Preparing for Mission Podcast Episodes

Being self-aware, and it’s not the absence of those bumps, like you said, Matt, but it’s more of being able to recognize, what do I do when I have a bump in my way? What do I do when I get off track with my reading and prayer life? Am I able to quickly bring that back to where it needs to be? 

Welcome back, listeners, to Breaking Bread, and welcome back to Amber Miller and Kirk Plattner in the studio today. Hey Matt. Welcome. It’s good to be here. Great to have you both here. Kirk is the outreach manager for Harvest Call. He and his wife spent four and a half years on the mission field in Jamaica and is now employed by Harvest Call. 

And today I want to talk a little bit about preparing for missions. Okay. No doubt we have many on the other side of this mic who are praying about being a missionary. We’ve got moms and dads who are working with their kids or grandmas and grandpas with grandchildren making this decision or themselves making this decision, right? 

And so, the topic at hand today would be to talk about how do we prepare? What does it look like to become prepared for missions? Preparation is absolutely critical, whether it’s spiritually, physically, mentally, whatever it is, we must be prepared. But one aspect we must start off with is the fact that the grace of God will prepare us in ways that we never would have even thought about using past life experiences and actually preparing us. So again, we can talk about different resources. We can talk about actual methods of preparation. None of them compare to what God does in bringing somebody through certain experiences in life that help prepare them for what he has for them next. 

And I think you have to start at that place. I think this discussion is a tricky one to have because you get two sides of the spectrum here. Where there’s some of us who may be more logical or lean more heavily on counting the cost aspect of preparing yourself for missions. And then others who may gravitate toward the blind faith almost and jumping in very quickly. 

And so, I think even as we have this discussion, it’s being able to call out those two extremes and recognize that. It’s not either or, and that is more spiritual. It’s a balance of those two. Kind of both and. Certainly faith is required, a faith that logic doesn’t connect the dots on why I should be doing this. 

Right. But certainly, to be going in with my eyes open. And thinking about what I’m going to encounter and what I might need to do to prepare myself. Now, I think Kirk, if I understand it right, in the role that you play at Harvest Call in this outreach effort, preparation is a key part. 

Yeah, absolutely. But again, before we even get there, I’d go back to what Amber just said, one of the first steps may be self-assessing, where would you be on that spectrum? And if you find yourself in a position that is a blind faith position, you may need to push yourself to go ahead and ask for resources and dive into some of those things you need to be doing to prepare. 

And if you’re on the other side of that, to where you want to read every word and take all these classes and everything, you may need to understand the fact that as much as you prepare, you’re not going to be prepared. We prepare in wisdom and ask the Lord to bless that. But in any sense, I’ve had that pushback before saying, well, what do you think? Maybe all these missionaries go through this training or that training. 

You think they’re really going to be prepared for the mission field? Well, no, they’re not. I mean, we never are prepared. Are you prepared for marriage after going through marriage counseling? Are you prepared for parenting after you’ve gone through a parenting class? I mean, I never did get my manual for kids. 

We can talk about that later. But the reality is that it’s a big deal and we don’t know what’s coming. And so there is a spiritual faith perspective to it that says, well, if you’ve been called, we’re going to entrust that to the Lord. Let’s go into that kind of self-assessment that you mentioned. 

And I don’t know if this is what you meant, but this is what I heard, that there is a bit of some spiritual self-reflection to say, am I spiritually at a good place to answer such a call? Am I right on that? Absolutely. And if the answer to that is yes, then what would be some of those ear markers or metrics? 

No brother or sister enters the outreach process in what we call our missionary process of selection without the first step being a conversation with your elder to say, am I ready for this? And from a spiritual perspective, probably part of his questions would be of the spiritual nature. 

Yeah, absolutely. And we will support that as well. But we really do see that as an initial gate and accountability from the get-go. It says, am I spiritually ready for this and receiving counsel on that issue? Let’s even paint with a smaller brush. Amber, what would be some of the elements then spiritually that I should be thinking about perhaps? 

One of those to me would be living an overcoming life. I think there can be this assumption of, hey, it will be different because this is a calling. And if you’re not living out life that is overcoming from sinful tendencies, or you’re not actively working on sanctification. It’s going to be hard to do that as well on the mission field and to frame that in a healthy way. 

