What Skills Are Required for a Pastor to Be an Effective Missionary?

What skills are required for a pastor to be an effective missionary?

When we think about skills, there are perhaps specific things that are required depending on the field. There may be a need to learn a language. There may be a need to learn two or three languages, and to understand how language is formed.  There might be some skills that have to do with cross-cultural communication or, depending on the field, some business skills that need to be cultivated and developed.

I think more than a skill though is a kind of cast of mind and heart, and it has to be a a cast of mind and heart that is is driven, that is persistent to accomplish this great end. Those are specific things that are necessary for missionaries. But of course the the main things that are required are the things that are required for any pastor. He needs to be able to handle God's word, he needs to be able to understand people, he needs to understand theology and its broad sweeps and in its particulars. He needs to understand the history of the church to avoid error and to understand better the situation that the Lord has placed him in.

So those are things that are necessary for anyone who would work in ordained ministry, but there is something to the man who leaves everything behind and goes to to particularly some of the most hard-to-reach places. He needs to be a man who is is determined, determined despite any obstacles to obey God's call and to preach Christ where He hasn't been named.