Should Missionaries Expect Rapid Growth?

Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery, Hapjeong, Seoul, South Korea

Missionaries often start their journey into ministry with high expectations. Chief among them is a hope for fruit from their labors. However, it doesn’t take long for some to realize their dreams may not instantly translate into reality. Cultural differences shock the system. Language learning is slow and can frustrate a family. Team dynamics may erode. Early in the process, any sort of positive results might feel distant and unattainable.

One of the first principles our family learned in missionary training school is that misplaced expectations can rob your joy and undermine your ministry. However, it seems some in the missions community are now contributing to greater missionary anxiety by promoting the idea that rapid growth is to be expected—that ministry done the right way produces predictable results beyond addition, all the way to rapid multiplication.

While the desire for God’s Word and his kingdom to advance is a good one (2 Thess. 3:1), we must be careful about burdening missionaries with unrealistic expectations. Current methodologies in missions such as Church Planting Movements (CPM) or Disciple Making Movements (DMM) are right to seek the expansive and exponential spread of the gospel. But strategies promoting rapid growth are sometimes built on faulty assumptions that create unhealthy expectations. Read More