Well, let me jump in and say I think I’m tracking what you’re saying, Amber, but even just mentioning overcoming is quite an admission. What we’re saying is that there’s something to overcome. So, we’re not talking about a person who has no bumps in the road. No, they’ve got bumps and maybe significant bumps that they have to overcome. 

Yeah, it’s a lot of focus. You’re going to hear this a lot today of just being self-aware and it’s not the absence of those bumps like you said, Matt, but it’s more of being able to recognize, okay, what do I do when I have a bump come my way? What do I do when I get off track with my reading and prayer life? 

Am I able to quickly bring that back to where it needs to be? Or does that take me three months before I get back to a regular schedule? So just thinking about that, how do you respond to setbacks? I think is another element. So not that setbacks are not present, but a person with self-awareness to say, oh, I’m in a setback. 

And this is how I react to that. Whether it be a struggle of faith, a struggle of prayer, a struggle of reading the Scriptures of devotion or whatnot. What would you add to that Kirk? Looking at where you currently are in your current calling in life. Again, we’re not talking about this calling that’s super special and unique. You have had a place where the Lord has had you previously and where he’s been asking you to engage in whatever that is. And I think examining that and looking at that and saying, how have I engaged? How am I engaged with the body of Christ on a local level?  

And let me just capture this thought that you’ve just said there is that everybody should realize that their past has not been a mistake. God has been preparing me like David with his sheep was being prepared. That was not a time of mistake in David’s life, but very intentional. And I think of a brother in my local church who retired at 68 or whatever and became involved in another ministry in town. And he told me, he said, Matt, the Lord has been preparing me for 40 years for this very job. 

So, he has seen now the climax of his life to be in his late 60s in this particular ministry that he’s serving at, and he has seen all of his career as preparatory. Isn’t that amazing? Yeah. I was so encouraged by that. But again, it takes that presupposition to say, you know, I am now currently being prepared for something or I have been currently prepared and you’re saying, can you spot it? 

Absolutely. And if you’ve not been stepping into it, that may be a piece of self-awareness that says, well, I might need to, at my current place in time, step further into what the Lord’s already had for me before, before I step onto the mission field. Right. And so, that’s part of what our responsibility is to work through that with brothers and sisters. 

And so, we do, and when they start engaging with Harvest Call, we start asking some of those questions. And when they start engaging with Harvest Call, we send them over to ACCFS and encourage them to have some of those same conversations. And we give them some tools to help bring some of that self-awareness and have some of those conversations. 

So, a lot of your conversations then would be self-awareness? Amber, is that a good way to say it as you work with a person prior to going on the field? Yeah, definitely. Being able to dig a little deeper and maybe look at some things maybe in different lenses. Another aspect that certainly comes to mind is just what is your view of self and what is your view of God? 

Again, we’re not looking for people without scars, bumps, and bruises that they’ve had along the way, but rather that you have people that are in a good spot with those things too. And recognizing your view of the Lord, it’s hard. I’ll just put it this way. It’s really hard when you go down and you constantly see things that don’t make sense in a place like Haiti, when you see poverty or all of these things on a new and deep level. 

And so, if you already have some distortions in your head about how God is a provider, some of those core things about God and his goodness can be shaken in those moments. Yes. Exactly. So, you’re on the contrary to this picture of somebody coming whose life looks like it’s all perfect. It can almost be a red flag, right? 

Because of the realities that we know from having been on the field and talked with those who are serving, it is about that resiliency. It is about how I respond to this challenge that’s ahead of me. And in a spiritual sense, how do I overcome in those moments? This concept of overcoming is huge. Look at the battle Satan wins when we don’t overcome. 

And I hope I’m wrong with this, but I do believe that he keeps a lot of us immobilized. He keeps a lot of us just afraid to move for God simply because of something in our life that we’re not overcoming then. Does that make sense? And wonderfully the gospel lets us loose to overcome those things. And then these fields that are whitened to the harvest that God is calling us to can be engaged in when we do that, I think is a powerful call to all of us. 

