Being Larry - thoughts on missionary identity

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Being Larry – thoughts on missionary identity

I recently spent time with a missionary in a majority country. Let’s call him Larry. (He was assigned as the ‘go-to’ for myself and a colleague who were teaching an intensive course to local church leaders.)

Larry was just into his second year on the field. It is a challenging context physically and spiritually. He had faced the disappointment of a forced move from his initial assignment and was in a holding role while awaiting a new assignment on the same field.

Larry had an identity issue. Who was he, when there was presently no assigned mission role? Back home Larry was an active member of his own church and involved in its various programs of outreach and discipleship.

Larry was a nurse and, like most nurses, a grounded person who deal with ‘what is’ rather than ‘what could be”. As he talked through the identity issue, he concluded that his calling was to be who he was at home. And so, he was an active member of the church he belonged to on the mission field and involved in its various programs of outreach and discipleship. He was also a nurse, and was about to commence a role in the local nursing service where he could help upskill nationals in nursing skills.

As a missionary Larry was being himself – the same person at home and on the field. It would, of course, look a little different but was essentially the same. Larry was being Larry.

That’s not a bad sense of Christian identity whether on the mission field or anywhere. All of us are called to be followers of Jesus whether at home, work, play or the market place.

That’s’ faithfulness in a life worthy of the Lord.