In my continuing reading and research for Unhurried Time, I came across this word of counsel from David Bosch in his A Spirituality of the Road (a great little book on themes of spirituality and mission):
“Because the ambassador’s role is so crucial he has to undergo a very careful preparation. It therefore amazes me that many churches and missionary agencies seem to think that the preparation of the missionary is not so terribly important. If he has received a call, that is all that matters. He should go off to the mission field as soon as possible, especially in view of the chronic shortages in personnel and the urgency of the missionary task. Yet, from the New Testament record, one gets a different impression. After Paul’s conversion, he disappeared into Arabia, where he spent three years. We know little of that period in his life, but on the basis of the New Testament evidence we may surmise that those years were essentially years of preparation. Paul then spent a short period in Jerusalem and subsequently many more years in his home town of Tarsus. It was only after some fifteen or more years of relative obscurity that he became the missionary we know. In fact, our Lord’s own earthly life reveals the same emphasis on preparation. He spent about thirty years in obscurity, while His public ministry lasted three years, at the most.
I often wonder whether our modern mission work would not have proved itself to be vastly different if we had laid a corresponding emphasis on preparation. I am not thinking of a theological preparation only—in Paul’s case he already had that before his conversion!—but also of what we may call a psychological or missionary formation.” (Bosch, David J.. A Spirituality of the Road. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1979, p. 43.)
How long does it really take to prepare a leader for the ministry to which God calls him or her? Something to think about…
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That is a good question to reflect on and it stimulates this question in me, “what is God doing in me now and how am I cooperating with Him in my formation as a Leader.?”