In this post, we’ll talk about reasons why ethnocentrism can be extremely damaging to your vision to multiply, and practical ways to address ethnocentrism.

Do I Have to be the Main Character?

As we mentioned in the first post, many past and even current missionaries can possess an ethnocentric or paternalistic view when they go to the field, perhaps without realizing it. Paternalism is the assumption that missionaries have superior knowledge, experience, and skills than local Christians and exert control over the local church and ministries. This can lead to a variety of issues that keep the ministry from bearing fruit that we’ll explore further in this post.

Part of this paternalistic/ethnocentric view that we as Western missionaries carry is the belief that we should be the “main character” in the ministry. Westerners have a higher cultural value of individualism, which emphasizes their own goals, rights, and decisions. It’s a deeply personal thing to feel called to the mission field, and most missionaries are very aware of the lack of access to the gospel in the fields where they serve. So naturally, we feel and envision that we are the ones responsible for bringing the gospel to these needy people and lands of darkness. We buy into the myth of the “Western savior” that is the hope and light for the unreached.

It’s an awesome privilege to be called to serve among the unreached. We know missionaries sacrifice much to respond to this calling out of many good motivations.

But Jesus is the Savior of the world, not us.

We get to be his ambassadors and get to join with him in the great work of seeing all peoples worship Jesus. God is moving and working in the countries where we are sent, likely through local or near-culture believers in that country or in the region.

We believe the most effective role for the majority of cross-cultural missionaries is to play a Barnabas role – empowering, coaching, and supporting local believers to multiply. In our view, this applies even beyond CPM ministry but to many other types of ministries, whether orphan care, theological education, or justice ministries. Western paternalism in missions has almost always led to negative consequences or at least non-lasting ministries, and we believe it grieves the Lord to see these same mistakes repeated over and over again.

Being the “main character” or having a Western savior perspective is one of the main barriers that keeps missionaries from having their most effective role as a Barnabas, therefore sabotaging their opportunity to be a part of what God is doing.

Baptism Through Binoculars

When we were first learning about movements, we kept hearing about this outsider role of being a Barnabas. It was a difficult mental shift to go from, “I’m going to be the one sharing, leading, and baptizing,” to “I am going to support local believers from the background.”

It’s not that movement practitioners don’t share and disciple – we absolutely do. We must be in the harvest, both out of obedience and to have the credibility to train others.

But we have to understand that our main effectiveness will be in serving and coaching local believers. As we investigated movements, we looked at about 50 case studies of how they started across the world. In nearly all of them, the outsider was partnering with a local or near-culture believer to catalyze multiplication. It was hard to argue with the pattern: if we wanted to see multiplication, this was the role we needed to play.

One story we heard from a movement practitioner really drove home the simultaneous sacrifice and joy of being a Barnabas. This practitioner served in a Muslim context with high persecution. If local Muslims that were interested in learning about Jesus were seen meeting with this white, American, Christian missionary, it would draw the attention of local Muslims and result in significant persecution.

So the outsider practitioner met with a few local, near-culture believers in a more neutral context and cast vision for multiplication, trained them in Biblical principles and practical tools, and encouraged them to go into these local Muslim villages where they would draw much less attention than he did, while coaching them from afar.

As these local believers began sharing and starting groups, he heard the reports and rejoiced but never got to meet the new believers face to face that he had indirectly invested in, prayed for, and loved deeply.

When it came time to baptize many of the new believers in the ocean, his local partner shared with him the time and place but told him, “Please don’t come to the baptism or it will attract unnecessary attention.” Instead, he got a boat about a mile down from the location of the baptism, and through binoculars, wept as he witnessed the celebration of new life among an unreached people group that he would not meet personally until heaven.

Are we willing to make this sacrifice? To take a background role in order that more people would hear and receive the gospel? 

To not be the main character?

How Ethnocentrism Will Sabotage Your Vision To Multiply

We believe that ethnocentrism can directly undermine your vision to multiply. We specifically chose the word “sabotage” because ethnocentrism is often a blind spot for workers, unlike more obvious challenges like team conflict or lack of funding.

These are some ways that ethnocentrism and paternalism can be a major barrier in your ministry:

Judgmental and Bitter Hearts: If our understanding of right and wrong, better and worse is based on our cultural perspective, many things in our host country will feel difficult. Over time, this can result in bitterness and a critical, judgmental spirit. We start to see all the ways that things can’t work in our country, that the people cannot be trusted. Those that don’t address ethnocentrism and bitterness in their hearts will often leave the field early, or start to withdraw into a cloistered missionary community where they do not interact with local people at all. For those that manage to grit it out, they will fail to thrive and eventually run out of motivation to serve.

Lack of Contextualization → Lack of Efficacy: If we believe that our cultural interpretations and expressions of obeying the Word and making disciples are the correct ones, we won’t look for contextualized expressions that might be more effective where we serve. This can apply to every aspect of ministry, from interpreting the Word, sharing the gospel, and ways that we worship. Using non-contextualized tools may attract people who are interested in our culture, but it will be difficult for them to apply tools from our context and multiply with them. We repeatedly see outsider trainers try to use a Western-created, non-contextualized training who are then bewildered when nothing works in a new context because they haven’t consulted a single local believer.

We met with the leaders of a globally well-known ministry in Thailand and asked them about their evangelism method. They told us that they shared using their organization’s tool (developed in the West) over 10,000 times in a year! But at the end of the year, it resulted in 10-15 consistent disciples joining their church. Just 0.1% of those they shared with stuck! We commended their amazing faithfulness and boldness but lamented the lack of willingness to try a more contextualized tool that might be more effective. 

Not Releasing Authority to Local Leaders: Many people understand using contextualized tools for greater effectiveness in ministry, but they still apply their ethnocentric values in evaluating local leaders. Without releasing authority to local leaders, the ministry can never fully indigenize and multiply further.

For example, in the West we might prioritize cultural values of leadership like being well-spoken, direct, and assertive. In Asia, leadership might be expressed by being more reserved, slow to speak, and having the final word. Neither of these cultural lenses are wrong, and they make sense within their own culture.

The problem is when outside missionaries, with a paternalistic approach that exerts control over local churches and ministries, fail to release authority and leadership to local leaders because of their own cultural biases. Emerging leaders may not look the same as leaders in the West, and we assume that we know best and that local leaders cannot yet be trusted. Out of a desire to make sure things are done “correctly,” we miss the opportunity to trust the Holy Spirit, empower local believers to take ownership, and encourage them to apply biblical principles in their own culture.

Overdependence on Outside Leaders and Money: Through a paternalistic perspective, we can assume that Western theology, curriculum, and resources are needed to help the struggling church among the unreached. We inadvertently create dependencies on outside leaders and resources that limit the local church and leaders from indigenizing and multiplying. 

When Helping Hurts is a well-known example of how a good desire of helping the poor by giving financial resources is actually damaging to the local people by creating over-dependency on Western resources. This type of “helping” happens across many types of ministries all over the world.

In consulting with experienced movement coaches, overreliance on outside money is a major barrier in catalyzing the multiplication of churches and disciples. Money brings different motivations and commitments, and we’ve heard of repeated instances of local partners who are driven by a salary and not a calling to make disciples. This can result in misreporting ministry results, an unwillingness to confront bad decisions from outsiders, and sometimes even direct deception in order to receive money.

There can be integrous and truly helpful ways to support disciple-making efforts among the unreached, but outsider practitioners should be very careful, thoughtful, and prayerful about anything involving outside money.

Ethnocentrism on Multicultural Teams: Increasingly, missions teams have team members from multiple different cultures and countries. They will bring in different values, communication styles, and preferences as individuals and from their cultural background.

If team leaders and team members aren’t aware of the cultural differences and have an ethnocentric view, this can lead to major conflicts that distracts you from your vision and can lead to teams fracturing. One resource for this specific situation of multi-cultural teams is Teamwork Cross-Culturally.

Barnabas Role without a Barnabas Heart: Lastly, simply playing the role of a Barnabas to train and coach local believers as an outsider does not necessarily mean that practitioners understand their own ethnocentrism. They may be trainers and coaches, but still inherently mistrust or condescend to local believers. We believe a Barnabas heart is critical to playing an effective Barnabas role. Local believers can easily tell when we are looking down on them or just see them as a means to an end. Lack of true relationship with your local partners leads to a lack of buy-in and ownership in the vision.

How to Address Ethnocentrism

Addressing ethnocentrism doesn’t require perfect understanding of varying cultures. Our job is not to decide what in the culture is right and wrong. But what is necessary is to posture ourselves in ways that directly offset ethnocentric thinking – namely as a learner with a humble heart of love.

Have a Heart of Humility and Love 

The primary way to combat ethnocentrism is modeled for us by Jesus himself! Jesus left the culture of heaven to live among and serve sinful humanity. Here is what Philippians 2 says about his heart posture: 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,  not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
    even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name…

Philippians 2:3-9

Many times, we experience feelings of offense, fear, or superiority when confronted with other cultures. These reactions are mitigated when we try to embody Christ’s heart of love and humility that considers others higher than ourselves. We are one in Christ and equal in the Kingdom with our brothers and sisters across the world. And the same Holy Spirit that works in us is also working in them! 

When we remember these things and seek to serve out of Christ’s love and humility, it becomes easier to both love the lost and to trust local believers. From there, a Barnabas partnership becomes a natural outflow of our ministry rather than feeling like a sacrifice.

Understanding our Ethnic Boundaries

Learning about our own ethnocentrism can be an overwhelming experience, as our ethnic identity is also closely tied to our personal identity, and it can be difficult to know the difference.

Alvin Sanders describes ethnic borders as “cultural traits that define our ethnic identity for ourselves and others.” He points out that people who come from the majority culture in their home country often haven’t had to think much about these borders because they naturally fit within them.

Most missionaries understand they’ll need to learn a new culture when they arrive in another country. But often that learning stays at the surface level – food, customs, language, and etiquette. What many missionaries haven’t yet wrestled with is how deeply their own cultural values and ethnic borders shape the way they see right and wrong. Without realizing it, they continue interpreting the world through their own cultural framework instead of learning to understand the perspective of their host culture.

There’s grace for us even if we are at the beginning of our journey of learning our own ethnic borders and those of our host country! Our encouragement is to take things one step at a time, with a heart of openness and humility.

One culture is not better or worse than another. Every people group is created ultimately in God’s image. And there are aspects of every culture that are marred by sin. We need the Word and the Holy Spirit to help us in this process of learning to live and serve across cultures.Alvin Sanders’ book, Bridging the Diversity Gap gives an outline of addressing your own heart to align with the Bible, learning about cultural dynamics, and then applying practical changes.

Discovering Cultural Values

One way to learn is from studying cultural values across different countries and cultures, including our own. There are several different frameworks for this, many of which had their origins in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory. A resource specific for missions leaders would be from Livermore’s Leading with Cultural Intelligence, where Chapter 5 lists out 10 different cultural value dimensions like individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, low and high context. Although it’s a broad estimation, this book also shows how different regions of the world align with different cultural values.

