The Mission Phoenix

On this page...

• What is a missionary?
• Categories of Missionaries
• Counting Missionaries
• Number of LCMS missionaries, past and present
• Numbers of LCMS Clergy Serving as Missionaries, over time
• Comparing numbers of missionaries to other denominations
• Number of LCMS WM staff in St. Louis

A missionary is a person who is sent by the church to cross boundaries (geographic, cultural, and/or linguistic) in order to do the task for which he/she is sent.  Traditionally, missionaries are sent to proclaim the Gospel and establish indigenous churches.  Other missionary tasks include human care, ministries of mercy, education, agriculture, development, health, administration, construction, and many more.

New and creative avenues of overseas service have led to a proliferation of terms and titles for missionaries.  The unfortunate result is that it can be quite confusing to figure out what is being talked about when people discuss "mission work".  Here is an effort to lift some of the fog surrounding mission nomenclature:

• Career missionaries are people who have gone overseas to serve for an undetermined length of time.  Like a called pastor or teacher, a career missionary is sent with the intention of serving in that place until called to another place.  Career missionaries typically spend time in language school and in cultural learning.  They are expected to become fully conversant in both the language and the culture of the people among whom they serve.  LCMS career missionaries are fully supported by LCMS World Mission with a full salary and benefits package.
• Volunteer missionaries typically serve for less than a year, although sometimes their service extends beyond a year.  They do not spend significant time in language school, and often never become conversant in the language of their host culture.  Volunteer missionaries go to perform a specific task - i.e., teach English, teach in an English school, or supervise a project.  They raise their own support at home, and recieve no salary/benefits from LCMS World Mission, other than pre-field training.
• Short-term missionaries (mission teams) generally go to an area for less than one month, with a week or two being common.  Although they may try to learn a little of the language and the culture, they primarily accomplish a specific, short-term task that presumably is of assistance to the local ministry.
• GEO missionaries.  This is a new category of LCMS missionary, replacing the former category of "long-term volunteer".  GEO missionaries generally serve for 1 - 2 years.  They may spend a little time in language learning, although it is not required.  GEO missionaries raise their own support, but they also recieve health benefits and some other benefits from LCMS World Mission.
• International Educators.  This category was never clearly defined for me.  I think it refers to those who serve as teachers in international schools, primarily in Asia.  (An international school is an English-language school catering to expatriates.)  This category may also include people who travel overseas a few times a year to teach a class at a seminary or other theological education program.
• Career Personnel.  Several missionaries are identified as "career personnel".  For me, this is an unknown category.  I tried to find any information about how career personnel differ from or are similar to career missionaries, but was unsuccessful.  If anyone knows, please email the webmaster and I will get a definition or description posted here.

LCMS World Mission has a hard time reporting accurate, up-to-date information regarding the number of missionaries serving overseas. (see Missionary Numbers discussion).  When this site was first posted, LCMS WM had the August 2008 numbers on its website.  Then, briefly, they were updated to August 2009.  Then those numbers were removed from the website, and the old August 2008 numbers were re-posted.  Then new numbers date August 2009 were again posted.  So, here is the most up-to-date information available:

As of August 2009, career missionaries serving with LCMS World Mission were the following:

• 42 clergy
• 7 teachers
• 3 DCEs and DCOs
• 1 deaconess
• 1 vicar
• 4 medical missionaries
• 19 lay people
• 37 spouses with missionary solemn appointments
• 9 Ablaze! Alliance Missionaries*

*These nine (9) missionaries come from LCMS international sister/partner churches and are serving in foreign countries through LCMS World Mission in partnership and support."

(source: http://ww.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=4239)

Analysis:  There are (or were, in August 2009) a total of 77 career missionary "units" (singles or families) supported by LCMS World Mission.  Six of them were serving in the USA - I think all of them are clergy.  That leaves 71 missionary units overseas, of which 36 are clergy.  Additionally, LCMS WM financially supports between 8 and 10 missionaries from our international Partner Churches.

I consider the posting-then-removal-then-reposting of updated 2009 missionary numbers to be an ominous sign.  I fear that more missionaries have been quietly recalled from their field of service. It needs to be noted that the new August 2009 career missionary numbers include "missionary personnel", which is a term that is unfamiliar to me and is not defined anywhere.  What I THINK it refers to is people who are employed by LCMS WM to serve in their own country - i.e. a Cambodian Lutheran paid by LCMS WM and working in Cambodia.  This does not meet my definition of a cross-cultural missionary.   It is certainly less costly than sending a cross-cultural missionary, but is essentially the hiring of national workers and calling them "missionaries".  This does not add clarity to the picture of our LCMS missionary force.

The LCMS web page posts the missionary prayer cards, which are generally up to date.  I reviewed the prayer cards on October 1, 2009, and found that we have prayer cards for exactly 28 ordained LCMS career, overseas missionaries.  (I did not include prayer cards for "career personnel", since I don't know what that is).  Here is how those 28 ordained LCMS clergy are serving overseas, according to the information provided on their prayer cards:

• 3 are regional directors
• 7 are area faciliators
• 6 are teaching theology or training pastors/leaders
• 2 serve as pastors of international churches
• 1 school chaplain
• 2 strategic mission developers (not sure what the duties are)
• 7 involved in evangelistic, church planting ministry 

These are all important missionary duties.  Nothing wrong with what they are doing.  While it is disturbing to me that not a single prayer card listed “church planting” as a duty, responsibility, or focus of a missionary, it is important to affirm that there are LCMS missionaries involved in overseas, cross-cultural church planting.  In some cases, this responsibility cannot be publically listed due to local governmental restrictions.  In other cases, the duty is assumed, and other, more specific responsibilities are listed.  It does make it difficult, however, to know how many missionaries are involved in the work of planting churches overseas.

For me, it can be helpful to make comparisons with our mission efforts of the past.  How are we doing now as compared to other times in our history?

Again, it is not as easy as it sounds.  LCMS World Mission has not always counted missionaries the same way, so comparisons with the past are tricky.  For example, until the 1990's we didn't even have the category of "volunteer" missionary, and GEO missionaries were introduced as a category in January 2009.

That being said, some useful comparisons are possible.  In the past, LCMS World Mission counted "career missionary units".  A "unit" was a paid missionary, married or single.  How does our current career missionary force compare with past years?  (All the numbers are taken from official LCMS publications.)

• 1990:  180 career missionary units
• 1995:  155 career misisonary units
• 2000:  140 career missionary units
• 2004:  75 career missionary units
• 2008:  66 career missionary units
• 2009:  77 career missionary and personnel units (plus 9 partner church missionaries)

I am indebted to Dr. Douglas Rutt for posting a link to his informative article, "A Brief Outline of LCMS Mission History", in the discussion forum.  Highly recommended!  As a part of his research, Dr. Rutt recorded the numbers of LCMS missionaries deployed overseas over many years.  Here are his numbers:

    LC-MS MISSIONARIES, 1968 - PRESENT

It is surprisingly difficult to count the number of missionaries serving at a given time.  It can really be an exercise in futility.  Questions arise for which there are no easy, or consistent, answers - Do you count the wife separately, or husband and wife together?  Are volunteer missionaries counted?  What about people paid by the mission agency but living and working in the United States? 

Comparing the number of LCMS missionaries to the numbers of missionaries sent by other denominations is nearly impossible - I know, because I have tried to do so.  Most other agencies do not reveal who they consider to be a "missionary", much less what kind of work they are doing.

As someone who is deeply passionate about mission work, my own sense is that our missionary force is severely underpowered in comparison to other denominations.  Here are some numbers that I came up with in 2004.  In 2004, we had 74 career missionary units on the field.  I did not use that number in this comparison, in order to attempt to present a more "apples-to-apples" picture. For the LCMS, I counted career and volunteer missionaries serving 6 months or longer.  Husbands and wives were counted separately, giving the LCMS a total of 275 missionaries in 2004.

• LCMS:  2,512,714 members, 275 missionaries = 1:9137 members
• WELS:  403,345 members, 59 missionaries = 1:6836 members
• S. Baptist:  16 million members, 5,403 missionaries = 1:2961 members
• Assem. of God: 1,585,428 members, 1,880 missionaries = 1:843 members   

When I was called as a missionary in 1988, the St. Louis mission office was critically understaffed.  There were only about 4 people, plus a few secretaries, overseeing nearly 200 missionary families.  People were getting forgotten about - it wasn't pretty.

When the missionary force was reduced by about 40% in 2002 - 2003, the staff in St. Louis numbered about 70.  The St. Louis staff was also reduced by nearly 50%, to about 35 full-time equivalents.

Between 2003 and 2008, the St. Louis staff grew much more quickly than the career missionary force.  Career missionary units remained at around 70 +/-, while the St. Louis staff grew from about 35 to 70.   Today, no doubt due to the current financial crisis, the St. Louis staff has been cut back from 70 in August 2008 to 59 today (which includes 4 staff members deployed overseas).  What I do not know is whether or not the 4 deployed staff members are also listed as 'career missionaries'.  I think they are - at least, they have prayer cards.