Questions to Ask Missionaries
Questions to ask a missionary: one your church supports, one home on leave and speaking on Sunday, a son or daughter you now see only on a video call, or one you have just met and are curious about. They follow the order a good conversation takes: the place they live, the work itself, their own faith, what it costs their family, the harder subjects of money, pressure and criticism, and what people at home can do to help. Choose a few from each group for a meal after the service, a class interview or a video call across time zones.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The place
Where are you serving, and how long have you been there?
Why ask it
The length is the half people forget to ask. Someone in their first year and someone in their fifteenth will answer almost everything after this differently, so it tells you how to hear the rest.
Is there anything about where you live and work that we should not post or repeat?
Why ask it
In some countries religious work is restricted, and a tagged photo or a church bulletin posted online can cause trouble for them or for local friends. Ask before anyone takes a screenshot of the call or a picture at lunch, and follow whatever they say without asking for reasons.
How did you end up in that particular place?
Why ask it
Assignments come from an organization, an invitation from a church already there, family history, or simply which country would grant a visa. Listen for how much say they had: some chose the place and some were told where to go.
What does an ordinary day look like for you?
Why ask it
This gets you past the newsletter version. Real days include paperwork, transport that fails, long waits, teaching, and conversations that go nowhere in particular. If the answer comes out polished, ask what they did yesterday.
How well do you speak the local language now, and how did you learn it?
Why ask it
For anyone working in a second language, this is the question that shows how they spend their days and with whom. Note whether they learned in a classroom, from neighbors, or still rely on an interpreter after years in place, then ask to hear a sentence.
What is your neighborhood like, and who lives next door?
Why ask it
Neighbors are where most of a missionary's real life happens, and they rarely appear in a slideshow. Listen for names. Someone who can tell you what the family next door does for work has been paying attention to the street and not only to the project.
What is on the table at your house on a normal weeknight?
Why ask it
A good one for children to ask, and a quick measure of how settled they are. Cooking local food with local ingredients usually means somebody taught them, so ask who.
What has made you laugh lately?
Why ask it
Calls and visits fill up with needs and prayer requests, and nobody at home hears the funny part. Often it is a language mistake or something that went wrong at the market, and it is the story a family or a class will still be repeating a month later.
What do people there assume about you before you have said a word?
Why ask it
Foreigners arrive carrying a reputation they did not earn: rich, temporary, working for a government, there to change people. Hearing which assumptions they meet, and which ones turned out to be fair, tells you how they look from the other side of the street.
If we came to visit, what would you show us first?
Why ask it
The answer shows what they are proud of, and it is seldom a building. On a video call, ask them to turn the camera to the window or walk you to the front door.
What is the best thing about living there that never makes it into your updates?
Why ask it
Reports home lean toward need, because need is what raises support. This gives them permission to say they like the bread, the slow evenings or the way strangers greet each other, which is part of the truth too.
The work
What is your actual job there, in plain terms?
Why ask it
The word missionary covers teachers, nurses, translators, pilots, bookkeepers, church planters and people who run a guesthouse. Ask what they would write under occupation on a form, and how many hours a week go to that and how many to everything around it.
Who do you work alongside, and who leads the team?
Why ask it
Find out whether the team is all foreigners, mostly local or a mix, and who gives direction to whom. A foreign worker who reports to a local leader is describing a different arrangement from one who hires local staff.
What does your organization expect of you, and what are you free to decide yourself?
Why ask it
Sending bodies range from tightly directive to almost absent, and the answer shows where authority sits day to day. Ask what would happen if they disagreed with an instruction.
What's your relationship with the churches and leaders who were already there?
Why ask it
In many places a church was there long before any outsider arrived. Notice the word they reach for: partner, guest, or the person in charge. Then ask who invited them, if anyone did.
What have local believers taught you that you didn't learn at home?
Why ask it
The direction of the question is the point: it treats them as someone who went to learn as well as to teach. The answers are often about patience, hospitality, or how people there face suffering, and a blank is an answer too.
