A Snapshot of Korean Missionary Challenges

Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability by Jinbong Kim, ed. Seoul: William Carey Publishing, 2020, 348 pages. ISBN-10: 1645082849; ISBN-13: 978-1645082842. Available from Press and Amazon. 

Since 2011, the Korean Global Mission Leaders Forum (KGMLF) has met to address “complex issues relating to financial, administrative, strategic and pastoral accountability practices and lapses in Korea.”¹

The fifth KGMLF produced Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability (MMH&A, 2019). The volume’s case studies mirror many of the challenges Chinese cross-cultural workers and churches face today. The book covers not only culture-specific pressures on the field but also how national churches and agencies responded—or did not respond—to missionary stresses.

MMH&A consists of five sections:

1. Forewords (Six) and Prefaces (Two)
2. Three Bible studies by Christopher J.H. Wright
3. Case studies (The main “meat” of the book)
   1. Missionary Disillusion, Discouragement, and Depression
   2. Missionary Relational Dynamics and Tensions
   3. Contextual Contributory Factors in Missionary Mental “Illness”
   4. Resources for Missionary Mental Health Care
4. Workshop Papers
5. Summaries

At the back are a list of the conference participants, short contributor biographies, and an index.

Forewords and Prefaces

These forewords and prefaces, written by five sets of westerners and three Koreans, provide global, historical and personal context for missionary mental health. Sharply describing the cultural milieu around this topic, Jinbong Kim, editor and WEC missionary, notes:

While preparing for the fifth KGMLF—Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies—I was mildly rebuked by a Korean pastor, who asked me: “Why are you having a forum on a topic like this? Aren’t missionaries by definition spiritually, mentally, and physically whole?”

Similarly, we have heard from Chinese church or mission leaders, more than once, the idea that caring for missionaries is unnecessary or even a kind of “coddling”.

Bible Studies

Christopher Wright lays out an elegant Biblical framework for member care in his first study from 1 Kings 19. Next, he uses Jeremiah to explore deep emotions, such as bitterness, in the life of believers. The third study uses Apostle Peter to encourage Christians facing failure.

Case Study Sections

Many themes relevant to member care for Chinese missionaries are found here. Every article is followed by a commentary. For each report written by a Korean, a non-Korean provides a response and vice versa. These consist of case study explorations, essays, personal testimonies, and research reports. 

Case Study 1: Missionary Disillusion, Discouragement, and Depression

The first article uses a story to discuss real life pressures that missionaries face and the other three articles focus on how Korean culture influences mental health on the field and within international organizations. One of the most thought-provoking essays in this set is by Jonathan Kang, a member care specialist. Dr. Kang’s review of Korean cultural concepts that underlie anger intrigued me and made me wonder what terms from Chinese culture might influence interpersonal conflict among our Han colleagues.

Case Study 2: Missionary Relational Dynamics and Tensions

This section on relational issues touched on marriage, children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and sexual addiction. 

Hyun-Sook Lee, from Global Bible Translators and a counselor with over 25 years of experience, identifies three cultural causes of marital conflict: 

1. Prioritizing work over family
2. Confucianism and its values
3. Family of origin problems²

To help missionaries’ marriages, she suggests:

1. Careful missionary screening
2. Self-reflection and self-understanding
3. Communication and reconciliation skills
4. Establishing and using a counseling system
5. Supportive community
6. Cooperation between churches and agencies³

Nancy Crawford, from Rift Valley Academy in Kenya and Tumaini Counselling Centre in Nairobi, presents case studies of neurodiverse missionary children (e.g., those with dyslexia or ADD) to demonstrate how agencies should anticipate and provide for the needs of children. Failing to provide adequate or timely resources can lead to avoidable tragedies. 

Richard Winter, professor of Applied Theology and Counseling at Covenant Theological Seminary, wrote a somewhat conventional article on sexual addiction that included Biblical principles.