One of the most difficult cultural values to navigate for Westerners can be low and high context, or direct and indirect communication. We had encouraged our teammates in our first term to be willing to learn and be flexible in interacting with local believers, but hadn’t given them much training on direct and indirect communication. I asked one teammate how their weekend was, and they said, “Yeah it was good but crazy. I got invited to one thing after church, and I just kept saying yes, and 12 hours later I was in someone’s home in another province!” As he described what happened, I realized that my teammate did a great job in being flexible and willing to learn, but hadn’t recognized that many of the invitations were simply being polite and indirectly they were not actually inviting him to go! 

Learning about your own and the host culture’s values can be a good, basic introduction to the differences between what you are used to and what the norms are in your host country. It can also be illuminating that people around the world have very different perspectives than our own – a key step in unraveling our ethnocentrism!

Be a Learner

When our team first landed in Thailand, we spent time brainstorming questions that we wanted to ask local Thai people, Thai believers, and Thai pastors. We set goals to ask these questions regularly in our day-to-day conversations and we wrote down our learnings into weekly reports. Through these informal surveys, we were able to generally learn about Thai motivations, values, concerns, and stressors, and even things like types of humor! Almost every answer revealed to us a vastly different perspective from our Western cultural lens. (The more formal version of these would be ethnographic interviews, if you’d like to dive deeper.)

When asking questions, try to stay open-minded with zero assumptions about what someone might say. In the moment of conversation, do your best to downplay any immediate judgment or emotional responses that might stem from your own cultural biases; these responses may actually be indicators to press in and learn more. Strive to listen well and not just wait for your next turn to speak, and continually be curious. Instead of jumping to conclusions, build the habit of asking “why.” And write down what you learn!
Even with a basic understanding of ethnocentrism, we still struggled many times figuring out a different culture and not being judgmental! Many of our ethnocentric values are so deeply ingrained that sometimes we cannot help our reactions and judgments. Something we learned from our pre-field cross-cultural training was the phrase, “It’s not wrong, it’s just different.” That phrase has been invaluable, especially when it feels like we are at a cultural impasse that can never be crossed. God is the one who judges what’s right or wrong. But we can embrace that differences exist and seek to understand them.

We’d also encourage you to be a learner in many different ways. Try to take in content from authors, writers, creators from a different background. Read books, watch movies, take in art made by people from different cultures. Ask your friends if they can bring you to different cultural traditions and festivals like holiday celebrations, weddings, funerals, etc. Go to museums and learn about history, traditions, and art. 

One of the biggest cultural experiences is in food! We learned from an Asian pastor how critical it is to be willing to “eat what is set before you.” He told us, “Most cultures share food around the table. If you can’t enter the table because of unwillingness to try different and sometimes strange foods, you can’t enter into the culture. If you can’t enter into the culture, you can’t enter into relationships.” Try every food offered to you at least once!

Lastly, learn the language. Too many missionaries today are overly focused on quick results and bypass learning language to work through translators. Taking the time to learn the language forces you to humble yourself and greatly improves your understanding of the culture. Learn language!

Being a curious, respectful learner will take you 80% of the way there. It requires the humility to say, “My cultural experience is not the only way and is not always the right way.”

Every Tribe, Tongue, and Nation

Deconstructing our ethnocentrism and learning another culture’s values can feel like an insurmountable challenge. Our desire in these two blog posts is not to make missionaries feel guilty or helpless, but to bring to the surface a potentially crippling obstacle that many are not even aware of.

We can’t change overnight. But if we take small steps in humbling ourselves and trying to be a learner, those things will compound and help you pursue the vision that God has given you in a Christ-like, culturally intelligent way. Local friends will notice your willingness and heart to learn and will give you a lot of grace even when you do make cultural missteps.

I think about the practitioner that witnessed baptisms through binoculars often. It is a sacrifice to be sure. But imagine the joy, when we reach the throne of God with all the nations in Revelation 7, clothed in white robes, when we meet those that we have prayed for, that we have indirectly invested in, that we have wept for. To see the fruition of the small sacrifice we made to lay down our ethnocentrism, to not be the main character in order that many would receive new life. 

That joy will last for eternity.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

Revelation 7:9

“You can’t work with the Thai church.”

“They’re lazy, they don’t show up on time, and they lie to you by saying they’ll do something and then not do it.”

This was the repeated sentiment we heard from experienced missionaries during our early years in Thailand. We had learned that most CPMs are started by in/near culture believers, so we wanted to find Thai believers with a vision for multiplying disciples.

We sought out long-time workers in Thailand to learn how to approach this. But over and over, we heard: don’t even try. It won’t work. It’s too hard. Just do it yourself.

At the same time, we began visiting local Thai churches that seemed to carry a vision for disciple-making and church planting. We met vibrant, growing, Thai-led churches with goals like planting 100 churches or starting groups in every province in their region. And to our surprise, they warmly welcomed us to learn from them and partner together.

Over the last 12 years on the field, we’ve continued to hear that working with the local church is too difficult for cross-cultural missionaries — not just in Thailand, but in many places around the world. Yet by God’s grace, our experience has been marked by deep partnership and friendship with our Thai brothers and sisters. We also know many CPM practitioners who feel the same way, some even brought to tears when speaking about their local partners and friends.

So why is there such a massive gap between these experiences? Why do some cross-cultural workers grow skeptical or even bitter toward local believers, while others develop rich, life-giving relationships?

We believe one big reason lies with ethnocentrism. It’s one of the most sinister and destructive barriers for cross-cultural workers that sabotages their desire to have an impact among the fields they’re called to.

It affects not only their relationship with local believers, but their relationship with the local culture, their thriving on the field, and ultimately their long-term perseverance in their calling. 

In this post, we’ll look at what ethnocentrism is, how the Bible addresses it, and ways we can reflect on our own ethnocentrism. In our next post, we’ll discuss how ethnocentrism affects your vision and practical ways you can combat it.

What is Ethnocentrism?

Ethnocentrism is defined as “the tendency to evaluate other cultures based on the standards and values of one’s own culture, often leading to perceptions of superiority.”

When a goer moves overseas, it’s an extremely jarring experience. The language, climate, foods, traditions, expectations, and social dynamics can be completely different from the place you grew up. For many goers, there can be an initial honeymoon phase where they’re excited to learn and experience many new things. But after a few months, the ongoing feelings of confusion, of homesickness, of not fitting in can start to impact you. You get tired of being stared at on the street, being laughed at when you try to speak the local language, and you just want a dang burger instead of this funky tasting mystery meat.

Thoughts of judgment and criticism start creeping in:

“Why can’t they just do it the way we do it at home? It’s so much better that way.” 

“Why are people here so dishonest? Why can’t they just tell it to me straight?”

“Why is this thing so weird? Why can’t it just be normal?”

All missionaries have had thoughts like these, including myself and those on our team. Naturally, in an attempt to assuage the confusion we experience, we begin to measure things in our host culture against our home culture. The criticisms that we heard from experienced missionaries in Thailand assumed that certain cultural values in the West, like being hard-working, punctual, and communicating directly, are the cultural standards in Thailand. They aren’t! But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Without an understanding of ethnocentrism, cross-cultural workers can become frustrated, bitter, and judgmental against the very culture and people they came to serve. And unfortunately, it’s not just an early season culture shock thing for many people. We’ve met several decade-plus missionaries who still say things like, “I honestly hate everything about this country but I guess we’re supposed to be here.”

Dr. Craig Ott in Teaching and Learning Across Cultures writes that “ethnocentrism not only can blind one to the beauty of other cultures but can also lead to condescending attitudes that block meaningful relationships with others and the ability to learn from them. In the worst case, it can foster racism and prejudice.”

The Lawnmower

In a pre-field cultural training that Jenn and I attended, the facilitator explained that the different places we were going to would have different cultural values and to be wary of ethnocentrism. To illustrate this, he told a story of his time in Indonesia where a neighbor asked to borrow a lawnmower. But after the neighbor used it, he kept the lawnmower in his own garage. After a couple of weeks, the facilitator, somewhat annoyed, finally asked the neighbor for his lawnmower back.

The neighbor said, “Of course!” When the facilitator asked the neighbor why he had not returned his lawnmower several weeks after using it, the neighbor explained, “In our culture, since we are part of the same neighborhood, it means we are part of the same community. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine! I was just keeping the lawnmower in my garage until you needed it back, but you could have asked for it anytime!”

The facilitator posed a question to the group of future missionaries: did my neighbor steal my lawnmower? Jenn and I looked at each other and both thought – “of course not, the neighbor was just explaining communal culture. The facilitator even just explicitly said so.”

But the entire class answered in an uproar: “Yes! He stole it! He should’ve given it back immediately because it’s your personal property!” Some even aggressively contended that the facilitator should have called the police on the neighbor for theft.

We were shocked. Not only that the explicitly explained difference in cultural values went over everyone’s head, but also at the anger and disbelief that was in the response.

As we’ve reflected on this interaction, we’ve realized that the angry energy in the class’ response was because they had made a cultural misunderstanding into a moral issue. It was morally wrong that the neighbor did not return the lawnmower because of Americans’ high value of individuality and personal ownership. But the neighbor did not see it that way at all because of his own more collectivist cultural lens.

The lawnmower is a somewhat trivial example, but still such a small issue resulted in such a strong response from the group. We have seen missionaries, including ourselves, make this ethnocentric mistake in much higher stakes situations. We do this in how we train and model expressions of church, how we discuss theology, how we choose leaders, how we evaluate moral and discipleship issues. We measure local believers against our cultural interpretation of Scripture, instead of looking at how Scripture speaks into the local context.

Ethnocentrism and Paternalism in Missions History

There are countless examples of ethnocentrism, paternalism, and even cultural imperialism throughout missions history. Entire books, courses, and degree programs have been devoted to these topics, so we won’t try to cover them in depth here.

But we do want to briefly acknowledge how the painful parts of missions history can compound the problems that come with ethnocentrism today. We’re also troubled by how many workers are unaware of the historical dynamics in the places they serve, and how often the same mistakes continue to be repeated.

Paternalism “occurs when missionaries and their sending churches and agencies consciously or unconsciously assume that they possess superior knowledge, experience, and skills and, consequently, exert control over local Christians and their leaders. This control is almost always exerted through financial arrangements and the implicit authority of money.”

Missions history is littered with examples of paternalism, racism, and cultural imperialism (the imposition by a dominant community of its own culture onto another community) that led to destructive consequences for the name of Jesus around the world. In the most extreme cases, some missionaries had a view that they were not only bringing the gospel, but Western civilization to the “savage” or “heathens” in other parts of the world. They viewed non-Western cultures and peoples as inferior, and thought that planting churches meant dismantling the local culture. Is it any wonder that in many unreached places in the world, Christianity has a negative reputation and is seen as a Western, foreign religion?

Missionaries today need to be aware of what previous generations of workers have done, both good and bad, and in some cases, explicitly acknowledge the negative impact that has come with paternalism and imperialism. It’s especially important for those of us from the West to guard against a “Western savior complex” – the assumption that we are coming to rescue people who are helpless without us. Jesus is the Savior, not us. We should be aware of where he is working and join in that, which often is through the existing local church!

