On the Deputation Trail

Tomorrow Sarah and I will be rising early, packing our van, bundling our two little children into that van, and taking off for a long “road trip” that will take us from our home in Canada to Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. This will be the first extended trip that we have made as a family since our little boy, John, was born. These extended trips are part and parcel of the process that we call deputation.

Deputation is essentially the process that most missionaries go through in seeking to raise the financial support that is needed to minister in the field to which they are going. This is the essence of deputation, but if a missionary looks at it from this perspective alone, I believe he will quickly become disheartened.

There are several difficulties that a missionary on deputation encounters. First, the traveling itself can be hard on a family. Sometimes trips to churches will find us traveling as much as ten hours in a day. The driver has to balance his desire to arrive at the church at the right time with the need of children to get out and run around! Second, deputation can be hard on the family physically. In traveling from church to church the family is exposed to every sickness that is out there, it sometimes seems! There is also very little physical activity and much food! I returned from a trip a couple of months ago to realize that I was weighing over 230. This was not all muscle! Thankfully, I have had a little more time at home lately with the birth of John and was able to eat a little healthier and get some exercise. I dropped over twenty pounds and feel great right now. I can expect my weight to go up a little over the next several months, but hopefully not too high! I know that some missionaries have gained over fifty pounds on deputation. Third, deputation almost always takes a missionary longer than they expected. A missionary hears stories of how some missionaries raise their support in less than a year and will sometimes secretly expect that it will not take them a whole lot longer than that. Then as months go by and the support level does not jump as quickly as they had hoped, there is a temptation to be discouraged. This is one of the reasons why a missionary should not look at deputation as a just a support-raising venture. Fourth, the family often has to sacrifice their privacy for extended periods of time. They essentially live under scrutiny for weeks at a time, not just because of staying in other people’s homes, but also because of simply being in a place of prominence in church after church and feel as though they have to be nigh unto perfect or their support may not come in!

Now if the deputation was just about the last paragraph, it would be pretty harsh! Thankfully there is a lot more to it. First (maybe not in importance), deputation does allow you to raise the money needed to work on the field. When the process is done, the missionary can devote his time to the work of the ministry, rather than having to spend most of it working in secular employment. Second, it solicits the prayers of God’s people. God accomplishes so much through the prayers of His people that we will never understand this side of Heaven. A missionary is powerless without prayer in his own life, and is incredibly aided by the prayers of others on his behalf. Third, it enables you to meet many fine men and women of God that you would not have otherwise been able to meet. Many of these people will continue in contact with you. God often uses these people to encourage you by their sending an email at a key time, just letting you know they still think and pray for you. Fourth, it allows you to regularly and publicly emphasize the needs and opportunities of the field that God has burdened you for. Fifth, deputation gives you opportunity to encourage and challenge people for the great cause of world evangelism. I often pray that God might in some way use me to encourage someone to give their life to missions. Sixth, since you are “in the spotlight” at churches it gives the incomparable privilege to show Christ as the only all-satisfying Treasure of life.

These are a few of the challenges and privileges of deputation. It has been a testing and rewarding experience in which God has shown Himself incredibly gracious over and over again. That being said, I don’t want to do the deputation thing forever! :-) It is not the end, just a means to it.