On Being a Missionary (Abridged): An Introduction to Cross-Cultural Life and Ministry

By Thomas Hale and Gene Daniels

Adjusting to a New World  

Missionaries must adjust to new cultures, learn languages, work as a team, maintain healthy relationships, and discern best ministry practices. Nothing can fully prepare a person for life as a missionary. However, for almost thirty years, Thomas Hale’s On Being a Missionary has helped to equip cross-cultural workers to not only survive but thrive in their calling.   

This abridged version of On Being a Missionary remains practical and accessible. It addresses the new realities of the changing missionary force. It also looks at the challenges of bonding with a new culture in an increasingly globalized and technologically connected world. The book is written for everyone with an interest in missions, whether the missionary on the field or the supporter at home. It is written by learners for learners.  

Drawing from years of experience, the authors provide down-to-earth advice and perspective concerning the problems, struggles, and failures that missionaries often face. At the same time, this book exposes various myths related to missionary life. Find out why a generation of mission workers has benefited from On Being a Missionary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Carey Publishing
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781645085027

Thomas Hale

In 1970, Thomas Hale and his wife, Cynthia, went to Nepal to work for their first twelve years at a rural mission hospital in the village of Amp Pipal. Subsequently they moved to Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city, where they have continued their work with the mission. Recently Cynthia took a position as an associate professor at Nepal's only medical school, and Tom has written a one-volume commentary on the New Testament, first in Nepali and subsequently in English for translation into other languages.

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Preface from Thomas Hale

This book is not designed to be a theoretical textbook. It does not put forward new theses or new approaches to mission. It makes no attempt to break new ground. Instead, I have tried to absorb and clearly present the ideas, experiences, and insights of over a hundred missionary writers. I am indebted to all of these writers.

I want to acknowledge the following authors as being particularly helpful to me in the writing of certain chapters: Dwight Carlson, Marjorie Collins, Marjory Foyle, David Hesselgrave, J. Herbert Kane, Dennis Kinlaw, David Seamands, John Stott, Christy Wilson, and Ralph Winter.

I also want to thank my wonderful missionary colleagues, who have served as an inspiration and an example—in particular, my lifelong partner and wife, Cynthia. To her this book is dedicated.

Biographical details of people referred to in this book have occasionally been altered to protect their identities. Otherwise, the incidents related are true. I write in the belief that there is no higher or more glorious calling than that of being a missionary of Jesus Christ. It is a subject worth writing about.

Since its publication in 1995, this book has received broad acceptance in the worldwide missionary community. It has been used as a basic text not only by mission agencies but also by seminaries and Bible colleges. Because of the many new developments in missions over the past few decades, an updated and abridged version of this book has become necessary. I am very grateful that Gene Daniels has undertaken this work. Gene is an experienced cross-cultural worker, an excellent writer, and a mission scholar. He has done a superb job updating this book.

Preface to the Abridged Version

Itook up the task of revising and abridging On Being a Missionary with fear and trepidation, for classics are seldom revised—and Dr. Hale’s book surely is a classic. It is perhaps the defining work in the genre of practical yet spiritual missionary books. This fact, however, raises an interesting point.

If this book were just about spiritual topics, it would not need revision. But Dr. Hale rightly perceived that the spirituality of cross-cultural missionaries is a lived-out spirituality, rooted in the practical details of daily life. His book bears that mark from cover to cover.

In the same way, the editorial staff at William Carey Publishing rightly perceived that the daily life of missionaries has undergone massive changes since Dr. Hale began making his keen observations about it. When he and his wife took their little boys to live in the Himalayas, the internet was barely a dream in the minds of a few computer geniuses, yet today it shapes the lives of billions around the globe. Since Dr. Hale treated his first patient in Nepal, the number of missionaries arising from the non-Western world has gone from a tiny trickle to a mighty river.

Not only has missions changed, but the reader has changed as well. The pace of our lives has gotten faster. People are today looking for books that are quicker to the point. Thus the goals of this new version are twofold: to bring the content into the twenty-first century, and to reduce the overall length without sacrificing any of Dr. Hale’s depth of wisdom.

It may seem strange to some that I have never met the man behind this amazing book. In many ways, however, I do feel as if I know him, partly through his writing, and partly because of a close friendship with his eldest son. Yet even that does not completely explain the real connection that I share with Dr. Hale.

I have come to realize that the substance of our connection is much more than that of people who share common friends, or even of writers with comparable styles and experiences. Rather it comes from being men of similar convictions about what it means to be a missionary. In Dr. Hale’s case, those convictions were birthed as a medical doctor treating Hindus in the lofty land of the Himalayas; my own emerged as an ethnographer observing Muslims in the wastelands of Central Asia.