Yeah. And so certainly like how you respond to fear, how you respond to anxiety or difficult things that come your way, traumas in your past, are you living life from a victim mentality? Because if you are, there’ll certainly be opportunity on the mission field to feed into that and to grow that and to create more isolation or just more difficulty in connecting with people back in the States later on. 

So, all of those things are just a handful, but those would all be elements we want to look at and evaluate and talk through. So, what I’m hearing is again, going to the self-awareness piece of saying, now that I know this about myself, how will this play in my new environment? 

This may be a drag on me, or this may be pro for me, but some of these things may drag me into owning that. I would just add that this self-awareness piece it’s not something mystical, right? This is a spiritual function of saying, Lord, search me. Yeah, Lord, I want to know you and I want you to know me. 

It’s a very relational piece. It flows out of our relationship with Christ. Yeah. I think another spirit that we look for in people is the ability to be a learner. Someone who doesn’t think they have all the answers, or they have life figured out, but rather that they’re self-aware enough to say, hey, man, this is a struggle of mine. 

This is a weakness. And because that is, here’s what I have in place to help sanctify myself in that area. And so, I think again, just a learner attitude instead of someone who’s very rigid and their thinking is important. And I would imagine that’s even compounded when we go to a different culture where all of a sudden A and B don’t make C like they do in the States. 

Am I right? The temperature has just turned up. Yeah. Often in the places where we minister literally, the temperature’s turned up, which can bring out unique perspectives and unique issues. But in all areas, the temperature has just turned up. And so, when we’re thinking about relationships. If we’re thinking about a marriage that is going on the field and its problem areas, that temperature in those proper areas is only going to get turned up. Yeah. And the places where it’s strong, the idea is to be working on those things. Right. And by the grace of God, come out stronger than what you went in, but the realities are that somebody who’s going to ignore some of the struggle areas, then the temperature is only going to get turned up in those areas. 

Yeah. And they will manifest themselves. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think we’ve all experienced this too, in all of our callings to this. Satan is oppressive. He is an adversary. No doubt. He wants to see missions fail. He wants to see God compromised. He wants to see his name muddied. And I would imagine he turns on the heat because of that too. 

Absolutely. And not only for the missionaries themselves, but also for their families. I think another unspoken expectation is that things will go well for my kids, or they’ll really embrace this experience, or they’ll be able to pick up the language really quick and adapt. And the reality is if you have one family member struggling, it’s going to affect the whole system. 

It’s going to affect the whole family. And so not to bring shame on someone who is struggling, but just to recognize that too is a dynamic. And so even if you personally are the one that is struggling feeling that call to be sent. Consider where your whole family is at because you’re not just going yourself. 

You’re going as a whole family. Kirk, we’ve been talking about preparing for a mission and I know something that just came across my inbox from HarvestCall an initiative called Learn and Discern. I think this would be a great opportunity for you to share with the listeners about what that means. 

Yeah. We would love to engage with our brothers and sisters as early in the process as they want in regard to if they’re starting to feel a prompting or calling or just even wondering about whether the Lord has them on a path towards service. And so, with that, we want to form these Learn and Discern groups, which will gather together online, couples and singles. 

We will gather for a web conference maybe every other week and talk through these potential calling and pray through them together. And potentially along the way learning different aspects about discerning the Lord’s will and what some of these callings could mean. I think that’s incredibly exciting. 

If anyone would like to learn more, where might they go? Yeah, they could go to the website and there’s information there. They could learn more about it. They can contact me directly at [email protected]. And even if you don’t know if this is for you, just reach out to us and we will walk alongside you. 

And with that, let’s draw today’s episode to a close. Thanks Kirk and Amber for your important contributions in preparing for missions. And we can think about that in the future tense. How should I prepare for missions? But we’ve been encouraged here today that it’s very much past tense as well. We have, and God has been preparing us. Where are we? Where have we been? How has God been preparing us and are we self-aware? In our next episode, we are going to continue with this topic of preparing for missions because there’s a lot left unsaid, and we look forward to that conversation and we hope you can all be along. Thanks for being with us. 

And that one-week mission trip is not an accurate flavor of what it is to experience joy on the mission field. There’s a risk, as I talk about the joys of serving on the field for the listener’s minds to go to that category. And I would say that’s not their closest experience to my joy I experience in the field. Their closest experience to me is their life today. If they’re walking in joy and serving the Lord, because that’s the place, that’s what it feels like. It feels like life because the likeness is calling.  