Who is one person there whose story has stayed with you?
Why ask it
One person is easier to describe than a ministry, and it is what a class or a small group will remember afterward. Ask first whether the story is theirs to tell and whether a name should be changed, since the person is not in the room to agree.
What does a good week look like, and how do you know it was one?
Why ask it
Some organizations count things: visits, lessons, baptisms, patients, pages translated. Others count nothing at all. Ask which numbers they report and which signs they privately go by, because the two are often different.
What did you assume before you went that turned out to be wrong?
Why ask it
Stay long enough and there is a list. Common entries are how long trust takes, how much of the need turned out to be material, and how little of their training applied once they arrived.
Which part of your own culture has been hardest to set down?
Why ask it
Answers tend to name something small and revealing: punctuality, direct speech, privacy, the idea that an afternoon belongs to you. It is a kinder question than asking how well they have adapted, and it gets a truer answer.
What do you do when local practice and your own tradition point in different directions?
Why ask it
The concrete tensions cluster around funerals, marriage customs, alcohol, ancestor practices, and healing. Listen for whether they consult local believers before deciding, or decide and then explain.
Faith
When did you first think about doing this, and what made you finally go?
Why ask it
There is often a gap of years between the first thought and the departure, and the story lives in that gap. Listen for the ordinary parts as well: a job that ended, a visit, a person who asked them directly.
Who tried to talk you out of it, and what did they say?
Why ask it
Parents, a pastor, an employer or their own second thoughts: someone usually objected, and the objection was often reasonable. Asking whether that person has come round since is a kind follow-up.
What does your own prayer and worship look like when you are not leading anything?
Why ask it
People whose work is religious can go a long time without practicing their faith as a private person. An honest answer may be that it is thin just now, and that deserves a nod and not advice.
Where do you go to church yourself, and are you ever just someone in the congregation?
Why ask it
Worshiping in a second language, or always from the front, wears on people in a way they seldom mention. Ask whether there is anywhere they can sit down, understand every word and be responsible for nothing.
Which part of scripture reads differently to you now that you live there?
Why ask it
Living among farmers, fishermen, migrants or a religious minority tends to change which passages feel close. It is a gentler way into belief than asking what they teach, and the answer is often a story about a neighbor.
How has your faith changed shape since you left home?
Why ask it
Asking how, and not whether, treats change as normal and makes it safe to describe. Some come back holding fewer things more firmly. Let them say it without checking the answer against what your own church teaches.
What do you do on the days you doubt you should be there?
Why ask it
Most people who stay have those days, and supporters are the last people a missionary feels free to tell. If you give money or sit on the missions committee, say first that the answer will not change anything.
Family and cost
What does this cost your family, and how do they feel about it?
Why ask it
Aging parents, a spouse's interrupted career, grandparents who know the children through a screen: these seldom reach the Sunday slides. Ask gently and let the answer stay complicated.
How are your children finding it, and where do they go to school?
Why ask it
Only for those who have children with them. Schooling may be a local school, an international one, lessons at home or boarding somewhere else, and each choice has a price. If the children are present, ask them directly, and ask which place they call home.
What do you miss most about home, and what has stopped mattering?
Why ask it
The first half gets a quick answer, usually a person or a food. The second half is the interesting one: things that once seemed necessary and now look optional, which says a good deal about what the place has done to them.
How do you spend Christmas and family birthdays so far from home?
Why ask it
Holidays are when many feel the distance most, and also when a household invents its own customs: a borrowed oven, a meal with the neighbors, a call home at an odd hour. If you are talking near a holiday, ask what they are planning and what they cannot find in the shops there.
Who do you call when a week goes badly?
Why ask it
You are asking whether anyone looks after the person who looks after everyone else. A named friend, a counselor arranged by the organization or a regular call with a pastor at home are all good signs. A long pause is worth a follow-up later, in private.
How do you keep yourself and your team from burning out?
