I don’t know about you, but retirement is one area I have rarely heard talked about in missionary or YWAM circles. I have not heard or seen a Youth With A Mission pension plan, and as far as I know there is no teaching going around YWAM about the issue.

There are three ways to look at your time in Christian missions, and they will determine how you look at your retirement from missions.

1. You are in Missions short term 
2. Being a “Career” Missionary
3. You are a life time missionary

Short Term Missionary

Most people who join missions in Youth With A Mission fall into the first category and do so for a short amount of time. By short amount of time I’m talking about under 10-years. 10-years may seem like a long time, but when the average person joins YWAM in thier late teens or early 20s there is still plenty of time to save and plan for retirement after their time in missions is complete.

Normally we don’t separate the last two, “career” vs “life time” missionary, but when we are talking about retirement then the two need to be separated.

Career Missionary

The career missionary treats their time in missions like any other career when it come to planning for retirement. The retired missionary may receive some pension or other payments from the government’s of their “home” country, but it is hard to rely on that to provide enough income to live from.  They will need to be saving money and have their own retirement savings plan (read more here). In the case of missionaries like YWAMers who are responsible for raising their own support and sponsorship they will need to be raising money over and above their every day living expenses to save for retirement.

Most missionaries returning to their “home” country will also not have a house or residence to return to. They will need to look at where they will live and how they will pay for where they live. This could mean when they return purchasing a house, building a house, renting or leasing a house or entering a retirement community. Some missions agencies or churches have communities for retired missionaries or ministers that could be an option, but many including YWAM do not. (There’s an idea for a ministry in YWAM as we are celebrating our 50-year anniversary as a mission and many of our founders and members are aging …)

Life Time Missionary

The “Life Time Missionary” differs from the “career” missionary  in that they have no plan to retire, but rather they plan to continue in missions until they die. This is the model that the disciples and apostles followed.

As the lifer approaches retirement they have a few options to consider:

1. Remain the the country they have worked in
   1. Stay in the same role
   2. Start a new role
2. Move to a new country and begin a new role
3. Move back to the country they were sent from to start in a new role

Any one of these options requires the missionary to continue with their support raising efforts. All but one of them could also mean more training. Some of the new roles that are often undertaken by missionaries who want to continue in ministry but change roles are:

1. Teacher
2. Preacher
3. Pastor
4. Administration
5. Promotions / Support Raising
6. Mission Building
7. Writing
8. etc.

The possibilities really are endless for how the missionary chooses to spend their “retirement” years.

The Wasted Retirement Years

Here’s a short video (3:00) by John Piper about what he sees as the “waste” of spending our retirement years just “taking it easy”.

I’m still a good 30+ years away from reaching that retirement age, but the question is there, how will I choose spend my retirement years …

Hudson Taylor is often referred to as the father of modern missions. He was a missionary to China for 51 years, and founded the China Inland Mission (CIM) in 1865, which is now the modern day OMF International.

CIM brought over 800 missionaries into China, began 125 schools, established more than 300 mission stations in China and involved more than 500 locals in the work. His work in China was directly responsible for around 18,000 Christian conversions in China.

Unlike many missionaries of the time Hudson Taylor was very sensitive to the Chinese culture, while remaining zealous in his desire to bring the message of Christ to the people. He adapted wearing Chinese clothing to better affirm and relate to the people he was ministering and evangelising to.

CIM was non-denominational and accepted members from all Protestant groups. The only requirement for the recruits was that there was soundness in their faith in what they called the “fundamental truths”.

China Inland Mission was very unique in that it accepted individuals from many different vocations, which very much challenged the normal practice at the time. CIM accepted people from the working class, single women and many multinationals into the mission, which was almost unheard of at the time.

Reading about China Inland Mission reminds me a lot of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), the Christian missions group that I have been working in for the last 12 years. Hudson Taylor’s work with CIM has been talked about and featured a lot in Youth With A Mission (YWAM), but until now I have not taken the opportunity to read more about the man, or his work with CIM.

Like CIM Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is a multi-national and multi-denominational organisation that includes missionaries from nearly every country in the world. YWAM accepts people from every vocation and educational background, as long as their faith is built on the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also like CIM the missionaries working with YWAM are called to live by faith, relying on God and His provision through His people to do the work that they are called to.

As a father of modern missions there is a lot to learn from reading what was written by Hudson Taylor.

I hope that you enjoy his book, “A Retrospect”.

You can download the book A RETROSPECT by J. Hudson Taylor here.

It is a question that I hear from a lot of people; “Can I be a missionary?“. The simple answer is “Yes”, but let’s look into it a bit more than that …

God has created everyone with a plan and a purpose. None of us was an accident in God’s eyes, even though some of us may have been “unexpected” to our parents.

One of the greatest challenges I have found in my life was to discover what God’s plan and purpose is for my life. The beauty of it is that the discovery is an ongoing discovery, so if we stuff up a few times we can usually still get back on track. One step on my journey to find God’s plan for my life was a Discipleship Training School with Youth With a Mission. It was on my YWAM DTS that I feel God started to reveal to me more of His plan for my life.

Although we can all be missionaries, God does not want us we all to be missionaries.

I had a great e-mail conversation a few months back with a good friend in Australia.  He is not a missionary and knows that being a missionary is not what God has called him to. If he were to choose to become a missionary, without God’s go ahead, then he would be walking outside of God’s will for his life, even if his plan was to do good and serve God in that way.

I remember a few years ago having another discussion with a different friend. He was saying that he felt God didn’t have a call on his life because he didn’t feel a call to ministry or missions. It’s a very damaging thing to think that because God doesn’t call you to missions that He doesn’t have a plan for your life. God will use you and call you to be  a witness for Him everywhere He leads you, but you need to be obedient to that call, and seek Him about it.

The best way that we can honour God is to be obedient to His call on our lives, even if that call does not appear to be very “spiritual” or if we have no involvement in missions or ministry. God doesn’t want us to “do good things”, He wants us to be obedient to Him.

But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. (1 Sam. 15:22 NIV)

So regardless of what we do, or how “spiritual” what we do appears, we need to be doing it in obedience to God’s will and call for our lives. That is how we will bring honour and glory to God, and that is how we will have the greatest impact of the world around us for God’s glory.

* For the purpose of this article I am referring to the Levitical call of a full time missionary, being reliant on donations and support to meet our day to day needs. Setting ourselves aside to work full-time in service of God and the Church. Read a bit more about what I mean by this here.