Planting churches cross-culturally is one of the hardest and most taxing jobs on the planet. While level of difficulty varies from person to person, some of missions’ challenges may include:
- Leaving behind family, friends and your home church
- Learning a new language, ideally fluently
- Learning a new culture
- Living in extreme climates
- Balancing many obligations such as marriage, family life, relationships with supporters, ministry, a secular job, and requirements of your mission agency
- Functioning healthily on a team of missionaries, which may be comprised of people from different theological backgrounds, nationalities, and ministry philosophies
- Intensified spiritual warfare
- Rejection of/hostility toward the gospel message
- Missionary identity, especially if you work as a tentmaker
- If you have children, issues surrounding their “third culture” life (not your nationality, not the nationality of where you serve; somewhere in the middle)
- Political upheaval
- Oppression from followers of other religions, government, police
However, if God calls you to missions, He will faithfully equip you to stand in any difficulty, and will give you an extraordinary joy in the midst of it.