Why ask it
Ask for habits and not resolve: a fixed day off, something they do that has nothing to do with the work, what the team does when two members fall out. Then ask whether anyone has the authority to send them on a break, since some will not take one unasked.
When did you last take real time off, and what did you do with it?
Why ask it
Home leave is rarely rest: it fills with travel, talks and visits to supporters. Ask about a week with no speaking and no reporting. If they cannot remember one, that is something a sending church can put right.
How is your health, and what happens when someone in the family gets sick there?
Why ask it
The nearest good hospital may be a flight away, and the plan for an emergency is worth hearing as a plan. How care and insurance work depends on the country and the organization, so ask how it is set up for them instead of assuming.
What is it like coming back here, and what feels strange?
Why ask it
Home has moved on without them: prices, phones, the faces in the pews, the jokes. The return can be harder than the leaving, partly because everyone expects them to be glad. Asking this tells them they do not have to perform relief.
Harder ones
Who supports you financially, and how does that actually work?
Why ask it
Models differ: a salary, one sending congregation, pledges they raise themselves, their own family's savings, or paid work alongside the mission. Whoever pays is usually who they answer to, so this also tells you who their boss is.
How do you handle it when someone asks for money or help you can't give?
Why ask it
Where they are seen as the wealthy foreigner the requests can come daily, and most people settle on a rule they are not fully comfortable with. Ask what theirs is and when they last broke it.
How do you tell the difference between sharing your faith and pressuring someone?
Why ask it
This is the ethical center of the work, and an honest answer contains a real line: what they will not offer as an inducement, when they stop going back to someone. Visible discomfort here is not necessarily a bad sign.
How open can you be with your neighbors about why you are there?
Why ask it
In one country the answer is a sign on the gate, and in another it is a work visa and a carefully chosen sentence. That varies with the law and with the organization, so ask how it works where they are and whether being careful ever feels like hiding.
What's the strongest criticism of mission work you've heard, and what do you make of it?
Why ask it
The ones raised most often are the colonial history, the dependence outside money can create, and short trips that serve the visitors more than the hosts. Someone who can state one of them fairly before answering has thought about it. A flat dismissal suggests the team does not discuss it either.
How much pressure do you feel to send home good news?
Why ask it
A newsletter is written for the people who pay for the work, and a slow year is hard to put in one. Tell them you would rather read a dull honest update than a bright one, and mean it when the dull one arrives.
What happens to the work if you have to leave suddenly?
Why ask it
Visas are refused, parents fall ill, borders close. If everything stops the week they go, the work rests on them alone. A good answer names the local people who already hold the keys, the accounts and the relationships.
What are you afraid of in this work?
Why ask it
Give it a moment of silence after you ask. The answers are seldom about danger: more often failing, what the move is doing to their children, losing their own faith, or coming home with no career to go back to.
How will you know when your part of the work is finished?
Why ask it
Answers range from a handover to local leaders on a stated date to no end point at all. If there is none, ask who would be the one to say it is time: them, the organization or the local church.
What would you do differently if you were starting again in the same place?
Why ask it
The answers are usually practical: learn the language first, arrive with fewer projects, spend the first year listening instead of building. Worth writing down if you are thinking of going yourself.
How to help
What do you need right now that is not money?
Why ask it
Missionaries are used to being asked about funding and seldom about anything else. The answer might be a skilled volunteer, a schoolbook, a visa letter, a friend for a teenager or simply regular news from home. Write it down and tell them who will follow it up.
What one thing should we be praying about until we next talk?
Why ask it
One request is remembered and a list is not. Bring it up by name the next time you speak or write, so they know it was carried and not only collected.
Is a package a help or a headache where you live?
Why ask it
Parcels can sit in customs for months, arrive opened, or cost the recipient a fee and a day's travel to collect. Ask what gets through, what is cheaper to buy there, and whether a visitor's suitcase is the better route.
How do you like to hear from people at home, and how often?
Why ask it
Some want a short message every week, and others are swamped by notifications arriving through the night from another time zone. Ask about the app, the hour and whether a reply is expected, and then keep it up for longer than a month.
