Have you ever woken up in a panic on the floor with people gathered around you? I have. It happened while I was a 25-year-old missionary in East Africa. One moment I had been sitting happily with friends eating ice cream; the next I passed out and began seizing. From that moment, my life would change forever.
I was rushed to a hospital where I would stay for the next week. The doctors ran seemingly every test possible to diagnose the problem, but they found nothing. That’s when a nurse from my missions organization came and sat at the foot of my bed. I’ll never forget her words when she said, “Bradley, there are no physical issues, but mentally and emotionally you are very unhealthy…and you need help.”
What is my first word of advice about how you should prepare emotionally and spiritually before serving overseas?
Don’t be like me.
Embrace Spiritual Formation as Central in God’s Mission
I’ve now had fifteen years to make sense of what happened. A lot was going on with that young man! But the source of all the dysfunction was this: I had not embraced spiritual formation as central to God’s mission.
By spiritual formation, I mean the journey of being conformed to the image of Christ for the glory of God and the sake of others (Romans 8:29). This is more than merely practicing the spiritual disciplines, though disciplines such as Bible reading and prayer are vital preparation for serving overseas. Spiritual formation is matching our deepest desire with Jesus’s—that we would grow up into all he created us to be (Philippians 3:10–14).
As much as I loved Jesus as an aspiring missionary, spiritual formation was not my deepest desire. Instead, I was motivated by an incomplete definition of missions. I understood missions only as what God wanted to do through me to bring the nations into obedience to Christ. What I realize now is that missions is also what God wanted to do in me to bring me into conformity to Christ.
Pursue Holistic Health as Essential to Missionary Service
The first step toward “embracing” what I’ve described above requires understanding yourself as an embodied soul. Having been created in the image of God, you are profoundly complex. Think of yourself like an iceberg. It’s easy to be aware of what’s above the surface. But it’s much harder to be attuned to the mysterious parts of you underneath the surface—things like motives, desires, and wounds.
Missions naturally activates you in such a way that slowing down to care for your soul can feel like a waste of time. Here’s the thing though: Jesus didn’t just die to purchase what’s on the surface of your life; he died to purchase what’s underneath the surface too, and he aims to redeem all of it.
Start by Slowing Down
Therefore, the first task of spiritual formation, according to leaders like Dallas Willard, Alan Fadling, and John Mark Comer, is simply slowing down. Can you be still? Many aspiring missionaries cannot. And yet practicing silence and solitude is foundational in maintaining your soul.
You’ll find that when you slow down, what often rises from the soul is expressed physically and emotionally. For example, you may notice that you feel a heaviness in your shoulders or a gnawing sense of frustration. Don’t suppress this as unspiritual. Remember, you are an embodied soul.
Consider Counseling
What I’m getting at is that physical and emotional health is bound up with spiritual health. When I was released from the hospital, I spent the next month in intensive counseling before returning to the field. It was there that I discovered I had carried clinical depression and anxiety, spanning back to my experience of childhood trauma. It wasn’t just the trials of the mission field that had broken my body. It was a suffering soul, neglected under the surface.
Can you be still? Many aspiring missionaries cannot.
Of course, you may not have such baggage in your story. But, in a fallen world, all of us experience suffering that takes root in our bodies. And certainly, everyone who serves overseas will experience loss and the grief that attends it. Therefore, wise preparation involves awareness and compassion for our suffering and weakness, and learning to navigate the many emotions and physical symptoms of grief and stress.
How exactly do you do that? Here’s my most common suggestion: get counseling. Most people will only turn to counseling when in crisis, but we all could benefit from it. If nothing else, it will allow you to establish a relationship with a Christian counselor to whom you can turn when you inevitably need support on the field.
There’s much more I could say here. Practice sabbath. Eat, sleep, and exercise well. Make room for deep friendship. Learn to lament. But the overall principle is this: don’t be like me. Christ doesn’t need your service, but he loves you right where you are, so you can take steps now to pursue holistic health as essential to your missionary service.
Bradley Bell is the executive director of Upstream Equipping and Publishing. He has more than 20 years of experience as a missionary, pastor, and missiologist. He’s the author of The Sending Church Defined and writes at Broken Missiology. Bradley and his wife, Katie, have four daughters and live in Louisville, Kentucky.