Welcome all to Breaking Bread. Today, we’re going to finish a second part of our conversation with Kirk Plattner from HarvestCall and Amber Miller regarding preparing for mission. 

Kirk and Amber how much of personal preparedness is managing expectations? Yeah, there’s a big piece of our preparation. It’s just about bringing awareness. Just putting out in front of people the reality of you might not know exactly how this is going to feel when you hit it, but the odds are you’re going to hit it. 

And so be aware of that. And so that’s one of the goals that we have in preparing people is just to bring those items in front of them and say it’s likely that this might happen. Which is somewhat normalizing, right? Yeah. If they didn’t know that they run up against it and they think I must be this or I must be that or this situation must be out of control for me to encounter this. 

But you’re planting that and saying no, this is normal. What happens if your expectation doesn’t align with your fellow missionaries? And I think that’s where wires can get crossed. There’s opportunity for discord within a team and a lot of hurt can start to build up. Yeah, because the reality is that missions are messy. 

Yeah. The missionary endeavor is messy because it involves us, and we can be messy. So that’s just an awareness we have to have going in because it will throw us off. Yeah. I think there is a misbelief sometimes that, hey, I’ll be outside of all the stressors, or all the family pressures of the states and it will get so much better once I’m down there, it’ll get easier in some sense. 

And I guess I just see time and time again where that is not the case. And it’s not like life just becomes easier when you go and move to the mission field. There’s a saying that says there’s no such thing as transformation by aviation. And so, the actual act of getting on that airplane and going across some water, there’s no transformation in that. 

And the reality is whatever negative baggage you took with you, you had with you before you got on that airplane. The reality is you’re going to be taking it back off that airplane in that new place. And so, there’s no such thing as transformation by aviation. Absolutely. I mean, think of how many of us, and I would say all of us have beliefs within our heart and that, oh, this is God’s plan for my life. 

This is God’s will. Therefore, because it is, and I’m doing that, it will work out and it may, but it probably won’t in the way that we think it will, or it might take a different route than we expect. You might have to go through a lot of hard things or yeah, it might look pretty ugly. Yeah. 

And so even just knowing that, hey, I can ask that question to a person who wants to go on the mission field, and they may say, oh, absolutely. Like I don’t have any expectations, you know, I’m just doing whatever God wants and deep down all of us have expectations. So, what do we do when those don’t get met? 

Yeah. And do we take that as a personal failure? Wouldn’t it be fascinating to have Jeremiah in the room and say, Jeremiah, what was your expectation before your ministry of no salvation, no souls won? Or Noah. Jonah was pretty clear about his expectations. I mean, really every missionary does have to battle with those expectations and to seek success, right? 

As you did. What is success? I don’t know. What is success? Yeah. I think this has to be one of the most dangerous areas for a missionary. Absolutely, because it goes back to what is our motivation, why are we doing it? Yeah. And what have we been called to? Have you been called to change all these lives? 

If we do, then we’re going to look back at some of those biblical examples and say, wow, here are a lot of failures. Yeah. But the reality is, what have we been called to? What is the Lord actually asking of us? And in that sense, it’s fairly simple in the sense that we are supposed to step forward in obedience. 

And any of these other metrics we might develop in our minds about how kids might get to graduate from our school or how many houses we build or whatever it is, how many mouths we feed. All of these other things are sinking sand. 

And from a missionary perspective, we want the church collectively to be continually encouraging our missionaries to go back to those basics about what we are actually being called to do and staying on that solid foundation because everything else is going to turn sideways. Yeah. 

You know, I think of Luke chapter 10, where Jesus sends the disciples out and they cast out demons and they do all kinds of amazing things and they come back to him and they’re like, Lord, this happened and that happened in terms of evaluating the success of it. And he says, better it is for you to rejoice that your name is written in the book of heaven. 

Amen. That’s what you should be rejoicing about here, which throws it all on its head doesn’t it? Anything worth celebration that we possess is that our names are written in the book of Heaven, and then beyond that is our reasonable service and obedience and faith. Absolutely, because at any point if it’s on anything other than that you’re going to take identity in that. 

