Furlough? Home Assignment? Vacation?

PART ONE of TWO

No aspect of the ministry of a missionary is more misunderstood than the furlough. The word itself is defined as “a leave of absence” giving the idea that missionaries are “taking a break” from ministry. I heard one pastor critically remark that his church would fall apart if he took a year-long vacation. I personally prefer the term Home Assignment because it rightly conveys the idea that the missionary is coming home for a purpose, not abandoning his work for an extended vacation.

There are many opinions about furlough among pastors and missionaries and with good reason. There are concerns that any thinking leader expresses concerning the entire concept of furlough. Most of the tension that arises between the missionary and his supporting churches revolve around the purpose, necessity, or frequency of a furlough. Is furlough a necessary evil only recently invented for the modern missionary or does it find support in Biblical principles?

I have three objectives in this series of articles. First of all, I want to deal with some misconceptions held by both missionaries and their supporters. Secondly, I want to provide biblical principles that support the concept of the furlough. Lastly, I would like to offer some advice on how to make the home assignment a more productive time for both the supporting church and the missionary.

Dealing with common assumptions and misconceptions 

Furlough is not a vacation.

Missionaries may vacation while stateside, but furlough it is not one big family spring break. I have heard pastors joke about how nice it would be to have a year-long hiatus from their ministry, implying that the missionary is simply taking a break from ministry every few years. While the majority of pastors and churches who support missionaries do not feel this way, there can be an unspoken assumption that the missionary is returning to their home country simply because they need a break. 

 While Jesus and his disciples would come apart into desert places to rest a while (Mark 6:31), he never stopped ministering. A missionary’s workload is just as full on furlough as it is on the field. We may come apart to rest a while but there is no leave of absence from ministering. 

Furlough is hard work. 

Furlough preparation begins a few months prior to the missionary’s actual departure from the field. Few missionaries look forward to the added workload. Ministry is hard work in any part of the world. For the missionary, balancing a church-plant, ministry, family, and life on a foreign field has its challenges. Add to all of this the task of aligning your furlough schedule with busy pastors and supporting churches scattered throughout various time zones; as well as figuring out where you will live, what you will drive, whether or not to put your kids in school, and you have the potential of a mental breakdown!

Missionaries often dread furlough.

The initial excitement of returning to your home country wears off (at least in our case, and I don’t think that I’m alone) after about two or three months.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many great things missionaries look forward to on furlough. Reconnecting with family and visiting supporting churches are highlights of the missionaries return to his ‘home’ country. But furlough is an interruption of life-as-usual. Not only do you leave your ministry for a period of time, but you also are leaving behind a routine, schedule, and friends. The missionary must allocate finances to purchase tickets and make sure leadership is in place to continue his ministry in his absence. There are always a million other tiny details that must be addressed before departure. Mixed emotions of both excitement and dread are a familiar part of the process to any foreign missionary preparing for furlough.

Furlough is stressful.

Excitement and dread are only two of the many emotions a missionary experiences preparing for furlough. The routine of life in the place they now call home is interrupted to return to the familiar but now distant place they once called home. The missionary has been away for several years from the ‘home’ they left and where life as they knew it has moved on without them. They enjoy reconnecting with friends and family but now struggle to relate to them. They soon find that their life experiences differ vastly from their North American counterparts. It’s hard to relate to westerners who have never had to negotiate with the police every time they are pulled over or frantically roam the city at night looking for an open pharmacy so you can purchase the medication the hospital needs to treat your sick child. The missionary learns to adapt to culture shock on his mission field but is not always prepared for the reverse culture shock he may face when he returns home.

Feelings of excitement and dread, guilt and frustration, rest and weariness, the comfort of things familiar and convenient, and confusion of things changed; isolation coupled with the feeling of being out of place will all be amplified on furlough.

You feel guilty when one pastor chides you for taking too long of a furlough and you feel frustrated when the next pastor tells you that your furlough is not long enough. You feel rest and relief when churches pamper you like kings and queens but soon weary of the hundreds and thousands of miles of travel to visit those churches. Initially, the missionary feels rejuvenated by the familiar sights, sounds, smells, and foods on his homeland; but then are let down when they realize that all those ‘things’ you thought you missed so much are not really that spectacular.

