Supplying the front lines

As the last of our English and Bible students left our home for the evening, I felt my stress fade. I loved every one of those students and prayed for them to come to know Christ, but I always felt drained after teaching them. Then I turned to my computer to continue developing the database that helps us remember details about each of the growing number of people we were ministering to, and I felt a sense of satisfaction as I finished programming a new feature. Suddenly I noticed the irony and thought: Why is computer work more fulfilling to me than people ministry? Am I a bad missionary?

My husband Dan is a more typical missionary—gifted in people-related ministry like teaching, evangelism, and leadership. I felt the call to long-term missions just as strongly as he did, and I assumed I was giving up everything related to my previous engineering and programming career to work with people the same way he was. But I still had a natural urge to solve “backstage” problems like how to keep track of all the people with whom we were building relationships. I gravitated toward nuts-and-bolts tasks like laying out event flyers, mixing audio for an evangelistic cassette tape, and building our ministry website. These tasks drew on my technical background, but all the while I thought they were just auxiliary to the “real ministry.” It took a few years for the Lord to get it through my thick skull that what I was doing was real ministry. He had gifted and prepared me to serve in missions in technical and practical ways—solving problems and developing resources to help churches, ministries, and other missionaries be more effective.

Once I finally understood, I gradually settled into that role as my main ministry over the years, and I love it. But people like me are in short supply. The more I do, the more need I see. Think about the usual type of people who would seriously consider becoming long-term missionaries in countries like Japan that don’t need houses built or wells dug. Your first thought is probably a list like this: evangelists, teachers, counselors, and church planters—in other words, people who work with people. What about computer programmers, print or web designers, videographers, writers, editors, graphic artists, and the like? They tend to stay in their careers back home and send money to support those “people ministry” missionaries. Even conferences like CPI show the disparity—there are plenty of tracks and workshops about evangelism, teaching, counseling, and leadership, but have you ever seen a workshop about how to support ministries with multimedia, web outreach, or publishing? Evidently there aren’t enough people interested in such topics. I pray for that to change.

Supplies for the battle

An analogy that might fit is that of military strategy. Everyone knows about the soldiers who fight on the front line—they are directly involved in the battle. But they cannot do anything if they lack water, food, ammunition, fuel, and repairs for their equipment. The system that keeps the front line equipped and fighting in the right place at the right time is called logistics. Army general and US president Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.”¹ I see ministries like mine as missions logistics, and the skills needed are very different from the missions front line.

For example, have you noticed that most small churches in Japan have poor websites, if they have a web presence at all? Don’t blame the pastor—he probably longs to use the internet to bring people to the church so he can minister to them, but his gifts are in front-line ministry, not web design or PR. Perhaps he bravely tried to use a web-building tool but got stuck. Or prepared for a neighborhood outreach but his simple black-text flyers didn’t attract any attention. He needs people with different gifts to come alongside and help with the logistics. Most missionaries are in the same category—better at working with people than things. In addition, logistics is not where the typical pastor or missionary’s heart is—they don’t want to fight their computer when they could be out there impacting someone’s life. But I know there are others out there like me who have no desire to be a Moses but would be happy being Aaron and Hur holding up Moses’ arms. Perhaps they have not thought of that as ministry, especially as missions.

Logisticians need to know the battlefield

One might argue that with the internet, some of the technical resource building I have mentioned could be done without moving to the mission field (assuming someone else is handling the linguistic and cultural issues). But the problem solver needs to be where the problems are in order to recognize them. Most of the time, the front-line people will keep doing things the only way they know how, not realizing there could be something better or easier. It’s the problem solver who has the gifts to be able to observe and realize: Ah, I know a way I can help with that! or That’s a common issue—perhaps a new tool should be developed that many people can use. The resources I make available to the Christian community in Japan (see https://L4JP.com), as well as help I’ve given to ministries individually, all came about after seeing the needs firsthand. And I would not have known that Japan Harvest needed a designer if I hadn’t been here!

My appeal

Perhaps you’re already in Japan (most readers of Japan Harvest are) and doing people ministry, but my personal journey of discovery resonates with you because God built you more for logistics. Don’t let missionary stereotypes deter you from filling gaps using your gifts, solving nuts-and-bolts problems for others, or even shifting your primary focus if appropriate.

Or perhaps you have a friend or relative back home who came to mind while you read this, thinking that they might have shown an interest in missions but never pursued it because they are a techie, not a preacher. Encourage them to pray about whether their interest is actually a call. Missions is a multifaceted ministry with many needs on the team. When we pray for more workers in the harvest, let’s not just think of those handling the grain but also those who can drive the cart, build an irrigation canal, or design a better sickle. The entire harvest will benefit.

1. “Logistics: The Lifeblood of Military Power,” https://www.heritage.org/military-strength-topical-essays/2019-essays/logistics-the-lifeblood-military-power (accessed Dec. 21, 2019).