And as soon as your identity is placed in that, and that thing is obviously not solid rock like our identity in Christ is. So, at any place your identity is anywhere other than that, the reality is it’s going to crumble. And when it crumbles, it will crumble everything else around it as well. And I know, Amber, you’ve talked a lot about identity. 

So, speak to that a little bit. What does it look like when our identities are wrapped in something? It starts to become about the work that you are getting done or not getting done. It starts to become almost like a social responsibility that starts to take shape. I have to do this, and it starts to become about the work that you are doing versus the work that God is doing. 

And so again, just watching for that motivation piece that Kirk talked about in episode one, and just making sure that it stays where it should be, which is, hey, this is what the Lord has in front of me. I’m going to do this in a way that I am glorifying him because that’s my ultimate goal. 

Not in the way that says, well, because I’m down here, I’m doing X, Y, and Z for the mission. Yeah. And that’s so difficult. I mean, it’s not just a missionary thing. It’s difficult on this soil not to get ourselves wrapped up in our identity in things that are not Christ. 

You know, if I haven’t settled upon who I am here perhaps in the heat of when the temperature is turned up, as you’ve said it, Kirk, there might not be the place for that to be found, but I don’t know. Absolutely. You can speak to that better than I can. It’s part of our responsibility to walk alongside brothers and sisters in regard to why they are stepping forward to potentially serve. 

And we’ve all felt that in places where things are not going well, maybe this new opportunity will be it. And it’s just not that way. And so, our role in that is to walk alongside a brother and sister and for them to seek the Lord in that and to say, no, this isn’t the right time for me to go. 

Again, I think it can be challenging sometimes to ask ourselves the hard questions when we are thinking about a calling and evaluating our calling. Certainly, I hope that no one is hearing today that you have to be this perfect person, or you have to be in this spot in life where you are totally capable of seeing every aspect of your life, but rather it is a process and hopefully you’re willing to go on that journey. 

And I would just add that it’s not a process that’s worked out individually. It’s a process that’s worked out with the body. And so, I think we have to come back to that. And it has been a cultural belief in the Apostolic Christian Church that somehow this is something that uniquely is worked out individually. 

We don’t look at any other callings generally like that. We don’t look at a calling to serve in Sunday school like that. We don’t look at a calling to serve in pulpit ministry like that. All of these callings are worked out with the body. And in that case, again, regarding this, we feel like this is a calling that must be worked out with the body. 

And so, we do believe that the Lord can direct. But we will work out with somebody if they come with a testimony of God having called them to this. He may have called them just to this, which was just to take one step forward. And that may have been it. And so, we share that with them up front that says, this may be what the Lord has asked. 

Yeah, but we’re going to work this out with the body. We’re going to work it out with your local body. We’re going to work it out with the national body within HarvestCall. We’re going to work it out with your mission, whatever that mission is. And if all of those three agree, then we’ll confirm that calling to move forward, but if not, it may end at that point. 

And I think from personal experience, when you are up against a wall in your calling, you want to know that you were sent. I want to know that there was something outside of myself that brought me here. Absolutely. We do challenge people to say, be sure of your calling on an individual level. But on top of that, it’s critical that the church affirms that calling. 

We would love to engage with our community, brothers and sisters as early in the process as they want in regard to if they’re starting to feel a prompting or calling or just even wondering about whether the Lord has them on a path towards service. And so, with that, we want to form these Learn and Discern groups, which will gather together online, couples and singles. 

We will gather for a web conference, maybe every other week and talk through these potential callings and pray through them together and potentially along the way learn different aspects about discerning the Lord’s will and what some of these callings could mean. Which really brings us back to our very beginning when we talked about HarvestCall and some of the vision that’s being acted out there. It’s very much dependent on this on a brotherhood concept, isn’t it? 

Yeah. Sometimes people will refer to us as an agency or an organization or something other than the church. And we often remind them, you know, HarvestCall is unique. It’s not that there aren’t other agencies and we’re not saying anything against their work. But HarvestCall is unique in the fact that it is the church, and it is ultimately the Elder Body that’s responsible for it. And because of that, when it’s not something separate from the church, HarvestCall is a function of the Apostolic Christian Church. And we feel like it’s a really unique and beneficial aspect of who we are.  