It is not long before the missionary begins to yearn for the sights and sounds of their new home overseas and may feel guilty for secretly despising the excesses and materialism of their own western culture. They may feel frustrated when their close friends and family fail to understand why they yearn to return. Furlough can be stressful.

A missionary’s heart never leaves the work.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. The longer a missionary is away from his ministry, the more they yearn to return. The missionary has invested time, money and resources, and his heart and soul into reaching a people that he has grown to love. Jesus said, “Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The missionary on furlough will yearn to return to his people. Coming back to the States or Canada does not mean that a missionary is having trouble acclimating to his field or misses life in North America. A missionary called of God will leave his heart behind when he travels home for furlough.

What about the old-time missionaries who left and never returned!

Some point to the missionaries of old who left and rarely returned to their country of origin. Of course, we admire that spirit and wish to emulate it, but we often forget that it took months to travel to their destination over dangerous seas where there was no guarantee of safe arrival. Once on the field, many missionaries, especially women and children, died for lack of medical treatment or sanitation. Thank God that they stuck it out and pioneered the gospel to the unreached world. But we also thank God that advances in travel have most certainly extended a missionary’s career by giving them access to advanced medical treatments where it often may not be available. 

What about Jesus’ teaching on forsaking family?

Jesus did say that if you love family more than Him you are not worthy of Him and that those who forsake family and home for Him will be rewarded. So, some might say, shouldn’t the missionary accept his calling to be separated from his family indefinitely?

Firstly, most missionaries who have surrendered and gone to the foreign field have already surrendered to leaving family and all that is familiar to go. Their heart is given to Christ and His calling and if He so wanted, they would never return. The issue is not your proximity to family but your allegiance to family over Christ.

Secondly, this teaching is for all believers, not just missionaries. Jesus is referring to those who must choose between family allegiance and following him. Our obligation is to Christ above all and at any cost. This means our obligation to Him will sometimes override our obligation to our immediate family when what our family demands of us is contrary to God’s will.

Furloughing missionaries give constant exposure to the needs of the world to local churches and young people in Bible colleges.

Western culture can be very exclusive, domineering and consuming. Americans tend to divide the world into two categories: America and the rest of the world that America is trying to improve. Most Americans don’t follow world events when and where America is not concerned. Did you know they are still fighting Ebola in West Africa? Did you know that terrorist bombings are almost a daily event in the Middle East? We usually only hear about these crises when an American is involved. 

Hosting a furloughing missionary helps to keep the needs of the world at the forefront of their supporting churches. Missionary updates and presentations give the opportunity for young people to surrender to going. Many church members cannot travel to the mission field, but hosting a yearly missions conference allows a church to be exposed to what God is doing throughout the world.

Lost Ground (challenges and negative aspects of furlough)

One of the legitimately negative outcomes of furlough is the possibility of losing ground on what gospel advances have been achieved during the missionaries’ term on the field. Some missionaries return to the field after an extended furlough to find that they must retake ground they had labored so intensively to gain during the previous term. How can this loss be avoided?

Ministry can continue and even advance in the absence of the missionary when there is an effective ministry team in place.

The missionary must always keep in mind that his work is essentially not his work but the Lord’s work. He is not there to advance his own agenda. The missionary who does not understand this simple concept has a hard time developing a strong team of ministry partners.

Good leadership builds people and partners who can support and continue the work, especially in the absence of the leader. This is one of the primary objectives in mission work.

The Apostle Paul had an effective team of partners who traveled with him on each mission journey. Paul often assembled a team in accordance with the needs of the place to which he was called and the work which he set out to accomplish. Paul did not stay in the same place for long. Yet, he was effective because he had team members that he would strategically leave behind who could continue the work of evangelism and discipleship. Paul told the church at Corinth that “Christ sent him not to baptize.” Missionaries must be confident in the fellow missionary and national partners that the Lord brings our way.

Many pastors and church leaders try to relate the missionaries foreign work with their own western ministry which leads to the justifiable question: “Where would my church be if I left for a year?” Most pastors feel that the work would fall apart without them and therefore, the same must be true for the missionary on furlough.