How the Bible Addresses Ethnocentrism

One of my favorite Bible studies is comparing and contrasting Jesus’ interactions with Gentiles and with Jewish religious leaders. I might post a blog on this topic in the future but I’d encourage you to study this if you haven’t!

The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is the clearest example of how Jesus addresses ethnocentrism. When challenged by a lawyer about how to inherit eternal life, Jesus answers with the Great Commandment: love God and love your neighbor. And the lawyer, perhaps looking for a loophole to focus his “love” on those he prefers, replies, “who is my neighbor?”

And Jesus tells of a man beaten and left for dead, passed on by supposedly holy leaders, a priest and a Levite. But a Samaritan – avoided, judged, hated by the Jews – showed compassion to the man, cared for him, sacrificed his own resources, and showed mercy. The ultimate example of obedience to the Great Commandment was a person not just from a different culture, but a culture that the Jews hated.

Jesus’ example is love, humility, and compassion towards those from different cultures. He left heaven’s culture to walk on the earth as a Jewish man and make a way for all cultures to receive grace through the Cross. He condemns and rejects ethnocentrism by declaring God’s heart for all nations and explicitly showing his love towards non-Jewish people. The gospels are full of examples of this: the salvation for the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), the grace for the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7), the faith of the Roman centurion to name just a few.

Paul also embodies an anti-ethnocentric posture: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings” (1 Cor. 9:22-23). He is willing to lay down his own values, preferences, and even rights to be a minister to the Gentiles.

Scripture culminates in Revelation 7, perhaps the most anti-ethnocentric passage in the Bible, where the multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language is worshipping around the throne of God. There is no higher or lower culture, no better or worse cultural values – there are only the people rescued by Jesus clothed in white robes. And yet, the peoples still preserve their cultural identity – representatives from every culture are in the new heaven and the new earth but redeemed perfectly.

Reflection: Have I Been Ethnocentric?

If we are honest with ourselves for a moment, whether from our upbringing, personal experiences, or plain ignorance, there are people from other cultures that we instinctively judge, feel superior to, dislike, or even hate. We know missionaries that will travel half the world away to serve another culture but speak disparagingly and condescendingly about people of another skin color in a different part of their own hometown.

I was brought up to ignorantly fear black people and hate Japanese people for what they did historically in China, and believe that ethnic Chinese people were somehow superior to all others. I’ve had bitterness in my heart from racist experiences with white people. It took years of seeing God’s heart in Scripture and repenting, befriending people from different cultures, learning different perspectives, and even living in another country to unlearn these prejudices from my upbringing and my sinful heart.

Reflecting on our own ethnocentrism can be challenging because our cultural values are deeply tied to our cultural identity and therefore our personal identity. It also requires us to be honest with our own motivations in serving overseas. It can be overwhelming to discover and admit pride, sin, or a sense of superiority towards other cultures, perhaps even the people God has called us to serve.

Our encouragement is this – honest reflection about our ethnocentrism is necessary and it is worth doing. At best, we have some blind spots that can be removed to help us be more loving and effective in our calling. At worst, there are some deeply rooted and sinful perspectives that we didn’t even know we had and they are directly sabotaging what we are trying to accomplish in serving across cultures.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus knows our hearts and loves us, even if we aren’t aware of these sins or haven’t reconciled them yet.

As you reflect on the questions below, try to come before God with openness, honesty, and humility. Come in a posture of surrender and repentance. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal hidden assumptions, pride, fear, or bitterness in your heart. Allow God to heal and change your heart! From that, we believe you will not only become a greater servant to the people you’re called to, but become more like Christ in his love for all peoples.

Reflection Questions

• What kinds of people or behaviors are you quickest to judge? What standards are you using to judge them?
• Are there ways you subtly view local believers as less capable, less mature, or less trustworthy than believers from your own culture? How do you react when local believers do something differently than you would?
• Have past wounds, stereotypes, or experiences shaped the way you see certain cultures or ethnicities?
• In what ways might pride, superiority, control, or a “savior mentality” be affecting your ministry?
• Where are you failing to have the Philippians 2 posture of considering others more significant than yourself?

In this episode, Jenn and Cynthia discuss how perseverance in both times of crisis and in day-to-day obedience is essential to seeing movements. They share personal testimonies of surrender in times of suffering, and discuss practical ways for how to keep going when the work feels like an uphill battle.

There are so many transitions, unknowns, and moving parts when new teams launch to the field. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a document that most missions teams have to provide clarity in the midst of those unknowns. We would define an MOU as a non-binding agreement created between two or more parties explaining how they will work together and interact with each other.

As common as MOUs are on missions teams, there’s surprisingly few examples or short articles out there to help with how to write one. But, “can you help me with how to write our team MOU?” is one of the most common questions we get from team leaders. Vision of the Possible by Daniel Sinclair is a really good book about missions teams in pioneer church planting, and has a short appendix on MOUs/VSPs that we’d recommend.

One of the agreements in our MOU was no dating in the first year. The two single guys on our initial team took that to heart… and both asked out another teammate on a date at 1 year plus 1 day. I guess they technically followed the agreement. I’m happy to report they both ended up marrying those teammates.

Why are MOUs important?

I quickly wanted to address why this document even matters and why it’s worth the time for team leaders to work through this.

1. Clear Expectations. As I mentioned above, clarity is kindness. New teammates especially are being introduced to a new country, culture, community, career all at the same time. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to interact? What is success every day? These are questions that every new goer faces in their early season on the field. As much as is possible, an MOU can lay down some basic foundations of clarity and expectations for your team. 
   
   For a new TL, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to write down all of these expectations. Write down what you know, and put down a ‘TBD’ in the categories that you’re not sure about yet! But provide as much clarity as you can in this document for your teammates, and then you won’t have to answer it in person that many more times.
   
2. Sets Team Culture and Values. An MOU is also one way you can write down and reinforce your team culture and values. What you talk about and what you do on your team will influence your team culture and values more than a document, but it still acts as a cornerstone for your team.
   
   How often will your team interact? What values do you want to have as a team? What’s your expectation on learning language? Many of these things can be expressed in an MOU.
   
3. Guidelines for Challenging Situations. Team conflict is a guarantee on missions teams, and some of it will certainly come out in the early season of a team forming. A team MOU is a good tool for outlining solutions to potentially challenging situations.
   
   In our experience, topics that result in conflict tend to be things in the ‘personal’ realm – vacations, parenting, travel, money, decision-making that infringes on what people think to be their own personal boundaries, etc. Teammates will mostly be willing to discuss things like team rhythms and ministry approaches with openness, but those ‘personal’ topics will get teams and team leaders in hot water. It’s important to write down some basic expectations and guidelines for how those things will be approached before you get into conflict.
   
4. Brief Summary for Outsiders. An MOU can be a good document to share with people in your team’s ecosystem that aren’t teammates. Church support teams, sending agencies, potential new recruits, etc. It will give them an idea of who you are, what you’re there to do, and how you want to interact.

How to Write an MOU

Some tips: don’t worry about perfecting the language. It’s not a legal document. This was a huge roadblock for me in trying to ‘wordsmith’ the MOU into being really professional or airtight. That’s not the purpose – write in common language that your team can understand easily and discuss.

Think of your first draft as just that – a draft. It’s not something the TL writes and then the team just agrees and signs. You want the first draft to be something your team can discuss and then incorporate their feedback into the MOU. It’s an agreement you enter into with each other, not a contract between you and your team members.

Here’s our step-by-step guide for how to write an MOU for your team.

1. Consider the requirements from your sending agency or church. If they already have staff handbooks, you don’t (and shouldn’t) need to rewrite everything that is already in there as all your staff have to adhere to that handbook anyway. If there’s additional aspects that aren’t outlined in the staff handbook, then go ahead and include that in your team MOU.

2. Consider what categories you want included in your MOU. This isn’t exhaustive, but below we’ve outlined some potential MOU categories into “core” which we’d recommend most MOUs have, and “optional” which could be added on a team-by-team basis.

Core Categories

• Purpose of this Document
• Vision and Mission Statements
• Strategy Summary / Ministry Distinctives – short summary that should refer to a Vision and Strategy Paper (VSP) or Strategy Plan
• Team and Leadership Structure – potentially including decisions that the leader reserves the right to have the final say
• Process and Requirements to Join the Team – if your staff handbook already has this, only add the parts that are unique to your team
• Preparation and Language Learning – pre-field requirements, commitment to language learning, hours and timeframe, approach
• Decision Making Process – general description of how decisions are made, potentially can cover decisions that will be by vote, consensus, consultation, and command
• Conflict Resolution
• Vacations, Home Assignments (HMA), and Travel
• Communication and Reporting
• Crises and Emergencies – basic overview that should refer to a Crisis and Contingency Plan document
• Restrictions and Recommendations – including security considerations
• How Future Changes to this MOU Can Be Made

Optional Categories

• Core Team Values
• Philosophy of Ministry
• Accountability Groups
• Expectations of the First 2 Years
• Job Descriptions and Team Roles
• Partnerships with Local Churches and Believers
• Contextualization
• Statement of Faith / Theological Distinctives
• Family / Children / Parenting – becomes very important if there are children on the team, but not necessarily beforehand
• Team Life and Lifestyle – general guidelines about team life and lifestyle
• Dating and Relationships
• Team Funds – running a team will include expenses; it’s easier to pull a regular amount from each unit and be support raised before launching to the field than to figure out finances for every gathering
• Visas / Identity

3. Read other example MOUs. Contact the other TLs that you know, or ask your sending agency for examples if they can provide them. Add categories that you might be missing.

4. Write down quick points of what you know in each category. Feel free to just copy and paste whole sections from other MOUs if it says what you want. If you’re not sure, write down ‘TBD’ or the questions you need answered in that section.

5. Let your draft sit for a while and have some informal conversations with your team or other advisors on the topics you have not yet filled in or need questions answered.

6. Take your last pass through filling out the MOU with coherent language and incorporating the feedback you’ve heard.

7. Bring your MOU draft to your teammates during a team meeting and read through it, asking for their feedback. Again it may be good to explain the purpose of the MOU is for mutual agreement, not to be ironclad against all situations or to be wielded against one another as a ‘gotcha.’

8. Incorporate your teammates’ feedback as best you can. Bring it back to them for final review. Have everyone sign and date their agreement with the MOU. Our recommendation is for new teams to set a 1-year evaluation period for the MOU because there are so many things you don’t know yet and may need to change. You could possibly edit the MOU earlier than that if needed. With future teammates, it will most likely be that they are joining an established team and simply need to read it, ask any clarifying questions, and sign it. But with your initial team (if you have one), it’s good to solicit feedback in the MOU’s creation.

9. Update the MOU as needed. Our recommendation is when there are significant team transitions – from language to ministry season, when teammates start having children, moving cities, changing platforms, changing ministry approaches – it’s a good idea to take a brief look at the MOU and see if everything still aligns or if anything needs to be added. 

