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So you want to be a Missionary?The harvest is plentiful...SO YOU WANT TO BE A MISSIONARY? This teaching video has a practical down to earth script, brief enough to be incorporated in church service, youth meeting or mission weekend. It combines a wide general usefulness for churches, with mildly overt promotion for UFM featuring its personnel and fields in Brazil, Ivory Coast, Zaire, PNG, etc. while MAF, Echoes, SAMS and Action Partners get brief mention. Unlike many American accented scripts, it speaks from a British homebase viewpoint (Scots, Irish and English accents are heard), and spells out three basic steps to becoming a missionary. 1. Be informed. Preliminary field visits are encouraged. Readiness to accept food and climate differences are stressed, especially in more extreme unevangelised fields. Singleness is seen both as advantage and problem in isolated situations, while for the married different options for children's education are explored. Political unrest and possible evacuation are touched on. Language learning and cultural bonding seemed to this reviewer to be underemphasized and difficulties downplayed. 2. Contact a mission agency explains interviews and form filling, and the important role of competent, experienced go-between societies. 3. Church commendation. This section is the best; excellent and helpful in stressing local church involvement in the decision making process. Interviews with church elders explain the process of determining the Lord's call for the couple concerned, and swinging the whole congregation behind sending and support. Michael Griffiths, Guildford© Evangelicals Now - September 2001 |