Deef's Net

I was reading through a letter late last night from an Assemblies of God missionary family raising support to go overseas. The next letter on my list was from a fundamental Baptist KJV-only missionary family, also raising support to go overseas.

It struck me how similar they were. One calls the process itineration, the other deputation. But they’re doing the exact same thing — visiting lots of churches, building up a base of support so that they’re not alone when they go overseas. Contrast how parachurches raise their support (mostly through individuals, rather than churches, and in just 1-4 geographic areas*), and they look all the more similar.

And yet they were sooooo different as well. Only one of these letters was going to talk about their daughter being prophesied over. Only one of these letters was going to have everyone (kids included) dressed in suits (with ties for the guys) for the family picture in the letter. Even the tone of the writing differed quite a bit — one is exuberant, the other controlled.

As it turned out, neither of them happened to quote scripture directly in these two letters, but you can be very sure that they would not have been using anything resembling the same translation.

Both of them are bringing the gospel to places that need it desperately. One to Europe, one to a Muslim -stan country. And while their particulars differ quite a bit, it’s the same gospel being preached at its fundamentals, so I’m happy to send letters for both of them.

* If you’re wondering, most parachurch missionary mailing lists have people in up to four clumps (as applicable):

1. Where they are while raising support (e.g. the college they attended).
2. Where he grew up.
3. Where she grew up.
4. Where they’re going.

They usually don’t travel much while raising support. The lists will spread out over time as people move, and especially as the missionaries themselves move, such that #1 and #4 change.

Denomination-sent missionaries, by contrast, will usually also have supporting churches that are spread out around the country, or at least the region. I haven’t really noticed whether or not there are individual families included around these churches, or if it’s just the churches themselves.

I haven’t done a scientific analysis of any of this — it’s based on eyeballing mailing lists and names as I’m printing and stamping them. So I could be making it up. But it seems reasonable, and fits what I’ve seen so far.