Attached is an example of our original team’s MOU with some of the specifics removed, just so you can have a place to start. We have other team MOU’s that we can share as well. If you want some other example MOUs, want some guidance on how to write your MOU, or just someone to review your current MOU, please reach out at contact@missionsleaders.com. We’d be happy to help you!

Remember, as a team leader, your role is to serve your team members and help them to thrive and stay on task. Bringing clarity to some major categories through an MOU is one way you can serve them. The goal isn’t to be directive or controlling – a pushback you may receive – but to provide guardrails for your team members so they can move forward through all the unknowns.

In our last few posts, we’ve talked about why men and women leading together on the field is important, best practices to do that, and specifics for husband and wife leadership teams. In this post, we’ll bring some guidelines for men leading women in missions settings.

We think the ideal situation is when there can be a man and a woman co-leading together, taking advantage of all the diversity of gifts and perspectives to lead a healthy and effective team. From what we have observed, the ideal is rarely available on the mission field and it may be the case that the only qualified leader currently available is a man who is leading other women. 

In my experience talking to men in this situation, these leaders deeply value their female teammates and strongly desire to see the women under their leadership thrive and flourish. But oftentimes, these leaders also don’t know what they don’t know, and unfortunately their intuitive leadership style may not end up being the most conducive or helpful when leading women.

In this scenario, we’ve laid out a few tips that we’d encourage male leaders to consider in order to best lead, empower, and appropriately care for the women on your team.

Aim to Develop

Generally speaking, men will feel most comfortable working with people who are most like them – namely other men. They may be aware that leading women is different from leading men but aren’t sure how to approach things differently. Consequently, women can get overlooked when it comes to intentional development and opportunities for growth. In all likelihood, the women on your team have already had a deficit of development opportunities to this point. We believe a missions team is strongest when all members of the team are empowered, developed, and thriving in their best role. Here are some suggestions for how to best develop your female teammates.

Solicit and Give Feedback – Make an effort to regularly and proactively solicit the opinions and feedback of your female teammates about what they are processing about themselves, about your leadership, about the team, and about the ministry work. Women are encouraged to not make waves and will not always volunteer their perspectives, especially if their opinion contradicts that of the group. Because women are generally more collaborative and risk-averse by nature, women may sometimes need more time and space to process information. While this might feel like you are being forced to slow down, creating this venue for women to share creates safety and brings in perspectives that will most likely reap dividends down the line. Practically, it could be as simple as asking a female teammate during a meeting, “What do you think?” Or, if a female teammate hasn’t spoken much during a meeting, pulling them aside after the meeting is over and asking for their feedback.

Conversely, and just as important, give gentle but direct feedback to the women you lead. I have observed that in ministry spaces, women, and especially mothers, can sometimes “get the pass” because of not wanting to hurt feelings or not wanting to pile on pressure. But when feedback is withheld, a woman’s ability to learn and develop is undercut, and the whole team suffers. If you have feedback you would give to a man, then the women on your team deserve the same benefit.

Keep in mind that when you give feedback, women might respond differently than men! You should aim to create a safe space for women to freely and safely express their emotions. Ask about their feelings concerning a situation. Sometimes, there may be a response like tears or frustration – don’t be afraid to engage with emotional responses. (Steven says to keep the tissues nearby!) In some situations, high emotions are an appropriate response and sometimes they are not. Let the emotion be a jumping off point for further questions and dialogue into understanding their experience before continuing to discuss the topic at hand.

For women that you lead, it can be comforting to see that not only do you respect and seek out their inputs, but you also respect them enough as peers and teammates that you would say the hard thing for their development. It becomes that much easier to trust and follow your leadership. 

Find a Woman Mentor or Coach – While I had a male supervisor in our organization, I credit much of my growth and development to the female mentors he encouraged me to find. I respected my male colleagues, but would always be curious about, “how would a woman approach this topic?” 

These topics could include personal development issues, family and marriage counseling, or ministry coaching. You, as a male leader, are not going to have all the answers and will definitely not carry a woman’s perspective. But you can network and find women with experience and credibility to connect with the women on your team. These mentors could come from your organization’s member care staff, your wife, a more experienced worker, or another female leader in a different context. And it doesn’t only have to be one woman mentor that can address everything – find the appropriate coach for the areas that your women teammates need input. Help the women you lead build an ecosystem of support that includes you as the leader, and also female mentors and coaches who can speak into their specific needs. 

Create an Empowering Culture

It’s important to very intentionally create a culture that is empowering to women. This may take some outside-the-box thinking as most systems and structures, whether from business or ministry contexts, will generally be more accommodating for men. For more information on this topic, you can reference our blog post on external barriers that women in leadership face.

Clearly Define What You Believe – As theologians and denominations continue to wrestle with defining women’s roles and parameters for women’s leadership, ministry can be a very confusing place for women. Most women in ministry will understand that there is a “line” that they shouldn’t cross, but that line can feel very nebulous and arbitrary. Without this level of clarity, women who want to respect you as a leader will tend to draw far back from where they assume the “line” is. 

If you are a man leading women, it’s important that your theological position and work expectations are clearly communicated to both the men and women on your team. Can a woman hold a leadership role? What about teaching or preaching? Can women work with male team members? Can women lead men? What kind of communication and accountability expectations do you have for women on the team? 

In addition, be clear about any personal boundaries that you have when working with women. When should husbands be looped in and for what kinds of topics? Are there topics that you will not discuss with women that you lead? Can you text, call, or email one on one with a woman or do you prefer to communicate in a group? What are spaces that you feel comfortable meeting a woman in? 

Create space for dialogue, where women you lead can ask questions, push back, and offer feedback. After there is buy-in on both sides, help the women on your team find their ideal roles within the theological stance of the team. If it is helpful, write these things down, possibly in an MOU, as a reference point for the whole team.

Even if the conversation feels awkward, remember that this clarity is kindness. This prevents the women on your team from wasting time guessing about the validity of their actions and allows them to joyfully pursue their work within agreed upon parameters. When men on the team are clear about what is expected, they are better able to champion their female co-laborers and advocate for them.

Check Your Own Biases – We all have biases, whether we realize it or not. The goal is not to necessarily get rid of all your biases, but to recognize them and realize where they may be disempowering. Oftentimes, when Steven and I are both part of a meeting, it is assumed that I am there to take notes. Until I am introduced as a peer, I rarely receive eye contact from the men in the room or might be ushered toward the tables where the wives sit. 

Are there certain roles that you naturally assume a woman would occupy? Notetakers, secretaries, event planners, administrative assistants, children ministry leaders, and mothers who stay home are all roles that “make sense” for women to occupy. And while these roles are incredibly important, not every woman you lead will want to be lumped into these categories.

Take the time to talk with the women that you lead about their passions, giftings, and opportunities for development and growth. Cast vision and help them brainstorm roles that align with their giftings to contribute to the team and ministry, and discuss how you can help them get there. 

Create Environments Welcoming for Women – Culture is often set in those in-between spaces between official meetings and team functions. Much is revealed in how welcome women are in these informal gatherings and hangouts where people are less buttoned up. In my old organization, there was a tradition for leaders to sit around a campfire late-night with a glass of bourbon to relate to one another, process decisions made in the organization, and enjoy fellowship. While women were “welcome”, they weren’t ever explicitly invited. For many single gals, drinking late at night didn’t feel like a safe environment to let loose, while mothers with little kids had to opt out due to the late hour. An alternative we suggested was meeting in someone’s living room with both wine and bourbon options. As you consider your team culture, are relational spaces accessible to everyone? Do women feel invited to partake in the unofficial activities related to your team? Is there anyone who needs to be extended a specific invitation?

Navigating Unique Gender Dynamics

There are certain relational dynamics that must be considered in cross-gender leadership. Creating clarity and buy-in around these things first will prevent a world of confusion.

What to Do with Wives – For men leading married women, there are additional factors to consider and extra communication may be required. One of the first questions to discern is whether the wife of a couple that you lead feels both (1) called to be a part of the ministry work and (2) is willing to follow your leadership and direction for the mission. Do not make assumptions about a wife’s commitment based on simply what her husband is doing or saying. If she does want to be a part of the work, then have conversations with her and her husband about ways you can communicate, set directives, and develop her for her ministry role that are in line with the way their family operates. If you have hesitation about directly leading a married woman, try to loop in her husband into any communication that you might have with her.

On a similar note, if the husband of a couple you lead is also a leader, do not automatically assume that the wife needs to be a leader too. As we mentioned in our blog post on couples leading together, we would recommend that husbands and wives who lead together both need to have a leadership calling from God. It can be dangerous to elevate a wife into leadership when she has not received that level of calling as it places undue pressure on both her and potentially the marriage.

What to Do with Single Women – Single women are a powerful asset to any team, but often have the least influence or voice within a team or organization. Single women also may be boxed into certain roles like babysitting the teams’ kids or notetaking. Without husbands to help advocate for them, single women may withhold their voices instead of trying to speak directly with a male leader. Make sure that you are actively soliciting the opinions of single women and checking in on their needs, concerns, insight, and feedback. Single women may have higher relational needs, and it is important that you are able to resource them with mentors, coaches, and opportunities to meet local female friends.

Just a Little Intentionality…

The first time I publicly spoke in front of a crowd, I was terrified. Steven and I had been invited by our leader to share some of the lessons we had learned from our first term on the field to the rest of our organization’s staff. At that time, I was still wrestling with whether or not the Bible allowed for a woman to even speak publicly, so it was a big honor! 

After I rambled through my part and sat down, a high level male leader in our organization sought me out. He told me, “you were a little shaky in the beginning. But much better when you got up to speed. You’re probably not as strong as a teacher, but you are gifted in exhortation and you need to speak more.” Then, turning to Steven, he told him, “you need to make sure that she gets space to speak.” Even almost ten years later, his direct feedback continues to remind me that I am seen, gifted, and have a contribution. For some reason, I assumed women would encourage me, but to be noticed by a high level male leader whose inner circle I normally wouldn’t be a part of meant something more. By God’s grace, I have continued using my voice to coach individuals, speak to larger groups, and even help co-host a podcast. But I wonder if I would have had the courage to say yes to the next opportunity if this leader hadn’t gone out of his way to give me his feedback and encouragement.

For you men who are leading women and desire to honor them in the highest way, my encouragement to you is that you don’t have to be perfect. But know that just a little bit of intentionality and empowerment from you can go a long way!

Reflection Questions

1. Aim to Develop:
   • Are there areas where you have not yet developed the women on your team?
   • Do you find yourself withholding feedback from the women on your team? If yes, why?
   • Do the women that you lead have access to women mentors and coaches who can help them grow? If no, where can you find these women?
2. Create An Empowering Culture:
   • Do you have personal clarity on your theological stance concerning women in ministry and your personal boundaries in regards to working with women? Have these been clearly communicated?
   • Do you have implicit biases around women’s roles in ministry that might be impacting how you interact with the women that you lead?
   • On a scale from 1-10 (1 being unsafe, 10 being very safe), how welcome do the women on your team feel during both team functions and informal gatherings? How can you increase this number?
3. Navigating Gender Dynamics
   • Are lines of communication and expectations clear with the wives that you lead?
   • Are you regularly checking in on single women that you lead?

