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Mind the Gaps: Engaging the Church in Missionary Care
Mind the Gaps is intended to empower churches, to complement and enhance the efforts of the member care department of mission sending agencies, and to reduce the attrition rate of missionaries by encouraging them and helping to develop their resilience. It provides a distinct contribution to existing missionary care literature because it is collaboratively written by an experienced and practicing missionary care team from a local church. They share their experiences, both positive and negative, and relate real stories and lessons learned. By minding the gaps in missionary care, the church can create a system of proactive care, which will ensure lasting engagement of both the church and the agency into the lives of our precious and beloved missionaries.
249 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 8, 2017
15 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
David J. Wilson
2 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
David and Lorene Wilson have been married since 1992 and are partners in ministry. Dave has a MDiv from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and a DMin from Campbell University. Lorene has a BA in Religious Studies from Mercer University and AAS in Office Administration from Clayton State College. They have served together in local churches for over 20 years located in GA, NC and CA where Dave was Mission Pastor. In 2016 he became the Director of Church Engagement at Avant Ministries in Kansas City, MO.
They have have traveled to over 90 countries combined with ministry experience in short term mission trips, as well as church based missionary care and mobilization. They are passionate about providing resources that will encourage and equip the church, agency and missionary to partner together in fulfilling the Great Commission.
You can contact us at threestrandpartners@gmail.com
David and Lorene Wilson have been married since 1992 and are partners in ministry. Dave has a MDiv from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and a DMin from Campbell University. Lorene has a BA in Religious Studies from Mercer University and AAS in Office Administration from Clayton State College. They have served together in local churches for over 20 years located in GA, NC and CA where Dave was Mission Pastor. In 2016 he became the Director of Church Engagement at Avant Ministries in Kansas City, MO.
They have have traveled to over 90 countries combined with ministry experience in short term mission trips, as well as church based missionary care and mobilization. They are passionate about providing resources that will encourage and equip the church, agency and missionary to partner together in fulfilling the Great Commission.
You can contact us at threestrandpartners@gmail.com
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 1, 2019
Good book for how to care for missionaries
Helpful book for a church to think through practical ways to care for and build up missionaries. Also, I highly recommend the chapters on missionary transitions and coming home as these are not often thought about.
However, the secular psychology principles used to define missionary readiness and care dropped it down one star for me.
Helpful book for a church to think through practical ways to care for and build up missionaries. Also, I highly recommend the chapters on missionary transitions and coming home as these are not often thought about.
However, the secular psychology principles used to define missionary readiness and care dropped it down one star for me.
October 20, 2025
Found it a little hard to get the flow of this book-- it's a handful of articles written by different individuals, and probably could've used a bit more editing. But it has a lot of great thoughts on caring for missionaries and making missional work more central within the church culture.
March 26, 2020
Immensely practical. A must read for anyone working with missionaries from a local church.
February 21, 2025
Incredibly thorough book on missionary care! It felt a bit “in the weeds” at times, but overall contained tremendously valuable insight!
August 31, 2015
Trinity Church in Redlands, California, put together a Missionary Care Team which has been developing a system of proactive care for their missionary families since 2008. In this book they share their firsthand accounts along with results of their research on missionary care. Mind the Gaps is designed to equip your church with tools to create your own system of proactive care and reduce burnout and attrition.
A few things about this book are unusual. It’s written by a committee, rather than a single author. It’s written by and for church leaders, rather than from industry professionals. It also covers a broad array of related topics: everything from recruiting a missionary care team and establishing a philosophy of ministry to predicting missionary success and evaluating mission agencies, as well as more traditional topics of missionary care such as meeting spiritual, emotional, and practical needs and walking with missionaries through transitions.
The result is a bit overwhelming, and maybe especially for churches that don’t have a mission pastor and a strong mission committee like Trinity’s. For example, there are a lot of sentences that include phrases like "Your job as a missionary care team is..." when relatively few churches would have such a thing as a missionary care team, even if they have a missionary care effort. And of course many churches have neither and are trying to get started.
On the other hand, the book covers so much ground and provides so many practical tips that even if your church has a well-developed strategy for missionary care, there’s probably something here that you can use.
So, four stars for an ambitious attempt at filling a "gap," but I think I'm going to have to give disclaimers when I recommend it.
A few things about this book are unusual. It’s written by a committee, rather than a single author. It’s written by and for church leaders, rather than from industry professionals. It also covers a broad array of related topics: everything from recruiting a missionary care team and establishing a philosophy of ministry to predicting missionary success and evaluating mission agencies, as well as more traditional topics of missionary care such as meeting spiritual, emotional, and practical needs and walking with missionaries through transitions.
The result is a bit overwhelming, and maybe especially for churches that don’t have a mission pastor and a strong mission committee like Trinity’s. For example, there are a lot of sentences that include phrases like "Your job as a missionary care team is..." when relatively few churches would have such a thing as a missionary care team, even if they have a missionary care effort. And of course many churches have neither and are trying to get started.
On the other hand, the book covers so much ground and provides so many practical tips that even if your church has a well-developed strategy for missionary care, there’s probably something here that you can use.
So, four stars for an ambitious attempt at filling a "gap," but I think I'm going to have to give disclaimers when I recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews