We recommend the following books to further your understanding of issues in contemporary world missions.  We’ve divided them into different categories to make it easier for you to browse, though some of them fall into more than one category.

To keep things simple we haven’t included ISBNs and publishers but you should be able to find them easily by using your search engine.

MISSION WORKERS COMING AND GOING

Back Home, Jochen & Christine Schuppener.  A guide to finishing well and transitioning back into your sending culture.

Burn Up or Splash Down, Marion Knell. Advice on how to survive coming back to your ‘home’ culture after serving abroad, from a British perspective.

Families on the Move, Marion Knell.  A consideration of some of the issues families need to consider when relocating abroad.

Looming Transitions, Amy Young.  A guide for ‘keeping your soul fertile and your sanity intact’ during transition.

PACT to Go! Rod & Ruthie Gilbert.  A practical guide to creating your support team.

Re-Entry, Peter Jordan.  Advice on how to survive coming back to your ‘home’ culture after serving abroad, from a US perspective.

The Art of Coming Home, Craig Storti.  Helpful advise on navigating four stages of re-entry.

MISSION WORKERS THRIVING

Love Across Latitudes, Janet Fraser-Smith.  An excellent workbook helping you to understand a spouse from a different cultural background.

Sacred Siblings, Sue Eenigenburg & Suzy Grumelot.  Helpful research and practical recommendations for healthy ministry team partnerships between single and married people.

Screams in the Desert, Sue Eenigenburg. Humourous insight into issues many women encounter in the mission field.

Single Mission, Dr Debbie Hawker and Rev. Tim Herbert.  Syzygy’s very own book about, by and for life as a single mission worker.  Find out more at www.syzygy.org.uk/single-mission.

Spirituality for the Long-Haul, Tony Horsfall.  A simple but excellent guide to developing and maintaining sustainable spirituality in the mission field.

Working from a Place of Rest, Tony Horsfall.  A practical guide for sustainable Christian life and work.

MISSION WORKERS DEALING WITH PAIN AND SUFFERING

A Tale of Three Kings, Gene Edwards.  An excellent exploration of pain, loss and heartache.  Read our review.

Honourably Wounded, Marjory Foyle.  A very helpful manual for recognising and addressing causes of stress in missions workers.  Read our review. 

Mission, risk and suffering, Matt Vaughan.  An exploration of what it really means to be lambs among the wolves.

The Uninvited Companion, Scott Shaum.  Scott shares lessons he has learned going through life with long-term illness.

SHORT-TERM MISSION

Before you go, Jack Hempfling. A daily devotional to help you prepare your heart before going on a short-term mission.

SERVE Short-Term, Christian Vocations. The most comprehensive published directory of opportunities in short-term service, with details of programmes all around the world from over 50 different organisations.  Available free online at www.globalconnections.org.uk.

TCKs

Serving at the Ends of the Earth,  Steve & Gill Bryant.  A helpful guide to every stage of bringing up children overseas.

Third Culture Kids: the Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, David Pollock and Ruth van Reken.  The original masterpiece about TCKs.

MEMBER CARE

Ad-Mission, Graham Fawcett. An excellent introduction to debriefing.

Debriefing Aid Workers, Debbie Hawker.  The complete manual on debriefing.

Doing Member Care Well, Kelly O’Donnell (ed.).  A manual reviewing member care from a number of different environments including real-life case studies.

Global Member Care, Kelly O’Donnell.  A complete handbook for doing member care well.

Healthy, Resilient and Effective in Cross-Cultural Ministry, Laura Mae Gardner.  A comprehensive guide to Member Care.

Too Valuable to Lose, William D Taylor (ed).  An examination of the causes of attrition among mission workers.

Trauma & Resilience – a Handbook, Frauke & Charles Schaefer (eds).  A handbook for supporting suffering mission workers.

Worth Keeping, Rob Hay and others. Global perspectives on Best Practice in missionary retention.  Follows on from Too Valuable to Lose.

CHURCHES SUPPORTING MISSION WORKERS

Care Across Cultures, Cherilyn Orr.  A practical guide for churches caring for mission partners.

Mind The Gaps, Trinity Church.  Helping your church to excel at supporting your mission partners/

Serving as Senders, Neal Pirolo.  An excellent resource for churches on how to support their mission partners more effectively.

The Re-Entry Team, Neal Pirolo.  Guidance for churches on how to welcome their missions partners home.

Your Church Can Make a World of Difference, Allan Webb. Simple and helpful guide on how to turn your church into a sending powerhouse.

MISSIOLOGY

Foreign to Familiar, Sarah Lanier.  A simple and excellent guide to understanding other cultures.

Global Mission, Rose Dowsett (ed),  A challenging compendium of theology and practice for the thinking missiologist.

Global Missiology for the 21st Century, William D Taylor.  Papers following on from the 1999 Iguacu missiological consultation.

God, that’s not fair, Dick Dowsett. An investigation of eternal punishment and justification for Christian missions.

Mission in the 21st Century, Andrew Walls & Cathy Ross (Eds).  Majority world authors explore the five marks of mission and evaluate current theology and practice of missions.

Operation World, Patrick Johnstone & Jason Mandrick.  The best guide to what’s going on in each country of the world, and how to pray into it.

Out of the Comfort Zone, George Verwer.  The original primer for mission.

Postmission, Richard Tiplady (Ed.).  A consideration of what it means to be involved with missions to a postmodern generation.

The Heart of Church and Mission, Brian Knell.  A clear explanation of why mission needs to be at the heart of church.

Thinking Clearly About the Great Commission, Rose Dowsett.  An introduction to world missions.

Transforming Mission, David Bosch.  A highly lauded but not uncritiqued analysis of biblical missiology.

Who is my Neighbour?, Martin Goldsmith and Rosemary Harley.  A simple and accessible guide to understanding people of other faiths and how to communicate effectively with them.

MISSION FINANCE

Funding the Family Business, Myles Wilson.  Guidance on the best ways of raising funding for your ministry.

People Raising, William P Dillon.  How to take a group of supporters with you on your journey.

Members of Global Connections receive a discount on many of these and other resources ordered through their website.  Visit their shop.

———————————————————

In addition to these books we also have the following resources which you can download:

Missions and the Environment, Tim Herbert. Tim was asked to write this article for OMF (UK) who published it in their magazine East Asia’s Billions in July 2007.  

Download (PDF, 5KB)

An Assessment of Short-Term Missions, John Miles. John has a lifetime of short-term missions experience, and wrote this paper as a dissertation for his MA in Missiology with Birmingham Christian College.  

Download (PDF,  490KB)

Getting it Right, John Miles. John has been responsible for sending nearly one hundred short-term teams, and this manual contains his wealth of experience in training them.  

Download (PDF, 969KB)

How to Come Back Alive, John Miles. John’s GP admits that John knows far more about malaria than he does!  This health manual contains valuable information for travellers abroad.  

Download (PDF, 155KB)

Worlds Apart, John Miles. John’s extensive experience as a mission worker in India, Africa and eastern Europe is put to use in this cross-cultural training manual.

Download (PDF, 1217KB)

An Investigation into the Issues Faced by MKs on returning to Britain, Pam Serpell. Pam, a TCK herself, wrote this dissertation for her BA.

Download (PDF, 417KB)

These documents remain copyright of the author but they are available for use subject to acknowledgement of the source.