How to Pray for Missionaries
By Tom Wells
[Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Reformation Today magazine no. 222, March – April 2008, and is reproduced here with permission.]
In an earlier article on missions in RT 218 I wrote about church missionary conferences. A friend pointed out that I failed to say much about prayer in that article. That was an important oversight. Let me take up that subject now. Both in conferences and in our private lives prayer for missionaries is not optional. It is vital.
Let me start by asking the questions, ‘Who or what is a missionary?’ Some people would confine that title to those who cross from one culture to another to tell of our Lord Jesus. Others would include those who merely go across town or across the street. I don’t want to enter that discussion, but what I say here will usually apply to those who go to other parts of the world. I want to define missionaries in another way. I want to speak of them under three headings: as human beings, as Christians and as those engaged in Christian work.
1. Missionaries as Human Beings
Recently I have been preaching through the book of Colossians. One of the things that strikes me as I read the book is how human the author is. We are rightly used to thinking of Paul and the other apostles as very special people, and so they were. They were special then, and they remain special to us today.
It’s very easy, however, to transfer that ‘specialness’ into the idea that they were superhuman. That is a serous mistake. The humanity of Paul shows through Colossians loud and clear. For example, it’s clear that there is a bond of love between Paul and this church that he neither founded nor visited before he wrote his letter. There is nothing cold or formal about his words. He assures them of his prayers and gives thanks for them before God (1:3ff). He urges them to allow love and forgiveness to prevail among them (3:12-14). He sends Tychicus to encourage their hearts (4:8). He admits his own need for encouragement and comfort (4:11).
Regardless of whom you include in the word ‘missionary’, they are special as well. But they are also ordinary human beings with ordinary human needs.
I make this point to say that they struggle with the very concerns you struggle with. They must have food, clothing and shelter. It would be well to mention these things to the Lord on their behalf. These become very pressing problems for missionaries in western Europe for example, where such things as rent and clothing are not cheap. Also important for humans is the matter of health. Missionaries in Tanzania and many other places have often already had malaria. But if so, they are not done with it yet. It may flare up again and again until they die. They’re also exposed to other serious dangers. Poisonous snakes and dangerous animals don’t target missionaries because they are Christians or Christian workers. They attack human beings. Again, your concerns as humans are also theirs. We must not neglect prayer for their children. If you are a parent in a familiar clime and culture you’re concerned for your boys and girls. How much more are those far from friends and family. Their concerns, of course, do not weigh on them just because they are not at home. Think of the needs of your own children for education and physical development. You pray about these things. Remember the missionaries’ children as well.
2. Missionaries as Christians
All men and women need the things that Christians have. But becoming a Christian brings a number of needs into focus that we were barely aware of before. Before becoming convicted of our sin we probably were unaware of the constant need for forgiveness. But as a Christian we are told to confess our sins. Yet at times all of us would gladly hide some of these things, even from God. If you experience this temptation you may be sure that missionaries struggle in the same way. Ask the Lord to help them!
Things like the need to study the Bible and pray are obvious to us as Christians. The idea of Bible study and prayer are simple ideas. But we must never confuse the word ‘simple’ with the word ‘easy’! As Christians we do not find these things easy at all. Some days seem to demand virtually all of our time and attention. We can’t find time to pray and read. Often we struggle with wandering thoughts when we pray. In fact, though we don’t often admit it, this seems to dog our footsteps the moment we decide to pray. If someone asks me how much time I pray, I’m at a loss to know how to answer, not because I fail to set aside enough time to do it but because my mind wanders again and again during that time. Do my missionaries have the same struggle? If so, I must ask the Lord to help them, just as I ask him to help me.
The things I’ve just mentioned bear on the wide area of the quality of my Christian life in general. Am I satisfied with that? Surely not! Are my missionaries satisfied with the quality of their Christian lives? I’m sure that they are not. What then can I do for those who are thousands of miles away? I can pray for them to our common Father to comfort them in their distress over their failures. I will not ask him to make them self-satisfied, but to grant them progress in their lives and an increasing recognition of his grace. To help me in this matter of grace I have a sign in my study that says to me and all Christians, ‘Grace is not just God’s occasional favour toward us. It’s His policy!’
Once more, missionaries also have a need to pray for and to aid other Christians in their struggle to live Christian lives. To cite just one example: one of the major causes of missionaries leaving the field is an inability to work harmoniously with other missionaries. They must love those around them who profess Christ, including their fellow missionaries. In addition, due to the ease of communication in these media-saturated days, they too get constant requests for help, money and prayer. If you find this a problem, they do too. Remember these things when you pray for them.
