The Surprising Ways the Church is Failing Millennial Missionaries

If you’d asked me a few years ago, this wouldn’t have been the hill I staked my flag on. Hell, I’m not even sure I want to now….aren’t Millennials kinda (pardon my French)…assholes?

But every day I see beautiful, passionate, world changers torn to bits by the machine that is missions, limping home disillusioned, cynical, and shipwrecked from their faith. It makes me wonder if this churning beast we’ve created has gone awry and our youth are just collateral damage, expendable because there’s always another to replace them.

I recently sorted through the data of my Millennials on a Mission Survey which over 119 millennial missionaries responded to. As I read through their stories of heartache, their desires, their humility, and their sense of being forgotten and overlooked, I discovered that maybe we’ve stereotyped this generation all wrong.

What I read truly saddened me because it made me realize how deeply we are failing this generation of global workers. If something doesn’t change soon, there may be nothing left to chew up and spit out as one young missionary said, like “cannon fodder.”

You know me, my entire manifesto is about advocating for more inner healing and each of us doing our work prior to and on the field, but what startled me was that Millennials wanted this too. They wanted personal growth, they wanted mentoring, they wanted to work on themselves so they could be more healthy to empower nations versus take from them.

What came through these voices was not laziness, but passionate commitment, not arrogance, but a desire to be learners, not colonialist pretension, but globally minded servanthood.

It furthered my theory that this generation will carry the torch of a new wave of missions. And they must. They have to. Because our old ways are just plain wrong and have to die.

Only they probably won’t call themselves “missionaries.” That term is “too loaded.”

As I read through the responses some patterns began to form that differentiate the Millennial generation from previous ones:

1. They have a global mindset (due to technology) – Their focus is on raising up leaders in host culture for long term sustainability
2. They don’t want to be called “a missionary”– They are running nonprofits and doing social justice
3. They are more relational vs. project oriented – Time spent with locals as friends not as a “job”
4. More Business as Missions/Social Justice vs. preaching– Meet physical not just spiritual needs
5. Less martyrdom & workaholism – More focused on self-care, preventing burnout, being healthy. Focus on family relationships over ministry
6. Want shorter term commitments – Preferred length 3-4 years or 4-6 years
7. They want to present selves authentically – Don’t want to be the missionary “superhero“- Want to be able to share their challenges without being judged for them
8. They want to be “heard” and “understood”
9. They want input in the vision, strategy and decision making – Not just “told” what to do
10. They want to be life-long learners

Here are further fascinating results of the survey:

Have you ever been discriminated against because of your age?

Out of 116 respondents 54 reported having felt discriminated against because of their age.

Of note was also that MANY single women missionaries felt discriminated on all fronts—age, marital status, and gender both by older peers and nationals in their host country. This leads me to believe we need greater training and support for women embarking on the field. (Shocking! Women in leadership need to be championed- insert sarcasm;)

“I have been told I am too young and unexperienced and I need to just trust the leadership.”

“I think a common misconception is that my age equals my life experience and capabilities, I have had people refuse to work with me because of my age.”

“Sometimes I think the older generation is happy to give us responsibility but not authority.”

“The founder/president of the organization I served with often ignored/didn’t engage me in conversation when I was at meetings or training at headquarters. She discussed and debated with older adults but just smiled at me as if she were my grandmother and I a small child with little understanding.”

“I have been overseas for 11 years, yet older missionaries still question me/my motives/why I do things the way that I do”

“My age group, for all our passion and gifting, are overlooked. We are the cannon fodder to be disposed of for the benefit of the managers who are just counting the days until they retire feeling fulfilled in their “mission.”

How do you think you view missions differently than prior generations?

“I think that, for better or for worse, there’s a greater focus on alleviating human suffering than on theological teaching. At best, this is a living integration of truth with action, and a genuine outpouring of pure and undefiled religion. At worst, it is an attempt to make up for the guilt of living privileged lives and a lash-back against strict conservative church upbringing.”

“I think I view it more holistically. It’s not about going in and asserting our agenda or our way. As millennials we crave more mentoring & support to prevent burnout. I think the older generations just went out and did it and got on with it. I think our generation thinks more sustainability both for our ministries and for our own selves.”

“We have chosen to put our family and mental health needs first before the ‘mission’ whereas previous generations sacrificed everything, sometimes to the detriment of their children.”

“I believe the church is ill-equipped to support missionaries and it really takes a strong sending agency with a supportive church in order for an M to thrive overseas. Also, it seemed M’s long ago focused on church planting movements so much, but I believe there are lots more opportunities out there.”

“If I’m living in a foreign country, I want to actually live there, not in a sheltered compound all the time. I want local friends to come over, I want to walk the streets and meet neighbors.”

“When I first arrived on the field I get a lot of pressure to work 24/7 and never take a break. Whereas, to be long term thriving, more balance is needed. First time round, I burned out in 8 months time.”

Offering these services is even more essential because research shows that younger generations are in fact at a higher risk for burnout.

“Younger workers reported higher emotional exhaustion higher
depersonalization, and lower personal accomplishment. This finding is consistent with other burnout research across various populations (Maslach et al., 2001), and it indicates that young people in service fields are at greater risk for developing burnout.
Younger aid workers/missionaries tended to report higher burnout scores, and these new workers could benefit from specific training and attention.”  -Cynthia Eriksson, Mental Health, Religion & Culture-