And so, Kirk, while we’ve talked a lot about ear markers of knowing yourself and being prepared, would you say you were perfectly prepared for going to Jamaica? No, absolutely not. And still God was glorified in it, and it worked. And so, just share a little bit with the pleasure perhaps that you were able to experience of God’s goodness through that experience. I’m a little bit reticent to answer your question. Not because there weren’t deep joys, but when I think of joys, my mind immediately goes to being afraid those who are listening might immediately go to that experience they had on a one-week mission trip.  

And that one-week mission trip is not an accurate flavor of what it is to experience joy on the mission field. Is it a spiritual high? For sure. Is it an emotional high? For sure. It is all of those things. And does God use that? For sure. But there’s a risk as I talk about the joys of serving on the field for the listeners minds to go to that category, to go to that place where they had their closest experience to me. And I would say that’s not their closest experience to my joy I experienced in the field. 

Their closest experience to me serving, having joy on the field is their life today. If they’re walking in joy and serving the Lord. Because that’s the place, that’s what it feels like. It feels like life. Because the likeness is calling and stepping into that calling whatever the Lord has for us. Wherever it is. And so, what were those deep feelings? It was those relationships that developed with my Jamaican friends and worshiping with them the same God and understanding the commonalities we have in the shared experiences we’ve had in life and walking through them in their joys and in their struggles as well. 

Those are the deep things of life that we find joy in, right? Which is serving the Lord. Together. And so, I found deep joy in the benefit that it has provided for my children to experience another language or another cultural experience. Those are deep joys. The reality of my wife and I serving together on the field, that was a deep joy. 

But it’s a similar joy that we experience today serving together. Right. And it’s, hopefully, a similar joy to what we experienced prior to going to the field, but I’m saying it’s similar things. The life that you’re experiencing right now is a closer reality to the joys of serving on the field than any cross-cultural experience likely that you’ve had. Kirk, thanks for being here. Amber, thanks for your insights. I just want to capture again Kirk, in your closing comments about calling and how our callings have got the thumbprint and the breath of God on them, right now some callings we do label as missionary, because if we didn’t have a label for our own, what would we be talking about? 

Some people have to go across to a different culture and do some proclaim and serve there. But all of our callings are alike being God ordained and according to his desire to bring out his purposes here in this world. And his purposes are both on this soil and others. In closing real quick Kirk, is there a need in the mission field. Do we have needs? Yeah. Thanks for asking that, Matt, because we do have critical needs at this point. We would call them mission critical needs. We would encourage everybody to check the HarvestCall website and to be aware of HarvestCall emails that are coming out. And to be aware of the needs because it may be that the Lord has been preparing you for something. 

And that although you may have looked at an ad for a missionary position a hundred times, the hundred and first time, maybe that’s the time that the Lord uses to touch your heart to say, you know what, I’ve been preparing you for this opportunity to be a caregiver in Magdalena, or I’ve been preparing you to go and serve at Hospital Lumiere, or other needs out there. And so, we have had some open positions for 12 months and nobody’s stepping forward and so we would just encourage the body to be aware.  

I love that. And let’s just close with this. I opened with a brief little story about a brother in my local church who shared his own account of his calling. He told me, Matt, we have to believe that our best years are ahead of us. And I loved it. He in his upper 60s said, my best years are ahead of me. And so, to all of our listeners wherever you are and whoever you are, know that God has been preparing you for your best years. And that’s true. 

Yeah. Because that’s the calling of the body. People often ask me, what’s the best age for somebody to go into the mission field? And there’s no answer for that question, right? It’s when it’s right. But I do know a number of those whose children have just left home. And they do have some of their best years ahead of them. They almost will count themselves out to say, well, it seems like it’s something for younger people. And it’s absolutely not true. And with that, thanks for being along both Kirk and Amber again, and we trust and pray that this has been helpful to you our listeners as you consider this important space of missions. 

And we would encourage and urge anyone who feels moved to visit the website at harvestcall.org to find the many numerous needs and opportunities we have to step into God’s harvest. Thanks for being along.