What Most Churches Miss When Missionaries Visit

Hungry and tired from our five-hour flight, my husband and I arrived at our host’s home just before dinner. We'd crossed state lines to visit one of the churches who faithfully supported our family while we served as missionaries overseas. Casual conversation deepened over plates of spaghetti as our hosts asked curious questions about what life looked like where we lived. By the time they served us homemade tiramisu, we were unpacking how we had built trust with people who had no reason to trust us and no interest in conversations about faith. 

The next morning—with coffee in hand and smiles of gratitude on our faces—we attended all three church services, giving the same two-minute update, being prayed over and faithfully standing in the lobby to greet anyone who wanted to take our prayer card before they transitioned to their next activity. As Sunday came to a close, we watched the city’s skyline disappear as we drove to the airport.  

“I sure wish the rest of the church had been able to hear your stories from dinner last night,” our host said. “We could all learn from you how to be missionaries in our own city.”  

That’s when I realized we could offer churches more than just basic field reports. 

Missionaries are just like you 

Something gets lost when we turn missionaries into a special category of people. The apostle James said of Elijah, “He is a human being, even as we are” (Jas 5:17). Faithfulness should never feel reserved for a select few, yet churches can sometimes treat missionaries as exceptionally spiritual. They embolden the idea that their faithfulness should be esteemed, but it’s not relatable enough to imitate.  

When missionaries feel unrelatable and their faith unattainable, a Sunday morning update, a few small group visits and a prayerful send-off become default rhythms of home visits. Historical patterns feel safe, respected and enough. Unintentionally, this can affirm the misconception that missionaries are meant to be admired from a distance rather than understood up close.

My family of five spent years living cross-culturally in Europe. By God’s grace, we created a thriving ministry in a community where 98 percent of the population didn’t believe the gospel, or think, believe or live a lifestyle as we did. Through years of trial and error, we learned how to build trusted relationships with people who were skeptical of faith, hostile toward the Church and often spiritually indifferent. Our ways of life and sharing the gospel were not formed through short-term trips but by being intentionally present in a community of not-yet-believing people. 

Today, the same questions missionaries have learned to navigate overseas are showing up in every American city and suburb. In a cultural moment where fewer people know Jesus, trust the Church or believe in the relevancy of faith, the experience of overseas missionaries can give Americans an important example of everyday faithfulness.   

Yet, if we keep missionaries on imaginary pedestals, congregants may come to believe that missional faith belongs to someone else. That belief can often lead to complacency, giving people quiet permission to step back from the intentional work of sharing the gospel on the front lines in their own community. 

Missionaries can equip your church to be on mission 

On one occasion at a supporting church's all-staff meeting, the lead pastor asked, "So many people in American culture are angry with the church. What is something we can learn from you that you have noticed about the church's response to hostility?"  

My husband rose from his stool and shared the spiritual posture we’ve learned to adopt as believers, developing relationships with people hostile to the Church. The majority of the staff sat in silence as they absorbed his answer. When the meeting ended, a tearful elder joined us at the front of the room to pray for us. Before he prayed, he said, "This is so compelling.”  

At another supporting church—after a long, unhurried lunch with a pastor and his wife—our conversation turned into an offer to share on Sunday morning. The church was in the middle of a series called, “Jesus in Our City”—wrestling with what it looked like to share about Jesus where they already lived, worked and played—and the pastor asked us to address the question, “How do you live like a missionary in an American city?”  

As we prepared, we realized we were building a framework for a way of life that had been formed in us through years of living overseas, and it solidified four simple pillars for living on mission in your current context: 1) see all people as made in the Image of God, 2) lead with grace and compassion, 3) choose to be a learner and 4) live with intentionality.

When the local church can view missionaries as fellow believers to emulate—rather than saints to admire—they can tap into helpful wisdom and resources for living out the gospel in their context. When we look through the lens of a missionary, we recognize the mission in our own neighborhoods and can begin to practice it in our own relationships.  

Move beyond the field report 

If you’re preparing to host your church’s missionaries this summer and are looking for more than the status quo, here are three ways to help make the most of their experience. 

1. Invite them to the table 

The churches who understood how to humanize our experiences often invited us to attend their elder meetings and sit with their staff, along with the Sunday morning update and small group meetings. They intentionally asked us, “What have you learned that we can learn from you? What are three things you do to share the gospel that we could utilize here? Where are we blind?” 

Missionaries often see the cultural trends before others do. They know how trust is earned when cultural Christianity is gone. Instead of treating missionary visit as just a field report, try viewing it as a consultation. 

2. Let them train your church 

Inspiration fades by Monday but equipping reshapes culture. Missionaries spend their life navigating skepticism, initiating awkward conversations and enduring long seasons where nothing seems to move. That experience is gold for people learning to build relationships with not-yet-believers.  

Invite your missionary to host a workshop, share at your young adults gathering or share with your small group leaders about how to live missionally where they already are.  We call this “daring to be awkward,” stepping into relational risk for the sake of long-term trust.  

3. Integrate their knowledge 

Start to build missionary insights into your evangelistic systems, pastoral care and life of the church. Identify the evangelists in your congregation, ask them what missionary techniques they already practice and challenge them to think about what new ones they could develop.  

Set up quarterly video calls where missionaries can meet with a dedicated small group of congregants who desire to live missionally. When the goal is to live like a missionary, those calls will make the distance between the zip codes smaller, and accountability will keep the momentum going. 

EFCA churches, I want to encourage you to give missionaries space to shape your church’s imagination for how the gospel can be shared in your own community. Challenge your congregation to move beyond being mere supporters of the missionaries, to participants in the mission. The Great Commission isn’t just a calling for full-time missionaries—it’s for all of us.