3. Missionaries as Christian Workers
Under the previous two headings I’ve tried to cover things that we all wrestle with. Each of these should prompt us to pray for others as well as ourselves. Let me turn now to three things that are specially important to most of our missionaries.
The first is vital to all Christian work, the filling of the Spirit. What does it mean to be ‘filled with the Spirit’? The phrase suggests the idea of the Spirit getting inside of us, but that is hardly its meaning. After all, the Spirit is present everywhere. He could never be closer to us spatially than he already is. Rather to be filled with the Spirit means to be controlled by him. (To illustrate this meaning of control think of a phrase we hear now and then, ‘He was filled with wrath,’ or its opposite, ‘She was filled with compassion.’) The more deeply we are involved in Christian work, the more we need such filling or control by the Holy Spirit of God.
What I have written above, however, raises another question: aren’t all Christians filled with the Spirit? Yes and no. The work of the Spirit by which he produces sanctification and godliness in the Christian goes on continually, so that we might say that the Christian is characteristically controlled by the Spirit. He does work in us to will and to do what God wants done. He works in us so that all things work together for our good and God’s glory. I would not want to deny that.
However, it is also true that the Spirit fills us or ‘controls’ us for other purposes. One of those governs the missionaries’ ability to do Christian work, and the extent of their success in it. This fact leads us to pray that God will fill them in such a way as to make them bold and successful in their work. We find this kind of filling or control mentioned in the Book of Acts. Listen to Luke in Acts 4:29-30 as he records a prayer of the apostles pleading against God’s enemies. They didn’t do this for their own profit. They did it as a prayer for the success of the gospel.
Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
What answer did they get? Luke tells us in verse 31.
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the work of God boldly.
We must plead with the Spirit to fill our missionaries in the same way. This is not incidental to their work, it is a pressing need. Of course we must pray for this to the extent that God wills it to happen. Some men and women on the mission fields of the world have laboured long and hard without seeing much in the way of visible results. That doesn’t mean such labour had no purpose. It was part of God’s discipline of them on their own spiritual journey. But like all Christian workers they long to be successful and to see the fruit of their sweat and tears. Can we blame them? If not, we must ask for this work of the Spirit in their lives.
A second thing that most missionaries need for their work is mastery of the language of the people they work with. This is a staggering task that requires an enormous amount of time and energy to accomplish. Some missionaries have to learn more than one language, a native language and the national language of the country. Still others have to work with a trade language. Would you feel keenly uncomfortable in these circumstances? So do many of them. It is well to plead with God to help them in this task. I have found communication one of the most difficult things to do on an ordinary day among people who speak the same language as I do. I fear I would despair if I had to add another language to make myself understood.
There is a third thing that all missionaries must wrestle with, the mastery of the culture around them. This of course includes the language which we have seen is a major obstacle in itself. But in speaking of the culture we are also speaking of things that are not at all as obvious as the need to know the language.
Many years ago I read a book entitled ‘The Ugly American’. As I remember it, it brought home to me something I had never thought much about. It pointed up the numerous blunders all of us commit when we visit another culture. These are not blunders we intend to commit. Not at all! It is simply a fact, that we do not know what to do in another culture. What is worse, we don’t fully realize it! I read a story once of an English or American spy who was captured in Germany because he used his knife to cut his meat and then laid the knife down and used his fork with the same hand. That’s what I do. Perhaps that’s what you do. But it cost that man his life.
Few missionaries will face such consequences for that kind of error. But the people they are seeking to reach may mock them for their table manners or for the kinds of foods they eat or do not eat. If such things make them look rude or ill-bred, their gospel witness will be muffled to the ears and the hearts of the indigenous people they want to reach. This is not true only among unsophisticated peoples. It is an ever-present hazard wherever we visit another culture.
4. Conclusion
Your missionaries need and deserve your attention to them as human beings, Christians and Christian workers. Each of the things I’ve mentioned are crucial. Do you feel overwhelmed by the task? I have, as I’ve written about it. But we must not give up. On the one hand we as individuals and as churches must strive to remember our missionaries in prayer. On the other hand we must never forget two things. First, our God is their God and is in no way insensitive toward their needs. Second, the grace of God covers the shortcomings and failures of all his people. He gives this grace to us who are not sufficient for our responsibilities, whether we are prayer-warriors or missionaries on the front-lines of the world.