This month, Jenn and Cynthia started a new series about Couples Leading Together on the Dare to Multiply podcast.

The series kicks off with Jenn and Steven sharing their story and why it’s important for couples to make disciples and lead together. Stay tuned for the rest of the series, where we will explore how couples can address obstacles to working together, and also give some practical how-tos and tips.

Finally, if you want to learn more, check out our blog posts on men and women leading together:

Men and Women Leading Together

Men and Women Leading Together (Part 2)

Husbands and Wives Leading Together

Jenn and I (Steven) leading together got off to a rough start.

One of the first things we did as a couple in ministry, before we were even married, was attend a support raising bootcamp with our Thailand team members. At the time, our team was both of us, four of my best friends growing up, and one single gal from Alabama who went through the same pre-field goer training as us and had a heart to serve in Thailand.

We had all just quit our jobs and were ready to start support raising – our launch to Thailand was about one year out. I borrowed my parent’s minivan and drove our team up from Austin, Texas to Dallas where the boot camp was being held. We were picking up our new teammate Kate* (name changed for security purposes) from the airport before heading to the support raising training. As we were entering the airport, I said, “Hey guys, this is our first time meeting Kate in person. Let’s try to keep the inside jokes to a minimum and make her feel as welcome as possible.” Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

Before we had even left the airport, two of my friends had started to record a homemade rap video while wearing Jenn’s leopard-print jacket for no particular reason. Leader instruction #1 – failed.

Later that day, as we were getting settled in a friend’s house, Jenn and I started to argue about something. Kate and Jenn were sharing a room since Jenn and I weren’t married yet, and as our argument escalated, I could feel Kate continually shrinking into the corner, trying her best not to be noticed.

As the conflict was rising to a climax, an intrusive thought popped into my head that I knew would really send Jenn over the edge. Unfortunately, but hilariously, it made its way through my brain filter and out of my mouth.

“Just remember who your boss is,” I quipped at Jenn. I closed the door behind me smiling to myself and knowing that I would pay for that comment later.

I learned later that I narrowly avoided the pair of pants that were hurtling towards my head.

“Men! Can you believe him?!” Jenn said to Kate, who was now almost merged with the wall.

Welcome to the team, Kate.

And welcome to co-leadership, Jenn and Steven.

When we tell you that it’s a miracle that God has brought us this far in our marriage and co-leadership, it’s stories like this that affirm that reality! And Kate ended up marrying one of my friends on the team and they are still serving on the field today.

In our previous posts, we covered why it’s important that men and women lead together on missions teams, and some of thepractical guidelines for how they can do that effectively. We kept those more general towards men and women because we believe men and women leadership teams don’t have to be exclusively between husbands and wives. However, many of those co-leadership teams will end up being married couples. If that’s your situation, then this post is for you!

The story above is meant to illustrate how confusing, convoluted, and contentious co-leadership on missions teams can be for husbands and wives and also for their teams, organizations, and ministry partners. But if it can be done well, it can be a rich reflection of Christ and the church, as a husband and wife walk together in leadership and ministry.

Why It Makes Sense for Husbands and Wives to Serve and Lead Together

In our experience, a calling overseas is different from most ministry callings in your home context. When Jenn and I lived in the U.S., we had separate ministries. We invested in different people, rarely overlapped, and were supportive of one another without being directly involved in each other’s work.

Overseas, we’ve found that both husband and wife need to share the same level of calling and commitment to the vision, regardless of their specific role or ministry activity. It’s much harder for one spouse to say, “This is my spouse’s calling, and I’ll just support them,” because simply living cross-culturally requires significant sacrifice. Even when one spouse is primarily focused on the home or family, their commitment to the vision needs to be just as strong in order to persevere through the challenges of life on the field.

Ministry overseas – especially movement-focused ministry – can also be all-encompassing. It’s not a typical 9–5 job that you can leave behind when you go home. If you’re focused on multiplying disciples, you may have people in your home regularly or a demanding travel schedule to visit key partners. Because the boundaries between work and home are less clear, husbands and wives need to have clarity and be aligned around both life and ministry.

When we’ve seen unequal commitment between spouses, it often leads to disunity, competition between family and ministry, and potentially resentment that results in leaving the field.

When both spouses share the same calling and level of commitment, working together toward the vision can make a lot of sense. It requires a lot of communication and figuring things out, some of which we laid out in our previous post about men and women and some other things for husbands and wives in this post.

Our recommendation for married couples overseas is that both spouses should have the same level of calling and commitment to the vision, regardless of role. If that shared vision is present, then we’d encourage husbands and wives to discuss what it looks like to work together if both desire to have a role in ministry.

The last category is for husbands and wives that are interested in leading together. We’d give a strong exhortation that couples should only lead together in a ministry setting or missions team if both spouses are genuinely called and gifted for leadership. We define a leader as “a man or woman who receives vision from God to influence the people of God towards the purposes of God.”

Elevating a spouse into co-leadership without a leadership calling and gifting can undermine the other spouse’s credibility and place unnecessary pressure on the one who isn’t called to lead. A non-leader spouse can still play a powerful role as a supporter and sounding board. But when both spouses are truly called to leadership and find healthy ways to lead together, it can be a beautiful and effective partnership.

Best Practices for Husbands and Wives Leading Together

We’d highly recommend that married couples that want to lead together overseas work through the 5 categories in our last post – commitment, communication, conflict, clearing the path, and collaborative giftings. These are critical components for any men/women co-leaders but especially for husbands and wives. Below we have a few additional best practices specific to married couples.

We don’t yet have children and won’t try to speak on that dynamic, though we understand it adds complexity and challenge for husbands and wives that desire to lead together. However, we have seen married couples on the field learn to lead together in the ministry and the home simultaneously. Jenn recently recorded a podcast with Jesse and Shanee Snodgrass who host the Coworkers Podcast on this topic and we’ll link it here when it’s live!

Working Styles

Married couples leading together should learn to understand each other’s working styles. When we first started working and leading together, Jenn frequently thought that I (Steven) was frustrated with her or thought that I was unhappy with her work. One day she asked me, “Am I doing something wrong?”

“No – why would you think that?” I asked.

“Because whenever we’re talking about ministry or team things, you seem to be a lot more stern or short with me.”

We realized that Jenn had not really encountered “working mode” Steven before. I had to apologize and explain that when I’m working, I can be more intense and move faster out of a desire to focus and get things done. She had been used to me more in dating / companionship mode where I was a lot more attentive in listening, gentler, and more laid-back. I had to be more cognizant of being gentler with my words and overall attitude, and Jenn had to learn not to take my intensity personally.

There were several other aspects of our working styles that came up that we had to discuss and pursue clarity on. For example, I was much more detailed and more of a planner, and Jenn was less-detailed and prioritized finishing things quickly. We also had to be careful to understand that our working styles didn’t necessarily translate over to our relationship dynamics. Just because I preferred to plan in ministry and working topics didn’t mean that I wanted to plan every aspect of our date nights or household chores.

We learned to either offer or ask, “what hat are you wearing right now?” For example, I might be talking about our schedule for the week, but Jenn would be unclear if it was Steven the team and ministry leader talking, or Steven her husband talking. I would need to clarify that we were planning for the ministry schedule for the week, and after that was cleared we could set aside time to discuss personal things. Of course, it’s not always that clear and people are complicated, but pursuing clarity in your working styles can help husband and wife teams operate more smoothly.

Boundaries

For couples working and leading together, setting some boundaries will be helpful in preserving both your working relationship and marriage relationship. Some couples may have very integrated personal and working lives, whereas others might have stronger boundaries and more organization. Find out what works for you! Jenn and I (Steven) tend to be pretty interwoven in how we interact, but we did set some boundaries like not talking about work on date nights, or not talking about work 30 minutes before bedtime or after waking up. Some couples we know will have very clear delineations about not talking through personal issues during the workday, and not talking about work things during personal times. Others may set a weekly check-in to talk through work logistics.

Another boundary that we set early on was to not have conflict in front of team members when possible, and to speak as highly of each other as we could even if we were having a conflict. During our first year on the field, it felt like every time right before we would lead a team meeting, we would enter into a conflict without fail. But as we arrived at the meeting, we would say, “let’s put a pin in this.” It was our way of agreeing that the conflict was not resolved yet but we were both committed to discussing it later, and that we both needed to take a moment to let our emotions die down and focus on the current priority of leading the meeting or ministry activity.

It will take some time and trial to figure out what dynamic works for both the husband and wife. It’s important to be honest about your needs and preferences, but also to try your best to take on a Philippians 2 posture of putting others higher than ourselves. At some times, one or both of you might feel like you want to give up, that it’s too hard to figure it out. Our encouragement is that if this is something you’ve felt the Lord guiding you towards and something you both desire, it is worth the hard work of wading through the mess to learn how to work together with your best friend and lifetime companion!

Pursuing Clarity

While it can be a joy to lead with your spouse, adding another role into an already existing dynamic of husband and wife brings up a lot of questions. While some of these questions may feel uncomfortable, we encourage you to engage wholeheartedly with all of them until you reach a point of clarity and agreement. Otherwise, your working together will be seeped in conflict and misunderstanding. Based on our experience, here are some areas where couples who work and lead together need to be on the same page.

Theological Clarity – Early in our marriage, I (Jenn) had a deep fear of being the type of domineering woman Paul calls out in 1 Timothy 2. We had learned about marriage roles where the husband is the head of the family and wives were called to submit. But how did the husband’s headship over the family apply to our dynamic of working and leading together? We had to do the work of searching the scriptures, praying, seeking counsel from wise voices, and dialoguing with one another to figure out what we truly believed. 

Reaching theological clarity together is critical to ensuring that your marriage and ministry are in line with what God is calling you to do. Some questions to consider are: 

• What does the Bible say about the role of husbands and wives? How are they to relate to one another? How are they to relate to people in ministry?
• What does the Bible say about men and women in leadership? What leadership roles are available to women and to men? 
• What does the Bible say about men and women working together in ministry? 

After studying the Word and discussing with Steven, I felt freedom and confidence that I could step into a role of leadership without fear of disobeying the Bible.

Role Clarity – Once you are clear on your theological stance, you can begin to discuss roles and responsibilities in both your marriage, your ministry, and in leadership together. Both husband and wife bring their own unique spiritual gifts, strengths, and weaknesses into both marriage and ministry. This is a wonderful thing! Seek to build out your roles in a way that lines up with what you’ve discussed. Both spouses don’t have to do the exact same things, but can divide and conquer based on giftings and strengths and season of life. The goal is to be on the same page about what each person is expected to do and be accountable for in any given situation.