This fact points to something important: although settings and ministries may be vastly different, the spirit of God often works in similar ways in the hearts of those called to take the name of Jesus to the nations. For this reason, Dr. Hale’s book will always be a missionary classic.

Gene Daniels

April 2023

1

Introduction

Writing a book about being a missionary doesn’t mean one has mastered the subject. This book is written by learners for learners. Missionaries make a broad subject. They represent almost every profession. They come short term and long term. Some come as students; some are retirees. Some are church-supported, others self-supported. Some come under mission boards and societies, and some come independently. They come from Europe and North America; they come from the other side of the equator in the Global South. And they go into all the world.

In this book we don’t differentiate sending nations and receiving nations, because almost every nation has become a sending nation. Indeed, in a massive shift that caught the mission world by surprise, there are already more missionaries going out from the Global South, the lands we used to think of as receiving countries, than from the old standard-bearers in the North. The reason is simple: the non-Western world is now home to more evangelical Christians than the West. The balance has shifted. The missionary enterprise has become truly international.

Although this book is necessarily written from a Western, or Global North, perspective, much of its content applies equally to missionaries from other parts of the world. Even those problems which seem particularly related to the Western missionary will, with some modification, also be faced by most of our brethren from newer sending countries. Hopefully, they too will find this book instructive.

This book is not primarily concerned with theology or mission strategy. It is not a handbook on how to plant a church, run a community development project, or start a mission hospital. Neither is it a treatise on anthropology, comparative religion, or cross-cultural communication. Though all these are important topics for the mission enterprise, this book is about being a missionary. It endeavors to describe what that life is like, with its challenges, heartaches, and joys. This book also addresses the problems, struggles, and failures of missionaries because it’s from these difficult topics that we learn the most.

Missionary life is two parts joy and fulfillment and one part frustration and defeat. We can only hope to reduce the frustration and defeat by facing it, not denying it. Far from wanting to scare off missionary candidates, we want to be sure they know some of the reality they are facing, so that they may avoid many of the problems that have plagued others.

Missions Is for Everyone

The church is missionary in nature. Missions, therefore, is the task of every member, not just a few. In the early church, missions gave rise to theology. Missions is more than just one subject in a seminary curriculum; it lies at the heart of all subjects. Missions is what makes theology relevant. It’s what makes seminaries relevant. It keeps seminaries and churches from becoming inward-looking and self-absorbed—putting their lamp under a bowl (Matt 5:15).

Theology and missions cannot be divorced. Theology inspires missions because God’s word is full of missions. As academic disciplines, theology and missions are, of course, distinct. This distinction explains why seminaries and Bible colleges are right to offer courses in missions, cross-cultural communication, non-Christian religions, and related subjects. These courses, however, should be core subjects, not electives. Missions is the province of every Christian, not just specialists.

Jesus told us to go. First to Jerusalem, then to Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Nothing in that text suggests that this command is only for a few. All Christians are to go and be witnesses—to their families, to their neighborhoods, to their cities. Every Christian is sent into the world on a mission.

Thus, there is no biblical basis for elevating the cross-cultural to a superior status. The value of our work is not based on whether or not we have crossed geographic or cultural boundaries; it is based on our love for Christ and our obedience to him. Very simply, the call is to all, and it is to all places where God has need of us, whether it be Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, or the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

That being said, we will limit the use of the word missionary in this book to its more narrow and conventional sense of cross-cultural witness. The reason is twofold. First, there are some peculiarities about crossing cultures that set this kind of witnessing apart from witnessing in one’s own culture. Second, the vast majority of unreached people are not found among the main Western cultures; they are found in the cultures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America—and, to a lesser extent, the inner-cities of the West. The greatest need today is to reach these people, and doing so requires crossing cultures. If every church were to continue witnessing only within its own culture, these people would never be reached. Thus, in limiting the use of the term missionary to cross-cultural witness, we are highlighting the particularly urgent need for this special kind of witness.

Consider the figures. The Joshua Project tells us that there are more than three billion people in the world who have not yet had the chance to hear the gospel presented in a way they can understand. With that in mind, let’s consider how we spend our financial resources.

For every one hundred dollars raised in Western churches, ninety-nine are spent on ministry among our fellow Christians. Only one dollar is spent directly for reaching non-Christians. And of that dollar, only a few cents are spent to reach the more than three billion unreached people. As someone has said, We Christians tithe to ourselves.