What is happening here that you would like to hear about?
Why ask it
On a call the questions tend to run one way, and they have missed weddings, babies, a new pastor and how the team finished. Give the last ten minutes to their questions, and ask which news they would rather not get by text.
Would a visiting team help you, or cost you a week of work?
Why ask it
Hosting visitors means transport, beds, translation and finding them something useful to do, and it is hard to say no to the church that sends the money. Phrase it so that no is an easy answer, and ask what kind of visit, if any, the local church itself has requested.
What would you tell someone here who is thinking about going?
Why ask it
Useful for a student or a couple weighing it, and revealing for everyone else. Listen for advice about preparation, such as a language, a trade, no debt and a home church that knows you well, more than for encouragement.
Which question do you wish people at home would ask you?
Why ask it
It hands them the conversation, and what they choose is rarely about the work. Ask it back to them straight away, and keep it for the next missionary you meet.
What do you hope is true a year from now?
Why ask it
A closing question that looks ahead without demanding a plan. Note the answer and the date, because raising it again in twelve months is the plainest proof that someone at home was listening.
Having a real conversation with a missionary
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Choosing questions for the setting
A missionary visiting your church
They have probably given the same talk in several churches this month. Over lunch afterward, skip what the talk covered and take three or four from The place and The work, then one from How to help. Keep Harder ones for a meal at your own table, where nobody else is waiting for a turn.
A video call with a missionary
Settle the hour in both time zones and send your questions a few days ahead, because the connection may be poor and time to think helps on their end too. With a class or small group, give each person one question, start with The place, ask before recording or posting anything, and stop at twenty good minutes. A family calling a son or daughter who is serving needs a different mix: what made them laugh, what they are eating, the coming holiday, the news from home they want, and one from How to help before the screen freezes.
Children and teenagers asking
Food, the neighbors, the language, what made them laugh and what the house looks like are the ones young people ask well. Let them hear a few words in the language and try to repeat them. Leave money, criticism and family cost to the adults, and to another day.
If you are thinking of going yourself
Read down Faith, Family and cost and Harder ones, and ask for an hour alone with someone who has stayed longer than five years. Ask what they would do differently and what they would tell someone thinking about going, then put the same questions to a second missionary from a different organization. Where the two answers disagree is where your own homework is.
How to get past the newsletter
Ask about the place before the mission
Questions about the city, the food, the language, and the neighbors produce concrete answers and make the harder questions easier. They also signal that you see the location as more than a backdrop.
Say that you are curious, not evaluating
On a visit home, many missionaries speak mainly to supporters and arrive braced for certain questions. Making it clear you are not assessing them tends to change what you are told within a few minutes.
Ask about time and money plainly
Length of service, funding source, and who they report to are practical facts. People are usually relieved to explain them rather than be quietly wondered about.
Leave room for ambivalence
Long service produces mixed feelings about the organization, the results, and sometimes the calling itself. If you react to doubt as a problem, you will only ever get the confident version.
What closes the conversation down
Turning it into a theology exam
Doctrinal cross-examination produces careful, defended answers about doctrine and nothing about the actual work. If you want to discuss theology, say so and make it a separate conversation.
Asking for miracle stories
The request pushes toward performance and away from anything checkable. Asking what has surprised them gets you the same territory without the pressure to impress.
Assuming they arrived somewhere with no church
In many of the places missionaries work, churches were there long before the organization that sent them. Framing questions around what they brought erases whoever was already there, and thoughtful workers notice.
Treating a home visit as a debriefing
Furlough often means constant travel, repeated talks, and questions about money. Ask what they would rather be doing with the afternoon, and be willing to hear that it is nothing at all.
Follow-ups worth having ready
- Who their closest local friend is, and how they met
- What they cook now that they did not cook before
- Which local holiday they have come to look forward to
- What they read to stay sane
- What they will do when this ends
- Which question they wish supporters would stop asking