Clarity for Outside Stakeholders – Husbands and wives are not the only ones who need clarity. If you are working in ministry or leading together, there are other stakeholders who are impacted by your dynamic like your team, national partners, church, and organization. When I (Jenn) was elevated to a leadership role with Steven, it was important that I received a leadership title so that our teammates and organization knew that my decisions carried leadership weight. Teammates needed to understand me and Steven’s unique responsibilities in the leadership dynamic, so that they knew which of us they could bring certain issues or questions to. It’s especially important for husbands and wives to speak well of each other publicly as a way to create a united front, show mutual respect in your co-leadership and co-working, and to help those you lead and interact with to have confidence in your dynamic.

Similarly, your ministry partners will also need clarity. Steven and I both work with our national partner, Mint. In most meetings, I will initially connect relationally with Mint. I’ll ask her about her abiding, conflicts she’s having, how she’s feeling about any given topic. Mint knows those questions are coming from me and she’s become comfortable divulging more personal information to me. But she also knows Steven will ask her about her strategy, objectives, and goals. She also knows that she can ask us for almost anything and that Steven and I will be on the same page to try and help her.

Tools

Marriage Retreats – In the midst of cross-cultural living, ministry, and leadership, it can be hard to find a moment to communicate and connect with one another. Don’t forget, God is pleased when our marriages are healthy and centered on Him and on serving one another! We recommend setting at least an annual 2-3 day retreat to focus on your marriage. Objectives for this time would be for rest, deeper connection in your marriage, evaluating how your marriage and partnership is doing, and prayer and planning for the year. Calendar these retreats ahead of time and set them somewhere comfortable and outside of your context. 

Husband-Wife MOU – A helpful tool to establish clarity of roles and responsibilities between husband and wife is to create a Husband-Wife MOU. Categorize all the activities you are responsible for as individuals and as a couple and demarcate who takes ownership for what. It’s helpful to revisit this document regularly, as seasons of life and ministry might shift these things. Below is the MOU we created for our team. Feel free to use our template and adapt it to your context.

Conclusion

When I (Steven) was first entering into a season of being newly married and preparing to lead a team and ministry in Thailand, I felt a tension rising about how to prioritize my focus and time. As we went through pre-marital counseling and read marriage books, the overwhelming message was that your focus should be God above everything, then your marriage and family, and then everything else like your ministry or job.

But life and ministry overseas would require significant sacrifice that would affect our marriage. It wouldn’t be comfortable, things wouldn’t be easy, and there would be considerable challenges for our relationship. How could I reconcile wanting to prioritize my marriage in the context of responding to the call of missions that God had given so clearly?

I posed this question to one of my mentors, Caleb. He said something that has proven true over the last decade of marriage, ministry, and leadership.

“It’s not always so simple to prioritize things as God > marriage > ministry. Those things are intertwined. Loving God is loving my marriage. Loving my ministry is loving God. Loving my marriage is loving ministry.”

His point was that all of those things – your relationship with God, relationship with your spouse, and your ministry calling – all affect each other. Of course, any idolatry in your marriage or ministry will cause unhealth in the other dynamics. And there will absolutely be times that you should take a step back from ministry to work on your marriage or your relationship with God.

We can see this interwoven framework in Genesis 2 when God takes Adam to oversee the Garden of Eden. “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” It is within the context of pursuing his calling that God gives Adam a partner in Eve.

We believe that ministering and leading out of who you are as a married couple is a powerful witness that reflects God’s intention for marriage. Beyond being companions in life, you can also be partners in pursuing His calling. As you pursue clarity and learn how to lead together, we hope that your joy in marriage increases and reflects God’s glory to those around you!

The line to talk to Jenn was 10 people deep.

I (Steven), on the other hand, had one guy come up to ask a quick question and scuttle off. As an introvert, I was pretty relieved.

Jenn and I had just shared the stage together to speak at a conference for aspiring goers. We shared about union with Christ, which has been the most important lesson that God had given us not only for thriving overseas but for abiding in general. We decided to share the stage, even though we had almost never seen that done before. Historically, I had been the one invited for speaking engagements. But God in His kindness helped us learn this lesson together. We were simply trying to reflect that when sharing about it.

What we didn’t expect was the response that taking the stage together would have.

Simply by being on the stage together at the same time, something clicked for people in that audience. One, that men and women could speak, lead, and work together. And two, that women leaders had something unique and important to bring to the table.

One of the women who waited to talk to Jenn said, “I would never have come up here if there wasn’t a woman on the stage.”

From speaking engagements and other opportunities where Jenn and I have led out together, we’ve had dozens of couples tell us, “we see your dynamic in leading together and we think we both have leadership giftings. How do we learn how to lead together?”

It was clear that Jenn had a gift, a unique voice, and an important message, and that she needed to be given more of a platform to share that message. But as the one who had the previous experience and trusted relationships, I needed to call out her giftings, create opportunities, and encourage her to step up into those opportunities.

We said yes to more opportunities to speak together, and eventually, for Jenn to start speaking on her own. What people didn’t see as Jenn crushed it on stage were the 5th, 6th, 7th rounds of edits that I had to make on her written drafts, and the hurried and harrowing practicing of her talk late into the night before she spoke.

Now, I rarely get invited to speak anymore. Jenn is the one in high demand.

I couldn’t be happier or prouder.

She continues to have lines of 10+ women line up to talk to her regardless of the topic.

If elevating her voice can help even a few of those women step more boldly into leadership, or help couples learn to lead together, I’ll gladly continue to stand in the back of the room and take cool pictures of her as she uses her giftings.

Through sharing and leading together, we began to see how deeply the question of men and women leading together mattered to goers and mission teams. We are convinced that this kind of partnership helps more leaders step into—and lead from—the gifts God has entrusted to them.

Best Practices for Men and Women Leading Together

In our previous post, we introduced the topic of men and women leading together and gave our view of why this topic is important. In this post, we’ll focus more on the best practices of how men and women can lead together effectively. These include clearing the path, collaborative giftings, commitment, communication, and conflict. As you work through each of these practices, consider creating an MOU between yourself and your co-leader that encompasses all these categories.

Clearing the Path

One of the most important aspects of empowering Jenn or other women leaders on our teams towards leadership was what we call ‘clearing the path.’ The other best practices are mutually owned by both the male and female leaders. But clearing the path is something male leaders must often lead out in, since they often hold greater leadership influence due to the internal and external barriers that women leaders experience.

Male leaders can advocate for women leaders and clear the path in many ways—by speaking highly of them, creating opportunities for leading and development, and providing support and feedback. Advocacy is different from simply mentoring – a mentor can consult and encourage, but being an advocate requires using our relational or positional influence for the benefit of those that we support.

When you’re in leadership spaces with decision-makers, speak highly of the women leaders that you’re advocating for. People used to mention to me that I seemed to go out of my way to give credit or speak highly of Jenn and the other women leaders on our team. I wish I was that intentional – I was simply giving credit where it was due! I could not and did not do the things that Jenn and the other women leaders did on our team.

In your own team and ministry, create opportunities for women leaders to lead according to their giftings. This will require that you actually know their giftings and their desire to lead, which means you’ll probably need to have some 1-on-1 or smaller group settings for you to get to know them! Help them identify their giftings and discuss potential opportunities where they can lead. When larger opportunities to lead within your organization, church, or region come up, vouch for the women leaders that you know if their giftings line up with that opportunity.

And don’t only recommend them for the opportunity. Lend your credibility and provide support by  investing your own time in preparing, assisting, and sharing ownership of the outcome. Give direct feedback about what went well and where they can improve. Jenn says that women who do get the chance to lead can often ‘get the pass’ in terms of owning the negative consequences or hearing the difficult feedback that would help them improve because people want to be kind and not harsh. But that actually stunts their opportunity to learn and grow in leadership.

Cultivate their personal development by encouraging them to create development plans and keep them accountable to those plans. Open access to leadership spaces by bringing them along, when appropriate, to meetings you have with other leaders. In leadership team meetings, if there’s a topic or ministry area that aligns with their giftings, bring them in to share or just to listen and learn. If you’re meeting with another leader 1-on-1 who you know would be comfortable with another person there, try to bring women leaders along to learn and contribute as well.

Lastly, a disclaimer that we need to mention is that male leaders need to be careful to not elevate women leaders to positions that they are not qualified for, especially your wife. Standalone projects or opportunities can be good opportunities for developing leaders to step into and generally there’s grace for a one-off event if things don’t go well. But elevating women to leadership positions that they aren’t qualified for can backfire. A woman leader surveyed by Kadi Cole in Developing Female Leaders addresses this issue: 

Let’s not do women any extra favors, or promote them, just because of gender. This defeats the purpose of demonstrating equal capability and…decreases the validity of women in leadership roles in some people’s thinking. If [a woman leader is] only at the table because someone needs to fill a female quota, I’d rather find another table to sit at. However, let us ensure we are watching for and providing opportunities for women to grow, lead, and advance in our…organizations.

Developing Female Leaders, 141

We really love when husbands and wives can lead together and use their gifts (and will write a post on that in the near future), but exercise particular caution when elevating your wife to a leadership role as it can easily look like favoritism or nepotism which will undermine both of your leadership reputations. 

Clearing the path and advocating doesn’t only happen at the beginning of the process to get women in the door, but needs to continue until these women leaders are self-confident and well integrated into the leadership teams and culture of your organization. As women leaders are raised up, they can continue to be advocates and path-clearers for other women!

Collaborative Giftings and Leadership Roles

We mentioned in our first post that having men and women leading together provides a plurality of leadership and improved decision making because women leaders can represent the perspectives of the women on the team. The benefits of plurality of leadership are enhanced when the male and female leaders can have collaborative giftings and roles.

As men and women leaders begin leading together, discuss how your individual giftings can support each other and what roles on the team may be most appropriate for each leader to take the lead on. We’ve mentioned before that the missions team leader role is basically impossible for an individual leader, which is why we highly recommend a plurality of leaders. Between strategic planning, administration, shepherding, development, training, and 100 other topics, there are likely areas where one of the two leaders is better or more experienced than the other. Distribute the roles of leadership according to the giftings that each of you have. If you both have the same giftings, switch off or figure out ways that they could express themselves differently.

Using our initial story of speaking together as an example, I (Steven) am stronger at clarity of communication, whereas Jenn is much stronger in inspirational / motivational speaking with passion and emotion. So when we split up the different sections in our union with Christ talk, I took more of the teaching/Bible sections and Jenn told more stories of how it impacted us. We both had a speaking gift but they expressed themselves differently. Even within the same talk we could support each other with our giftings!

Commitment

Regardless of gender, if people want to lead together, they need to be equally committed to the vision and to their leadership role towards that vision. If you know your fellow leader is just as focused on the same goal as you are, it’s easier to trust them and also to lovinglyg call them back on track if they begin to drift off your shared vision. 

Conversely, when one leader is fully committed to the vision and the other is not, dysfunction and conflict often follow. A leader with less ownership may hesitate to carry their responsibilities or minimize their role, especially in difficult seasons. For the more committed leader, it can become difficult to trust their co-leader or to share leadership equally when they know their convictions aren’t shared. In these situations, it is often clearer and healthier to name one person as the primary leader and give the other a defined supporting role.

Both male and female leaders must take time to seek clarity about their vision from God and their own calling and commitment to leadership. One person’s sense of calling cannot compensate for a co-leader who has not done this work themselves. These convictions should be shared openly and revisited regularly as a reminder of your shared commitment. 