Let’s respond to this by saying most missionaries will not leave an unstable work just because a furlough is on the schedule. Missionaries do not take the decision of when to furlough haphazardly. Most missionaries will not leave the work if they know they will lose ground. They will wait until the Lord sends a partner to oversee the work in their absence.

Also, many furloughs are taken with a very specific objective to be completed which is often crucial to the effectiveness and longevity of the foreign ministry. Whether it is the need to raise more support, gather funds for a specific project, or simply to regather their sanity, missionaries return on furlough with a mission. In other words, they never stop being missionaries.

I would like to point out as well, that time away is only relevant if the missionary’s heart is not in the work. A missionary who acts reluctant to return to the field has an obvious heart issue. However, most missionaries are anxious to return to their field almost as soon as they leave it. While Stateside, the missionary will maintain constant contact with his leadership team overseas. When the people know that the missionary longs to be with them, they will also yearn to see the missionary. Paul wrote of this yearning in I Thessalonians 3:6, “But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you”

This guy seems to always be back in the States!

Those who minister in North America need perspective concerning the nature of foreign ministry. I’ve heard a few pastors state, “It seems like every time I turn around, missionary so-and-so is back on furlough!”

The interesting thing about time is that when you don’t pay attention to something or someone, two, three, or even five years can pass and the next time you’re reminded of that something, you feel like it was just yesterday that you saw it or thought about it. Take kids as an example. When you see a nephew you haven’t seen for a while you often remark on how fast he is growing. Know we all know that children age at the same rate as humans always have. But your distance from them and your lack of observation and involvement in their daily lives make it seem like they’ve experienced incredible growth each time you see them.

The reason some feel like missionaries are always home on furlough is possibly because the last time they paid attention to them was when they last visited the church on their furlough three or four years ago! 

Are missionaries perfect and above scrutiny?

The answer is obvious to this question. No man or woman in ministry is above scrutiny. There are abuses of power and misuses of finances and privilege in every ministry, whether at home or abroad. Some churches have set mission policies based on a bad experience they had with a missionary. We have a supporting church that does not send full support until the missionary is on the field. This is because they had a candidate receiving support who never finished deputation. He continued to receive support for years despite the fact that he was living in a condo on the beach in Florida!

We must be careful not to let missionaries who abuse privilege and allowances dictate our mission policy or determine your opinion of all missionaries in general.

Every profession has their bad apples. There are some not-so-good missionaries out there who take advantage of their supporter’s generosity. Sometimes a lack of accountability on the field can lead an already lazy missionary to be even lazier. We’ve all heard horror stories and I know of a few pastors who have been burned by a bad missionary and have changed policies because of it. If you are a church leader who has had a bad experience with a missionary, I challenge you to remember that there are many pastors who have failed and yet that does not deter you from serving.

Let’s again address the question “Where would my church be if I left for an extended time?” If we have been pastoring or ministering for an extended period of time in one place and the church is not yet prepared to continue in our absence, then we are not effectively preparing and training our people.

Instead of asking where your church would be if you left for a year, ask yourself what would happen to your church if you dropped dead tomorrow. That sounds morbid, but, would it fall apart without you? If so, you’re not doing your job as a teacher/trainer.

We must be careful not to equate dependency on our presence with effective leadership. The goal of discipleship is not dependence on your presence but rather obedience in your absence.

Paul gloried in the fact that the church at Philippi “always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.” (Phil 2:12a)

At the end of the day, it is “God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Paul’s confidence in the power of God’s word to transform lives, rather than his personality and ability to influence lives, is what made him an effective leader, despite the fact that the longest he stayed in one place (that is recorded for us) was three years in Ephesus. He commended those believers to God (Acts 20) knowing that he had not shunned to share the whole counsel of God with them. Although Paul knew he would never see them again, he knew it was God’s grace, not his leadership, that would build them up and keep them.

When understood properly, the furlough can be a blessing to the missionary, to the supporters in North America, and to his ministry on the foreign field. In the next article, we will see how a furlough can actually advance the work of the missionary on the foreign field.