When missionaries visit their supporting churches, both sides often miss a deeper opportunity, writes Brittany Bruns on the EFCA Blog. Drawing on her own experience as a former overseas missionary, Bruns describes the familiar rhythm of the visit: dinner with the host family, a two-minute update in each Sunday service, prayer from the platform, and a stint greeting congregants in the lobby beside a stack of prayer cards. By Sunday evening, she and her husband were driving back to the airport, wondering whether the rest of the congregation had genuinely connected with the mission they were supporting.
Bruns argues that churches could restructure missionary visits to foster significantly deeper engagement. Rather than limiting missionaries to a brief platform appearance, she suggests inviting them into small group settings where they can speak more candidly about the realities of cross-cultural work — the slow labour of building trust, the setbacks, and the everyday rhythms that never make it into a two-minute update. The post also raises the possibility of equipping visiting missionaries to teach a short series or lead a workshop, turning a routine visit into a formation opportunity for the whole congregation.
The reflection challenges a longstanding pattern in North American evangelical church life, where missionary visits are often treated as a scheduling obligation rather than a discipleship moment. Bruns' piece has resonated with the EFCA community and raises questions that extend beyond any single denomination: how can the global church structure its relationships so that missionaries are not merely report-givers but active contributors to the sending church's own spiritual growth and mission awareness?
Source: Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) — blogs.efca.org
