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Plan in your non-negotiables A young parent asked me the other day how I made time for my family in the midst of my business schedule. I said, “I know I need to get better at this, but I schedule it into my week. Each week my wife and I have a date night! I try to plan in my “play time” with my kids.” I have realized that we spend time doing what is important to us. If we really love our family, we need to choose to spend quality time with them. Now, I am not talking about taking time out of your normal work week, but instead planning in time afterwork or in the evenings to be with the family. I know one guy who when people asked if he was free any time between 5 pm – 7pm, he answered that he was doing discipleship and was unavailable. He was spending that time training his kids in the ways the should go. If you want to learn language, you will need to plan in your language learning times. If you think that they will just happen, I guarantee that something else will pop up and take their place.

Back to the basics – laying a solid foundation! Over the past years of doing ministry in creative access countries, I have found that the real key to a balanced life is abiding in Jesus. If we can spend time quality time with Jesus each and every day, we begin to hear his voice and listen to his heart. Without knowing what HE wants us to do each day, we end up chasing our manmade strategies and plans. Start taking time each and ever day (lavished time) to just listen and learn from Jesus.

Experts in business, industry, education or other fields serve

some serve through agencies, others go on their own or with loose connections to networks

when open doors and natural peer networks already exist for lawyers, engineers, architects and entrepreneurs

Believers living in diaspora are increasingly a strong mission force.

There are strengths and weaknesses involved in each method, and finding new ways forward is never tidy. Pray that devoted followers of Christ might, with passion, urgency, wisdom and discernment, seize available opportunities to more effectively reach the world’s least reached.

In the past 20 years, more Muslims than ever before have come to Christ, more workers serve in Muslim heartlands, more agencies focus on these regions and more sustained intercession is given for these peoples precious to God.

Political crises in Buddhist strongholds such as Tibet, Thailand and Cambodia similarly caused increased interest in the Buddhist world, long a tough mission challenge with little progress. Mongolia, Cambodia and Vietnam, all strongly influenced by Buddhism, now see unprecedented Christian growth. A trickle of first fruits is also occurring among Tibetan peoples. May the rest of the Buddhist world soon experience the same.

The upheaval in the Hindu world has likewise drawn greater attention to this large swathe of the human population. Civil war and continued turmoil in Nepal, unrest, religious violence and persecution in certain parts of India and the continued plight of the Dalits/Untouchables have all attracted prayer, mobilization and ministry on a great scale. This, in turn, has yielded incredible growth in the Church in Nepal and India. Pray, however, for an awakening of focus and a harvest force to work among higher caste and middle class Hindus.

Missionaries must be more vigilant on the field than in home situations. They need to be able to discern between cultural differences and spiritual opposition, but the spiritual authority to resist evil attacks is even more vital. These can come through many means, including physical health and disease, attacks upon the mind and attitude, in relationships and in physical threats such as violent attacks and hostage taking.

assurance that God has guided one to a particular ministry is often the only anchor to retain workers in difficult situations, misunderstandings, broken relationships and “impossible” crises. Pray that none may leave a place of calling for a negative or superficial reason, but only because of a positive leading from God.

Success should be understood as having been achieved when the missionaries are no longer needed for the role for which they came. The ideal goal of all missionaries should be to train their own replacements from among local believers.