Finally, it’s important that the people you work with—especially your team and ministry partners—clearly understand your level of commitment, authority, and responsibility towards them. Does a female leader only lead other women? Does each leader make decisions on behalf of the whole or just one? Who should report to whom?

Conflict

Men and women leaders are going to have different perspectives. While embracing diversity of ideas is a strength, it can lead to tension and conflict. It is critical that men and women leading together know how to conflict well in order to lead from a place of unity. This involves knowing each other’s conflict dynamics and conflict styles, and to have a plan for how to address conflict when tensions arise.

In conflict dynamics, societal norms can lead men to respond more directly while women may respond more deferentially. It’s important to be aware if you have these sorts of leanings. For example, women may not share everything they’re thinking right away and may need to revisit an issue to feel fully resolved, while men often prefer to address something once and move on. Women may also seek more relational and contextual clarity, while men may focus mainly on the immediate problem.

Additionally, every person has a unique conflict style. Typically, people will default into certain behaviors when facing conflict – fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. In a nutshell, fight people will face a threat aggressively, flight people tend to run from or avoid conflict, freeze people will find themselves paralyzed and unable to take action, and fawn people will move toward appeasement and people pleasing methods. On top of these “styles”, we all have triggers that will set us off as we feel our sense of safety threatened. Identifying these things in ourselves and in our co-leader helps us to mitigate many potential conflicts. 

In our own case, I fawn in conflict. If I feel unheard or misunderstood, I will push endlessly for clarity or resolution for the sake of harmony. Steven, conversely, tends toward flight. He often needs space to collect his thoughts and to get his emotions in check, before he is able to engage. As we understood these tendencies, we have had to adjust and compromise toward one another. I am learning to give Steven time to collect his thoughts before I barrage him with questions, and he makes an effort to respond calmly to me even if it’s faster than he would prefer.

However, sometimes leaders will reach an impasse. In these situations, it’s helpful to bring in a neutral third party with whom both sides feel safe and who can help to mediate a conflict. 

It is best for leaders to keep short accounts with one another and strive to resolve conflicts as quickly as possible. It helps to have a clear plan and awareness for what issues have potential to spark conflict, each person’s conflict response, how to resolve conflict, and how to rebuild trust after conflict. Make the time to discuss and plan:

• What are stress triggers or topics that potentially might escalate into conflict? 
• How can you together create a safe space to share your perspectives? 
• What is your conflict style? What are things you and your co-leader do to help move forward toward resolution?
• How will decisions be made? Will there be a deciding voice or will decisions be made collaboratively?  
• Who is a safe mediator for when conflicts reach an impasse?

Communication

Team leaders are constantly processing and passing on information. On any given day, team leaders may be communicating with their national partners, teammates, organization, and many others. And while having two people share the burden is great, if co-leaders are not on the same page or aren’t working off the same set of information, chaos often ensues. Before we found our best communication rhythms, Steven and I would often contradict each other in meetings in front of our teammates – confusing everyone!

Steven and I are always communicating with each other, and our teammates have a clear understanding that anything one of us hears, unless it is told in confidence, the other will receive at least a short update. We will text each other random thoughts and ideas that we might have while apart. When we take meetings, we crystallize and write down summary points and send them to each other as soon as the meeting ends. While this may seem cumbersome, creating this type of shared consciousness allows us to make decisions quickly together without needing to stop and explain context. It also allows us to communicate the same message to our team and partners.

Other co-leaders may have different communication styles they would prefer over our constant sharing, and could set up regular meetings with a calendar invite simply to check in and share information. Whatever your method, the goal is to ensure that you are always as informed as you can be about a given situation that impacts your team and the ministry work. And with this knowledge, you are making wise decisions that allow you and your co-leader to present a unified front to your team.

Generally, women will pull back on their ideas or perhaps be tempted to prioritize being agreeable over rocking the boat. If you are a woman leader, even if it feels risky, push to prioritize your voice and your ideas rather than stuffing them down. Try to eliminate disclaimers and speak your ideas out directly. Leaders can make better decisions when there’s more information and better representation of the perspectives involved. Men co-leaders will need to create spaces for women co-leaders to offer feedback and also make it a habit to push for clarity. Ask multiple times if your woman co-leader has said everything she wants to say and ask her for proposed solutions. We also encourage creating a culture where co-leaders regularly provide feedback with one another as a way of accountability and personal development. This could be as formal as a regular feedback meeting on the calendar or just making it a point to ask for, provide, and receive feedback in regular conversations.

Conclusion

Co-leadership between men and women on missions teams takes a lot of work. It will take discussion, time, and trial & error to figure out what a collaborative leadership dynamic looks like between a male and female leader. But most of all, it will take a Philippians 2 type of humility – to consider the other leader higher than yourself. When each leader goes out of their way to elevate the others’ gifts, they both benefit and the team strengthens. When you’re fighting for your own reputation or position, it will lead to unhealthy conflict and damage your team and ministry. Collaborative leadership requires the mindset that Paul outlines in 1 Corinthians 12:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

1 Corinthians 12:21-26

But when you’ve done the hard work of clearing the path, learning giftings, and figuring out commitment, conflict, communication with your co-leader, Scripture is clear about the result: “when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Most-Read Posts in 2025

1. Be Barnabas – What is a NAV?
   • See other posts from the Be Barnabas series
2. What is the “Apostolic” and Why is it Important?
   • See other posts from the Apostolic series
3. Spiritual Warfare
4. Two Types of Kingdom Fruitfulness
5. Team Conflict

Being Barnabas – the role of an outsider in partnering with cultural insiders towards movement continues to be a key missions principle that we believe can unlock many missionaries’ most effective role in the Great Commission. In particular, finding a National Apostolic Visionary (NAV) to partner with can result in exponential multiplication among the unreached.

In order to find these NAVs, we focused on better understanding around the Apostolic gift, the Five-Fold gifts from Ephesians 4:11, and how to practically discern, partner with, and equip these apostolic leaders.

Understanding the Two Types of Kingdom Fruitfulness – the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of multiplication can help us pursue the good works God has prepared for us with healthy balance. Of course, we want to see multitudes of people worship Jesus among the unreached. And, we want to see their lives and our own lives changed to look more like Jesus every day. Both are necessary!

Team Conflict and Spiritual Warfare remain as two critical topics that most missionaries face on the field and need equipping around. Without healthy conflict resolution and team interaction, it can be really difficult to concentrate on the ministry God has called you to do. Similarly, when we’re feeling discouraged and overwhelmed by spiritual attack, that can take over from everything else. Coincidentally, spiritual warfare can many times take the form of team conflict. Clearing both of these issues through community and reliance on Jesus can help you and your team focus on what you and your team are there to do!

Our Favorite 2025 Posts

1. Listening Prayer Part 1 and Part 2
2. Men and Women Leading Together
3. The Five Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leader
4. Bonus: The Dare to Multiply Podcast
   • See all the Dare to Multiply Podcast episodes

Listening Prayer is an aspect of interacting with God that permeates our everyday lives. It is a critical component of not only effective ministry, but daily obedience. Our movement coaches helped start the Listening Prayer Movement, where their primary tool when faced with any obstacle or opportunity is to ask God what He wants for them. It has grown into one of the biggest movements in the world off of that one question.

Men and Women Leading Together is something near and dear to our hearts as it’s how we operate in ministry and life. We think that learning how men and women work and lead together can lead to healthier and more impactful leaders, units, and teams. We’re excited to have some future posts around this topic in 2026!

Obviously in finding a NAV, it’s important to understand what the Apostolic gift is first. But the Five Essential Elements of an Apostolic Leader isn’t just another ministry tool or framework to find leaders. These elements are actually a result of a life surrendered to God, set apart for great works that will impact the unreached for eternity! Perhaps other than the Be Barnabas approach itself, these essential elements might be the ‘secret sauce’ in actually seeing movements catalyzed.

Lastly, the Dare to Multiply Podcast has been an exciting and stretching endeavor for Jenn as she both shares and learns from other missions leaders and movement practitioners. We hope this resource will be a blessing to many multipliers!

On to 2026!

In early 2026, we’ll publicly launch the coaching ministry that we’ve been working on for the past couple of years. We’re excited to provide opportunities for missions leaders to not only learn from our blog but to get hands on coaching and cohort-based training on topics around partnering with national believers, forming and developing teams, deepening your abiding, and other topics essential for leaders.

Our prayer for ourselves and for all of you is that 2026 would be marked by a deeper abiding and a richer fruitfulness than we’ve ever experienced before, resulting in worshippers from every tribe, tongue, and nations to the glory of God.

Happy New Year! Lastly, a poem that encouraged us this year that we hope will bless you.

Furnace by Gerard Kelly

May God in whose furnace faith is forged
In whose being beauty breathes
From whose dawning darkness flees
Shine on you

May the Father whose love for you
Beats with a rhythm time itself can’t stop
Whose presence in your exile
Is the promise of home
Whose certainties are deeper
Than the cellars of your city
Whose breath is life
Breathe on you

May the son whose story
Is a mirror of your own
Who has journeyed into darkness
To find a key to your prison
Who has dived the deepest oceans
To find pearls for your wisdom
Who has looked into your heart
And found a beauty worth the battle
Who has written your name
On a white stone carved in secret
Hold you

May the Spirit
Who has waited millennia to fill you
Who shaped the word that moved the wind
Of the morning that conceived you
Who holds the earth on which you stand
As a midwife holds a newborn
Who fully knows you
Wholly own you

So may God
The faithful Father
God the scarred Son
God the sculpting Spirit
Journey with you

Jenn and I (Steven) fought nearly every day for our first year on the field.

At the end of our first term of 2.5 years, we did a debrief and noted that second only to learning union with Christ, both of us said our marriage, and our co-leadership of the ministry and team together, was the thing we were most grateful for. It was nothing short of a miracle that the Lord did to bring us to that point from how fragile, disunified, and hostile we were to each other.

To us, men and women leading together is a critical element in seeing missions teams and ministries thrive and be effective. We’ve seen many husband and wife units that were not on the same page strain in their marriage and leave the field. We’ve seen solo male team leaders struggle to lead without the gifts that women leaders bring. We’ve seen many gifted, passionate women goers be underused and underappreciated on teams where male leaders did not know how to empower them, who have eventually left the field. Many of those situations would have greatly benefitted from a woman leader’s voice along with a male leader to bring guidance and resolution.

As Jenn contends in her post on Women in Leadership, the Great Commission needs women leaders, and missions teams and ministries are not realizing their potential when they fail to empower women to operate in their gifts and leadership.

This is not to say that missions teams with male team leaders will necessarily fail to be healthy or effective. Good leaders will learn how to shepherd, direct, and develop their teammates regardless of gender. We’ll write a future post about tips for men leading women. However, we’ve found it most effective when there is a level of men and women leading together for multiple reasons.

This post will generally be about men and women leading together on missions teams, whether as a married couple or as non-married co-leaders. We’ll have some guidelines specifically about husbands and wives leading together in the future.

