The System

Some very good attempts have been made to set up communication systems for missionaries, including agency-sponsored newsletters for which the missionaries contribute articles and news updates, church and agency websites where missionaries can post their information, and printed brochures, magazines, and catalogs. Some missionaries even maintain their own blogs. While these attempts to set up missionary communication systems have for the most part been good, they fall short in several areas.

First, they are isolated. Most current missions information systems reach only those who have some pre-existing relationship with the church, mission agency, or missionary. It is difficult to find general information about missions and missionary activity, and a Google search will lead to hundreds or thousands of different websites, most of which are only a fair to poor match for the search criteria. Second, current systems are generally one-sided, since the receivers of the information do not have a chance to respond in a meaningful way. Third, current missions data is not useful for other purposes. Data in a database has to be maintained, and such maintenance creates an extra level of administrative overhead unless the data is created as a by-product of some other meaningful activity.

Developing effective missionary communication requires a bigger-picture view than thinking simply of the relationship between the missionary and their sending agency or church. Effective missionary communication involves a loosely-coupled but complex system of interdependent relationships. Missionaries spend as much or more time communicating with people outside their organization as they do with people inside their organization. In order to get their work done, missionaries must form networks with an enormous number of stakeholders: their sending agency, churches, associations, and individuals back home, suppliers, buyers, and representatives, local churches, governments, associations, and agencies. Often these networks develop into informal modular organizational that can easily adapt to new circumstances, and other times these structures evolve into formal organizations to carry on the work that the missionary started.

Because of the independent nature of missionary work (missionaries are for the most part isolated from their “bosses” at the sending agency or church) missionaries usually do not operate under whatever hierarchy may be present at their sending agency or church. Often they will report to a committee, or they will undergo some evaluation process put in place by the church or agency. It is not uncommon for missionaries to be given an enormous amount of leeway in the evaluation of their performance; improvisation is often encouraged and expected. With such a loosely structured environment, communication becomes even more important.

It is not too far-fetched to imagine that the church at large could adopt a holistic approach to sending missionaries like that suggested by Peter Senge’s learning organization. Everyone who is doing missionary work presumably has the same end goal and shared vision in mind, so that piece is already in place. Systems thinking is a natural second step, since in order for the goal to be reached we must work in cooperation. For this to happen, missionaries must strive to work with each other with greater interdependence.

Back to Part 2 | Concluded tomorrow…