Case Study 3: Contextual Contributory Factors in Missionary Mental “Illness”

The third group of case studies looked at “contextual contributions” towards missionary “mental illness’”: Trauma—four articles discussing deportations or physical harm/threats on the field and mission organizations’ influence on the happiness of Korean missionaries. 

Jeong Han Kim, former field missionary and missionary director, tells stories, mostly involving China, of missionaries expelled from restricted access countries. In the reporting of the anguish of these workers, there is a curious lack of concern over how nationals might have also been endangered.

Kim, as part of the Global Mission Society, the largest indigenous Korean agency, shares organizational guidance for such missionaries as well as their checklist for how to care for them. While well-intentioned, these outlines may come across as somewhat paternalistic.

In her response, Karen Carr, clinical psychologist with Barnabus International, notes that it is probably unnecessary to forbid expelled missionaries from ever serving again in restricted access nations. 

Many missionaries’ distresses are related to fusing their identity with “doing ministry”. It may be a blind spot that this is almost never addressed in this book.

Next, the importance of organizational responses to crises is discussed from a case in Afghanistan by Stanley Green of the Mennonite Mission Network. Then, Frauke and Charles Schaefer, physician and psychologist, respectively, serving in Africa and Asia, use case studies to show how community, grace and lament can help missionaries work through trauma. They describe how Jesus’ actions on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-25) also provide a member care framework.

Dr. Young Ok Kim, counselor and former missionary, shares a set of testimonies of traumatized workers who were hurt by their organizations. She shares a simple framework for how mental health providers who do nothave field experience should be equipped to serve missionaries well.

The final report in this group by Eujung Um, co-director of Heartstream Resources Korea, reports survey results of Korean workers correlating field and organizational factors to their happiness. 

Field factors that were most associated with happiness in ministry involved: Having close, nurturing relationships with locals, and experiencing missionary competence, including personal growth, on the field. Dissatisfaction was most associated with: Lack of missionary competence, including language problems—identity confusion, and isolation—as well as relationship problems on the field, particularly with coworkers. These findings were somewhat similar to those of Tabor Laughlin in his study of Chinese missionary retention.⁴

Organizational contributions to dissatisfaction included: authoritarian leadership, one-way communication, lack of mentoring, lack of unity, leaders’ lack of understanding of member care and unfavorable peer relationships.⁵

Case Study 4: Resources for Missionary Mental Health Care

These final case studies looked at institutional resources. Brent Lindquist, psychologist trainer of missionaries and pastors, raised a helpful insight by, essentially, asking leaders to consider—“Why don’t agencies empower their member care departments to initiate wider organizational change from the lessons they learn from field missionaries?” 

The other two articles in this section touched on retirement. 

Structured interviews with eleven retired, male missionaries uncovered significant financial stresses after failing to initially prepare for retirement. These men also felt invisible in churches due to a pervasive pastor-centric culture. On the other hand, they described their overall mental health positively. The next retirement piece charts the remarkable story of how the NamSeoul Church’s layperson-led missions board has been anticipating the financial needs of troubled or returning missionaries since 1976.

Both of these reports reveal how church culture and policies hurt or benefited Korean missionaries. However, the study on retired Korean missionaries could only recruit a small number of men whose answers might have been influenced by cultural expectations. NamSeoul Church’s example cannot be easily replicated today given the trend of declining Korean church membership. Their layperson-led and maintained effort is apparently unusual for Korean church polity.

Workshop Papers

1. Depression in the Old Testament by Michel G. DiStefano
2. Missionary Kids: Who Rocks the Cradle? by Lois A. Dodds
3. How to Build a Multicultural Mission—Opportunities and Challenges: A Case Study of WEC Korea by Kyung Nam Park and Kyoung A Jo

Mr. DiStefano has taught religion and Bible classes at McGill. He does a good job of dispelling common religious misconceptions about depression through specific Biblical examples and his own testimony. However, his list of spiritual and fleshly factors in depression misses the important role of medical conditions, such as hypothyroidism, in depression. 

