Training vs. Education

My last post was about missionary training and how much (or little) agencies dedicate time and money toward cross-cultural preparedness. Unless you are with the IMB the chances are you have had little to no training at all for the task of going overseas and doing ministry as a church planter, educator or administrator in a cross-cultural context. Most organizations accept missionary candidates through the old grid of Bible College or seminary. If these people are mission majors it is assumed they have the knowledge necessary to do ministry overseas. The problem is, there is a big difference between education and training.

I am a trainer. In spite of my brother’s protest that “you train horses, you educate people” I maintain my stance as one who trains people for cross-cultural work, not just educate (though that is a by-product of my training). How do I train people for cross-cultural work?

Research – There is no way a person can effectively communicate the message of Christ until they understand the people who are the recipients of that message. You cannot give the answers until you know the questions…you cannot know the questions until you know how to do quantitative research. I teach/train/coach people on what questions they should be even looking for in the context of a particular people group. You can teach ethnography, but when you train people in ethnography it becomes an integral part of missionary preparedness, not just a subject.

Meaning - All research is irrelevant until you answer the most profound question of all -- So What? So what if the people believe in having more than one wife or go to the witchdoctor or astrologer for guidance? Interesting that they have a statue of Ganesh in their house or give an offering of fruit to their ancestors each morning, but so what? If a missionary can’t distinguish between what people do from why people do what they do, they will hardly be effective in their service for Christ. You can educate people on what people do, but it is through coaching and training people discover the why, which answers the so what.

Educators know that much of what they do is filler, as Allan Bloom wrote about 20 years ago.

"...colleges do not have enough to teach their students, not enough to justify keeping them four years, probably not even three years. If the focus is careers, there is hardly one specialty, outside the hardest of the hard natural sciences, which requires more than two years of preparatory training prior to graduate studies. The rest is just wasted time, or a period of ripening until the students are old enough for graduate studies. For many graduate careers, even less is really necessary. It is amazing how many undergraduates are poking around for courses to take, without any plan or question to ask, just filling up their college years."



Missionary sending organizations that depend on Bible Colleges or seminaries to prepare people for rigors of cross-cultural ministry need to learn the difference between education and training. If we seriously want to reach our world with the Gospel we need to put more time and money into missionary training.