What Missions Should Learn from Covid

Everyone remember COVID protocols?

• Six feet distance
• N95 masks
• cleaning your groceries
• bottles of sanitizer everywhere…

And who can forget the biggest cultural change ushered in by COVID - the lockdown and “working from home”!

Originally, working from home was supposed to be a good thing: It was the wave of the future! A win-win for everyone involved. Businesses could get rid of costly office space, employees could save on gas and commuting time, and pride and personal ownership of our work was supposed to increase productivity and quality of work.

But by 2026, most experts are now forecasting the vast majority of people who were sent home during COVID will be back in a traditional corporate work setting.* Memories of dogs and children running by in the background of important corporate Zoom meetings will be relegated to pop culture history.

What happened?

A Lesson for Missions

It shouldn’t really surprise us that most people don't work well on their own.

Forcing yourself to write proposals while Netflix is playing on the TV, lunch breaks that last two hours, babysitting sick kids, playing Minecraft to release a little tension, holding yourself accountable day in and day out... isn't for the majority of people.

Along with this, during COVID, companies were not prepared to have their employees work from home. Accountability, management protocols, and coaching on how to succeed at self-directed work were not thought out or, in many cases, even existed. The cats were just set loose.

Why do we think sending missionaries out into the field, ill prepared, to work from home or on their own will fare any better?

Questions to Ask When a Missionary Approaches you for Support

Before supporting a missionary, do a little homework of your own. Ask questions like:

• Do you work from home, an office space, or a church?
• Are you part of a team, or do you work alone?
• What type training or coaching has your Sending Church or Agency given you in regards to working from home or on your own?
• What type of accountability does your Sending Church or Agency have in place to make sure you are staying on task?
• When is the last time you received training or feedback from your Sending Church or Agency?
• Do you have an accountability partner in the field?
• How do you schedule your work time...

If a missionary does not have informed answers to questions like these, and many others, you might need to think twice before supporting them.

Sure, there are some type "A" people out there in the mission field that can do well on their own, but they are the exception, not the rule. The mission field is not an environment the average person will do well in without proper preparation.

The Fallout

This may all sound a little too harsh or “corporate” for some in the Church, and asking these type of questions may offend some missionaries. But the reality is, 45-55% of all missionaries will leave the field within five years.

They were not properly prepared to be deployed and/or they do not receive proper support once in the field.

This turnover breaks the hearts of thousands of missionaries a year, wastes hundreds of millions of dollars invested by Churches, discourages individual Supporters from supporting other missionaries, and leaves vacancies in critical missional positions.

We should be asking questions!

The Path Forward

When you meet a missionary who does not appear to have received the proper training to be working on their own, love them, pray with them, talk with them about their struggles, and care enough to ask them the hard questions.

If they are struggling, suggest they go back to their Sending Church or Agency, be honest, and ask for help. If their Sending Church or Agency doesn't have the necessary resources to properly help, there are hundreds of third party resources out there like One Village Group who can help.

There are also wonderful Sending Agencies like One Mission Society in Greenwood, IN who work with missionaries and Sending Churches. Sending Agencies like OMS have full-time, trained staff members assigned to each missionary to walk with them and care for them before and after being deployed.

Working from home or all alone in the mission field is tough! The most difficult part - most missionaries will not realize they are unprepared until they are actually in the field. If we learned anything from COVID, this is not a productive approach.

*Read more about the return of home based workers to the traditional office setting: Why a Full Return to the Office is Gaining Ground