Whether it was my 80 year old former coach asking me when I was going to get a “real job”? Or my friend, who after I explained what we do, inquired, “Is your job kind of like getting paid to travel?”, we can be sure that there are some misconceptions about what goers actually do. As a goer myself, I hope I can give a little window into what we actually do for those on the outside.
The Goal
First things first: Why do we go? The simple answer is to bring the good news of Jesus to people who haven’t heard it yet. In America, if you wanted to know about Jesus, you could go to any number of churches in the typical American town. In the places that we go, people can be born, live their life, and die never having an opportunity to hear the good news that we believe to be true.
Evangelism + Discipleship + The Church
If the goal is bringing the good news to these people, what does that look like practically? Here’s a brief summary: We move to a city and set up our lives there. We meet people through activities, chance encounters and just plain talking to strangers. With the people that don’t think we are too weird, we begin to build relationships. And as we gain trust with these people, we share the most important thing about us: our relationship with Jesus Christ. As we continue to connect, we share more of this good news. This is called evangelism. Of the people we share with, some people choose to believe our message. We invest more time in those who believe, helping them to understand what a relationship with God is all about and teaching them to learn from the Bible and from God’s spirit. This is called discipleship. Then, when there are several people being discipled by our team, we encourage them to meet together to grow and share their lives. This is called the church. So practically if you asked me what I do, I could answer: I evangelize, I disciple, and I help bring together the church in my city overseas.
Crucial Pieces
But the thing is, it’s not that simple. There are a couple more really crucial pieces to our jobs that make everything I just mentioned possible.
- Language Learning
The countries and cities in which we live don’t employ English as people’s first language. Some people will speak English as a second language, but many people will not. In order for us to do our work well, we must spend a significant amount of time learning the language that the people around us understand best. This not only helps us to communicate spiritual things better, but it also helps us do a lot of really necessary everyday things like buy groceries, direct a taxi driver, or call a repairman.
- Team Development
When we move overseas, we give up some of our closeness with friends, family (yes, parents are painfully aware of this part). This closeness of community needs to be replaced with something. As a team of goers, we work really hard to not only be co-workers, but also be a community with healthy relationships. If our team isn’t healthy, we won’t be able to start healthy church communities. So part of our job is actually spent intentionally team building and strengthening.
- Support Raising
Lastly comes support raising. The churches with which we are associated in America are very generous to help fund us in part, but the majority of the money that pays our paycheck, benefits, and plane flights comes from individual donors. In order for us to develop a group of donors that are willing to support what we do, it takes time to share individually with people and keep them updated with how things are going.
Being a goer is definitely a unique job, but it one with real responsibilities, daily challenges and a goal that is eternally significant. So we aren’t just professional travelers and we do have a real job! Hopefully this post can help you understand what our life looks like just a little bit more.
Parents of Goers 