Looking at personnel, only one in a thousand Evangelicals goes into cross-cultural ministry—that is, becomes a missionary. And of those who do, over ninety percent of them end up working in areas that have already been evangelized. A very small shift in resources could triple or quadruple the amount of people and funds available for reaching the more than three billion unreached. Even a modest increase could make a hundredfold difference. Is that really too much to ask of the church, which is meant to be the light of the world?

Clearly, if the world is to be reached any time soon, it is going to take, in the words of Lausanne II, The whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world. There is no room for bystanders.

Clarifying Some Issues

Every Christian is a witness, but not every Christian is a missionary (by our definition). A missionary is any Christian who crosses cultural boundaries to further the building of Christ’s church and the expansion of God’s kingdom. The title missionary presupposes that one has crossed cultures for these express purposes and has received God’s call to do so. You’re not a missionary simply because you wake up one day in a foreign country. You’re not a missionary if you’re simply out for adventure, enjoying cool tourist sites, or hoping to get away from your in-laws. You are a missionary only insofar as you are obedient to a call from God.

Though the missionary’s work differs in many respects from the work of those who stay at home, the missionary will still be rewarded on the same basis as every other Christian, to the extent they are motivated by the glory of God.

This book makes no real distinction between short-term and long-term missionaries, because the changes brought by globalization and easier travel are making those categories harder and harder to define. In years past, someone going to the field for a one-year commitment would have been considered short term by almost all mission agencies, but today that distinction is fading. Furthermore, I want to avoid any implication that short-term missionaries are somehow inferior to the long termers. All who answer God’s call should be first-class witnesses, wherever they are.

Before the days of air travel, missionaries went out for life. Today, that expectation no longer holds true. We need waves of missionaries coming and going as the Lord directs. One thing, however, must be clearly said in favor of a long-term commitment. Study after study has shown that as a general rule, the longer one remains in a given culture, the more fruitful he or she becomes. Thus we would urge those who are now cross-cultural witnesses to remain within that culture until God clearly leads them out.

A final word about the use of the term mission field in this book. This term conjures up an image of the white missionary going out to primitive lands to preach to the heathen. Because of this connotation, the term has fallen into disfavor in certain quarters. However, it is very hard to write a book on missions without using it. In this book the term mission field will be used to refer to wherever nonbelievers are found, especially those areas where there are few or no Christians. The Muslim enclaves of New York City need missionaries just as much as the highlands of Irian Jaya. Thus, the mission field is any place where missionaries are working—or need to work—whether overseas or at home.

Myths to Puncture

Any field is bound to develop a body of myths. This reality is certainly true of missions. Every missionary on home assignment must contend with the mythical notions of his home constituency. Let us examine some common ones.

•Myth number one: The church has been planted almost everywhere. While the church is almost everywhere geographically, there are thousands of distinct people groups with no local witness.

•Myth number two: Global South churches don’t want Western missionaries to help them. It’s true that they don’t want to be controlled, but do desire genuine peer-to-peer partnership.

•Myth number three: The responsibility for evangelism in each country belongs to that national church. It is not biblical to think in terms of anyone exclusively owning a country or territory. Reaching the world is the responsibility of the whole body of Christ.

•Myth number four: The ‘heathen’ are eager to hear the gospel and become like us. Try this line with most Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists! They are proud of their religion and believe it is superior to ours.

•Myth number five: Missionaries are misfits. Now to be honest, there’s a bit of truth to this one, but to suggest that missionaries as a group are those who couldn’t make it back home is pure fiction.

•Myth number six: Missionaries are super-spiritual. To dispose of this one, just keep reading.

Pressing On

Yes, it’s easier to write about being a missionary than it is to be one. I know.

I make no pretense of having successfully followed all the precepts laid out in this book. But I have tried to. Daily, and sometimes many times a day, I have prayed that I might be a missionary pleasing to God. I have striven to be that missionary. I have striven in the sense that all of us must strive to be Christlike. Some people say we shouldn’t strive, but that’s wrong. With the Apostle Paul, we must press on … straining toward what is ahead (Phil 3:12–13). It’s salvation we mustn’t strive for, but for holiness and maturity, we must strive. And to the extent I have attained—whether little or much—I attribute totally to God’s grace. It is also by his grace that I have ventured to write this book.

The reader will observe throughout this book that much of what is written is really about Christian living. The principles are applicable to any Christian, not just missionaries, because missionaries are preeminently engaged in the business of Christian living in a cross-cultural setting. They have the same physical and spiritual equipment that any other Christian has. When missionaries get together, they talk about the same things other Christians talk about: discipleship, obedience, consecration, prayer, holiness, and temptation. And I’m not sure the temptations on the mission field are any worse than those at home—only more varied.

