In our last blog post we met Steve and Joan, a couple who turned their short-term mission trip to Russia into a full-time career. We looked at five starting places for those considering doing something similar. Today we focus on how to actually make that transition and the practical steps required. Here are three things to consider.

Consider your family and your life stage

Certainly the first thing to consider as you eye a transition into career missions is the impact on your family. Especially important  is the issue of timing—is this the appropriate time to make such a major change? Some mission organizations will not appoint missionaries with teenage children, except on rare occasions. They do this because they have found that teenagers have an especially difficult time transitioning to living abroad. They know that if your children struggle then you will struggle and have a hard time adjusting. Another issue is the health and care of your parents. What is the likelihood that if you do get to the mission field that you will have to leave to care for them? If your parents are in poor health, is there a support system in place or are there other means to care for them while you live abroad? While family issues may not be a “no” to the idea of career missions, they may require a “wait.”

Get the needed education

Each mission organization has different education requirements for their missionaries. Some require a high-level of biblical or theological training, while others rely more on practical experiences. As you talk with different agencies, education requirements should be one of the first things you ask about. If you do lack their requirements, find out specifically what steps you can take to meet them.

Get your finances in order

We all know that no one goes into missions to get rich, but we may forget that burdensome debt can keep us from the mission field in the first place. Whether your potential new position is salaried or faith supported—meaning you have to raise the funds to support yourself and your work—you potentially will have less income to work with than what you have now. Many mission agencies have strict debt to income limits. Regardless of the agency’s policy, you want to eliminate consumer and other debt as quickly as possible so that you have the financial freedom to really pursue your calling.

In our next blog post we’ll continue our look at short-term to career missions transitions with three more suggestions on how to prepare for the jump.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Missions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.