Our Story

Jenn gives a pretty thorough version of her experience of discovering her leadership identity in the midst of navigating life overseas and being in our first year of marriage in her Women in Leadership post.

We were 6 months married when we launched to the field – not recommended. From my (Steven) side, the feeling I most experienced during that first year was overwhelmed. I had heard from experienced goers how difficult the field could be on a marriage, and wanted desperately to establish healthy foundations between me and Jenn.

But at the same time, I was completely in over my head with our transition to the field, leading a team, and starting a new ministry. On top of the ‘normal’ field transitions like learning language and dealing with culture stress, I had innumerable team leader responsibilities piled on as well, including finding visas, opening ministry opportunities, detailing crisis plans, and approving 9 units’ ministry expenses.

The stress and burden of all of that hit me like a ton of bricks. 

I had always expected and desired Jenn to be a ministry partner with me, but I didn’t know what it could look like, didn’t know how to communicate that, and didn’t know what types of barriers and insecurities she was dealing with. It took us about a year of getting through culture-stress and learning to communicate as a newly married couple before we began understanding each other. 

Since we are both incredibly stubborn, we were missing the truth that God had given each of us exactly the thing we needed in each other. I needed someone to help carry the vision and responsibility of the team. And Jenn wanted to be empowered to use her giftings according to her calling. Jenn met the women on our team 1-on-1 and was in charge of their development and shepherding. I looked for more opportunities to invite her into areas of leadership according to her gifting and clear the way for her as a leader within our sending organization and our church.

10 years later, we couldn’t imagine working in a different way. We debrief nearly every ministry thing together, even if it’s something that we’re doing completely independently. We include each other in every ministry partnership, and we elevate and complement each other’s strengths. And perhaps from the example that we’ve set, it’s standard for men and women on the teams we’ve raised up to partner and lead together in ministry.

Along the way, as we’ve figured out what works for us and coached other ministry and team leaders, we think that men and women leading together leads to the healthiest and most effective outcomes.

Theological Considerations

Before we jump into reasons why we think men and women leading and working together is important, we want to quickly address the theological considerations around this topic. We aren’t trying to convince anybody towards or against a theological stance on women in leadership.

What we do want to encourage you to do is to study the Word about what it says regarding women in leadership, women in ministry, and men and women working together. From that, form a position that can be communicated clearly to your team. Jenn gives her view in her post on women in leadership, so I won’t state that here. But I will reiterate that once you have established your biblical view on women in ministry, explicitly empower women towards everything that they CAN do. Even though it may not be vocalized by the women on your team, it’s likely that some are wondering about where they can fit in, and being clear and empowering will be appreciated. Encourage discussion with your whole team about where men and women can collaborate and team together.

We find the Coworkers Bible Study and Developing Female Leaders by Kadi Cole as helpful supplementary resources.

Why Is This Important?

Ultimately, why is this topic of men and women leading together important? The bottom line for us is that missions teams that fail to empower both the women and men on their team towards their most effective role in ministry and leadership are missing out. They are missing out on seeing the fullness of the body of Christ at work. They are missing out on ministry opportunities that are available when both men and women are fully empowered.

Here are some of the key reasons why men and women leading together on missions teams is extremely valuable. The first three points are from Steven and the last two are from Jenn.

Increased Access in Ministry Opportunities

Over 50% of unreached people are women. Whether through direct disciple-making ministry or in partnering with local believers towards movement, having women in ministry leadership together with men will multiply your team’s ministry opportunities.

One of the major steps in pursuing movement is finding a National Apostolic Visionary to partner with towards multiplication. In many locations in the 1040 window, societies tend to be patriarchal, with men commonly in leadership positions. It’s good and strategic for movement practitioners to try to partner with local male Christian leaders. But because these local leaders are already very busy, there can be barriers with their availability. And given that there are usually few fruitful believers to work with, other expat workers may desire to partner with them as well.

However, there can be abundant opportunities found in partnering with local women believers who may be more available and perhaps even emerging leaders that are underdeveloped and open to pursuing different methodologies. Naturally, these local women believers will feel more comfortable interacting in ministry with outsider trainers and coaches who are also women.

We’ve learned from other movement practitioners that women oftentimes are the earliest adopters of movement approaches and can be quicker to enter into pioneering spaces and endure persecution. These local women are then naturally able to access non-believing women who can be in highly inaccessible or even oppressive situations in patriarchal cultures. If we are failing to empower and create opportunities for the women on our teams to enter into ministry, we are potentially cutting in half the pool of laborers and leaders that could be equipped to engage the harvest.

This is anecdotal to our teams in Thailand, but of the different partnerships with Thai networks that we have, the most fruitful ones are with Thai women leaders. And to no one’s surprise, it is the women on our team that run point with those leaders – planning strategy, training believers, coaching leaders, and walking side-by-side with them. If we didn’t have women leaders on our teams, just as empowered and committed to the vision as the male team members, we would be greatly missing out on seeing more people hear and receive the gospel in Thailand.

In contrast, one male leader that I coach in the Middle East acutely felt the cultural gender barriers that exist in his country. Although there were local women that voiced their interest in knowing more about Jesus, it would be culturally inappropriate for him to invite them to a male or even mixed-gender Bible study, and there were no known women Bible studies in his city that he could invite them to.

When there are both men and women leading together and empowering the team, teams can appropriately seize the opportunities to interact with both men and women in ministry settings.

Plurality of Leadership and Improved Decision-Making

We’ve mentioned before that the multiple roles of the team leader can feel impossible – shepherd, manager, administrator, strategy coordinator, developer to name a few. In our experience, having multiple leaders share the burden can be a huge benefit to your team and ministry.

It’s generally understood that single women greatly outnumber single men on the missions field, with some ratios cited as high as 7-to-1. It’s extremely likely that you have more women than men on your team. However you structure it, having at least one woman leader will maximize the benefits of leadership plurality. Women leaders will better represent the perspectives and needs of the women on your team and in your ministry, helping the leaders make better decisions.

Increased Collaboration and Empowerment

Our initial team had 6 men and 7 women. I grew up with most of the guys on our team. I knew their strengths and weaknesses and knew what roles would maximize their giftings. I didn’t know the women as well and healthy boundaries kept me from knowing them as well as the male teammates. After Jenn began investing in the women teammates and getting to know them, it was much easier to empower them to their best roles and set them up for strong collaboration with the men on our team. Having Jenn step into a role of leadership catalyzed greater empowerment of the women on our team and fostered stronger collaboration between the male and female teammates.

Just by seeing me and Jenn model leading and working together, our teammates felt permission to do the same. The women teammates saw Jenn in leadership and were more willing to step into leadership and ministry opportunities they might have assumed were for men. Our teamwork increased as everyone was more fully enabled to operate in their best roles.

A critical responsibility of a team leader is to empower their people to operate to the fullest extent of their giftings and strengths. When we can do this for both men and women, a team is able to harness and operate in the gifts of the full body of Christ. When leadership is able to model both men and women working and leading together, this creates a culture that releases team members to take risks, practice their giftings, and to learn from and help each other as well.

Shepherding Without Crossing Boundaries

The intensity of cross-cultural living and ministry can stress those we lead to the point where deep sin tendencies begin to emerge. In these situations, people naturally become discouraged, lose vision, or can even fall into moral failure. Before they reach this point, leaders need to step and help them identify and address sins they are struggling with, and to find freedom and healing. 

Everyone may have different thresholds and boundaries when it comes to cross-gender leadership, but generally we would consider it inappropriate for leaders to cross genders in addressing deep sin issues, or even some relational or marriage issues. Additionally, the pitfalls when it comes to cross-cultural, cross-gender shepherding are even more risky. We have heard many stories of male missionaries who have talked directly to a wife in a local family and ruined the relationship with that family for bypassing the husband, or vice versa with female goers. So regardless of what tradition you come from, it’s important that you know your personal, team, and host culture’s boundaries and communicate them clearly so no one is left in an awkward or potentially dangerous situation! 

In our first few years on the field, the women on our team wrestled with suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, depression, marriage issues, and frustration with role, just to name a few. Each of these issues are extremely personal and requires careful handling. Unfortunately, no matter how well intentioned Steven was, there were certain boundaries that he couldn’t cross when it came to shepherding. But simply by being a woman, I was able to more naturally empathize with the woman on the team. To them, I felt safe, which allowed me to foster trust in order to ask the hard questions and be received as a source of help. However, while I was often “in the trenches” with the women, Steven’s strengths and gifts were also needed. He coordinated with professionals to create shepherding / health plans, building a framework for accountability and holistic healing. He advocated for them to our org and created spaces where they felt permission to work on their own health without shame. Steven and I were able to work together in ways that felt appropriate for the people on our team, and by God’s grace, many of these women have found freedom and continue to persevere in the work!

Generally, women leaders are able to build deeper relationships with national women and with women on their teams, and speak into heart issues that a man might not be able to as easily. Being able to shepherd a team deeply is critical to keeping people persevering in the work as they find freedom from “everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1).

Emotional Intelligence and Rapport

Both men and women image Christ in different ways, which often expresses itself in different ways in leadership. Corporate research also understands this dynamic. Multiple Harvard Business Review studies have concluded that women leaders generally excel in collaborative spaces, rapport-building, emotional intelligence, and empathetic thinking for others. Women are also often turned to in times of crises, trusted to exhibit more self-control and navigate difficult relational dynamics. But in some ministry leadership rooms, women can be more excluded and under-leveraged.

At its core, ministry centers around people. We team with people, we work with national partners, we try to love and serve people in a way that allows them to receive the gospel. In all these things, emotional intelligence, empathy, and collaboration are a strength that women tend to bring to the table. How many opportunities are we losing when we don’t harness the strengths of women leaders? How much more unified could our teams be? There is so much to gain through harnessing the unique contributions of women leaders.

Worth the Cost

From Adam and Eve to Priscilla and Aquila to Paul and his coworkers of men and women, we see in the Bible that there is a precedent of men and women leading and ministering together. In seeking this type of leadership dynamic, challenges will emerge. It might feel slow at first as you figure out new structures, new ways of communication, new ways of teaming.

But it’s worth the cost.

Men and women leading together allows for teams to realize the full potential of the body of Christ in order to access anyone who God has prepared to hear the gospel or be trained to make disciples.

Discussion Questions

Here are some questions you can use to discuss and pray through how you might be able to empower the men and women on your teams toward greater co-leadership and collaboration with one another.

• What feelings arise when you think about men and women leading together? What excites you, and what tensions do you notice? Why?
• Looking at your current leadership context, are both men and women represented in leadership roles and decision-making spaces?
• What roles do men and women play on your team? How does cross-gender collaboration and teamwork currently function?
• How might empowering both men and women leaders expand your access to the people you are ministering to?
• Are team members and national partners positioned to thrive in their callings, strengths, and gifts? Why or why not?
• Is there someone you sense the Spirit is inviting you to intentionally elevate and develop as a leader?
• What specific changes could you make to strengthen collaboration and teamwork between men and women leaders on your team?