A Tribute to Our Forebears

It is easy to get so caught up in the problems and issues of our own generation that we forget that many have preceded us. Missionaries, of all people, should acknowledge their debt to their forebears. Jesus reminded his disciples of this very thing. He said to them, I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor (John 4:38). Now, before we go any further, let us pause and acknowledge our debt to those who have gone before.

Consider the little country of Nepal, in the year 1952. It had just opened to the outside world after being closed for almost a century. Of its ten million inhabitants, not one was a Christian.

Then one day, two Western missionary women working in northern India, Hilda Steele and Lily O’Hanlon, trekked six days to reach a valley in that hitherto unknown land. There they met people who had never before seen a white face. They had no schools, no medical care, and they had never once heard of Jesus Christ.

They started a small clinic in the main town of the valley, Pokhara. Their work grew. Other missionaries, both Western and Indian, came to help them. Eventually this little group, the Nepal Evangelistic Band established a hospital, built out of cast-off World War II temporary aluminum huts, and so it came to be known as the Shining Hospital. And over the years, thousands upon thousands of Nepali patients have come to that hospital for treatment, many of them walking for days over the mountains from their homes.

One of the very ill patients who went to the hospital in its early years lived nearby on the outskirts of Pokhara. After the missionaries treated him and prayed for him, he recovered. They also gave him a Bible and a hymnbook in his own language. Sometime later, this man told his nephew of his experience at the hospital. The nephew became sufficiently interested in this new God of the missionaries that when it came time for him to return to his village, he took the Bible and hymnbook back home with him.

When the nephew reached his village four days later, he found that his daughter was ill. The local shaman had tried to treat her, but she was getting worse. Just as the family had given up hope, the nephew remembered the God of the missionaries he had heard about from his uncle in Pokhara. He decided to pray to this God asking that his daughter might be spared. After praying for her healing in Jesus’s name, his daughter completely recovered. Word got out about the living God who answers prayers and soon many were being healed. The nephew also started teaching what he was learning from the Bible his uncle gave him. Soon there were several clusters of new believers meeting in secret, because it was against the law in Nepal to change religions. Despite intense persecution, the number of believers continued to grow.

Today, so many years later, that community of believers has grown more than anyone could have even dreamed back in 1952. Look what God can do when two women choose to obey!

This isn’t the only story we could tell, and it is much bigger than Nepal. There are hundreds of stories like this one from around the world. But more than the wonderful stories that we could now tell, consider the hundreds of stories waiting to happen.

Today, as we view the rapidly growing church among previously unreached peoples, we pause to pay tribute to the pioneers on whose shoulders we stand. May each of us be found as faithful in the tasks that God has given us. The work is God’s, but, wonder of wonders, he has chosen to accomplish it through us.

2

The Call of Missions

Being a missionary begins with being called. You don’t choose to be a missionary; you’re called to be one. The only choice is whether or not to obey.

All Christians without exception have been called to give their lives totally to Christ with no reservations. All Christians are called equally to be disciples: to follow and obey Christ. However, there is a distinction between God’s general call to obey, and his specific call to a form of ministry. God’s general call is that I be a witness. His specific call has to do with where I witness—in Nepal, Turkey, Chicago, or wherever.

Our general call comes from Scripture; our specific call comes primarily from the Holy Spirit. Of course, the Holy Spirit often uses Scripture to confirm and refine our specific call. Before we talk anymore about the specific call, we need to distinguish it from guidance.

A specific call is a much more profound and life-changing event than ordinary guidance. Christian workers, such as missionaries and pastors, need a special empowerment of the Holy Spirit to carry out their duties. In particular, missionaries are led out of their own culture into often uncharted waters. Simple guidance into this vocation is not enough. Such people need to be specifically set apart like Paul and Barnabas, Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers … While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’ (Acts 13:1–2).

In my experience, those who arrive on the mission field without this sense of calling are much more vulnerable to doubt and discouragement when the going gets tough. Therefore, we will continue to use the term specific call or missionary call. Once called, guidance will determine the details of how one should fulfill his or her calling.

In some cases, the specific call to missions will be striking, such as a dream or a vision, or a prophetic word. We see this when Paul received his call to be an apostle to the Gentiles in Acts 9. Often it is much more mundane, such as hearing God while reading a book or listening to a missions speaker. For others it is simply a gradually increasing conviction and assurance that God has laid his hand on them for a special purpose. It is often accompanied by a deepening desire to serve a particular people, or to meet some particular need. It may be hard to tell at what point all this becomes a call, but the person who has experienced it does not doubt that he or she has indeed been