her insights on how missionaries and those sending them can pursue healthy member care from start to finish.

What is member care?

Stephanie gives a simple definition: “ [ Member care] is when a missionary feels buoyed and supported on all sides. ” Just as a buoy stays afloat in the water, so good member care should help keep missionaries afloat.

The key to good member care is trust . “The organization and the church are working together on behalf of the missionary and the ministry God has given them,” Stephanie says. “It is very, very important for there to be good communication and a strong relational foundation between them and with the missionary.”

Member care shows itself in a variety of ways, but a few examples are:

Providing counseling resources for a missionary to process troubling experiences or events
Debriefing with missionaries when they are on home assignment and transitioning between countries or agencies
Arranging logistical support during home assignments (where to stay, how to get to and from the airport, etc.)
Mobilizing a team to pray for and reach out to the missionary and their families on a regular basis

The list goes on and on, but good member care surrounds missionaries with constant support so that whenever they need to reach out, they know who to contact and what they’ll receive. For more on what kind of member care resources TEAM can provide as an agency, check out this blog post.

How do you achieve good member care?

To start, expectations on all sides need to be clearly communicated. This gives room for everyone to be on the same page and face minimal surprises down the road.

Stephanie gives three questions missionaries can ask to assess how member care will be provided for them.

How do my church and organization work together?
What resources does the organization offer (e.g. connections with counseling centers overseas, home assignment needs, debriefing, etc.)?
What does it look like for my sending church to holistically support me on the field?

If strong member care isn’t in place – what are the effects?

If good member care isn’t in place, it can lead to burnout, ineffective ministry, family tension, spiritual loneliness/confusion and, in some cases, the missionary returning home and leaving the field.

“If you’re not able to process faith — who God is and what He is doing in a situation— along with mental and emotional issues,” Stephanie says, “you’ll potentially leave the field with an unhealthy and untrue view of God and yourself because you haven’t been given the opportunity to process and work through your questions on a spiritual level”

There are times when it is actually excellent member care to bring a missionary home for a time or permanently—if that is what is needed for the health of the missionary and the ministry. However, Stephanie says that if missionaries are returning home because they don’t feel buoyed and supported, “then the enemy wins. He wins by people coming home and not being able to serve, live and grow where Jesus has created them to.”

So, implementing good member care matters . It matters for a missionary to have a trusted friend to pray with when going through a tough time. It matters to have a counselor to talk to about relational issues on the field. It matters to have someone help think through how missionary kids will be cared for when they return to their home country for college.

Don’t be deceived that missionaries are only there to lead others; they need to be supported as well . And the churches and agencies that are successful at doing so make a member care plan from the beginning.

What role does the missionary play in member care?

Maintaining healthy member care requires intentionality. So when missionaries need the support offered through their church or organization, it’s essential that they reach out and ask for it. No one will have the same insight into what’s happening on the field like the missionaries do, so they have to be open and honest about what they’re facing.

Also, keeping themselves healthy means being involved in continual community. Social media makes this a lot easier. Missionaries can give updates, post photos and send out prayer request on sites like Facebook and Twitter. There are also online communities like Velvet Ashes or A Life Overseas that feature the honest perspectives of missionaries serving globally.

But, online communities can’t replace a missionary’s real relationship with their sending church. Missionaries have to continue making the effort and letting their churches into the real needs on the field. Just as their churches must continue to ask about them.

“When member care is done well, you see missionaries being celebrated, encouraged and empowered to serve … Member care done well or poorly, impacts the Kingdom for eternity,” Stephanie says.

It’s really about caring for those who are caring for people. And through that, we see more people coming to know Christ.

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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.