Using metaphors of cradles, such as Moses’ basket, Lois Dodds, former Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL missionary, covers church, agency and parental factors for raising resilient missionary kids (MKs). She states that MKs should thrive and not simply survive on the field and in their parents’ home countries. However, a couple of her suggestions needed more clarity. For example, how can agencies expect parents and MKs to fully embrace “other-culture attributes” before they’ve actually experienced them?⁶

The inspiring story of WEC Korea is told by Kyung Nam Park and Kyoung A Jo, Korean branch directors of WEC International. In their honest account, they review how and why WEC Korea evolved to emphasize spiritual formation, cultural intelligence and peacemaking.

WEC International Korea was established in 1997 with ten members. By 2018, WEC Korea accounted for over 24% of the WEC International membership.⁷

From the start, there was an emphasis on training workers well, including learning English. By 2008, however, high attrition compelled them to promote counseling and coaching despite cultural and traditional pushback. Leaders led by example, openly sharing their own heart issues. In addition, they implemented psychological and character screening of candidates. As a result, almost no missionaries resigned from WEC Korea for personal reasons after 2009. Park and Jo remark:

One reason for this could be WEC Korea’s emphases on maturity, character, integrity and missionary accountability, especially with regard to personal healing through counseling and member care.⁸

Other agencies could certainly learn from this story of growth and problem-solving!

Summaries

Two summary essays round out the book. 

The first is by Jung-Sook Lee, professor at Torch Trinity Graduate University, president of the Korea Association of Accredited Theological Schools. She is an ordained minister and has taught and written about Protestant mission history among many other topics.

Professor Lee begins by expressing apprehension at being asked to address a conference topic outside of her own expertise. In the end, she does a fairly good job of delineating social and cultural issues that Korean churches and mission agencies must face to serve missionaries well. These include—increasing mistrust of Protestant Christianity in Korea, especially by younger generations—declining church membership—success-oriented culture—“Confucius over Jesus” tendencies—gender inequality and nationalism.⁹

She exhorts churches and mission agencies to care for missionaries well from screening to retirement and to address missionaries’ financial security. However, her status as an outsider to the missionary experience is suggested in her proposals:

1. Standardize missionary life to protect workers from too much stress
2. Normalize expectations of missionary life
3. Give guarantees of missionaries’ pensions, vacations and sabbaticals
4. Create “united member care systems” for every sending body
5. Require spiritual formation training for every missionary¹⁰

Jonathan Bonk, president of KGMLF, offers the final word. After the exhilaration of reading through the book’s heartfelt—and sometimes heart-rending—missionary stories, his remarks fell short of the emotional and intellectual depth found elsewhere in the volume. One reason for this let-down is that he apparently aims at encapsulating every chapter. As a result, his synopses miss important points and come across as superficial. For example, he ignores non-sexual reasons for sexual addiction in Winter’s article. His overview of Stanley Green’s account of a missionary’s kidnapping comes across as fatalistic rather than constructive for how agencies should plan for crises.¹¹

Who Was at the Meeting?

By name and country, 95 participants were listed. At least 57 were from Korea, including five with non-Korean names. 33 were from New Zealand, Canada, USA or UK, including five Koreans. One Korean came from Africa. Four were based elsewhere in Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand, including a Korean field worker and a few non-Korean Asians.

Of the writers, 21 were non-Korean and 28 were Korean. From their biographies, I counted 26 with long-term missions experience.

Final Impressions

MMH&A is really a snapshot in time for how Korean churches were seeing and responding to the needs of their missionaries. One should not judge the authors too harshly from the vantage point of 2025. The book touches on many topics relevant to Chinese missions.

This book broadly covers areas of member care, from isolation to trauma to raising children to language learning to financial issues to retirement to crisis management. Having listened to many Chinese missionaries’ stories, we know that field workers strongly desire effective member care and mentoring.

Korean missionaries have played an outsized role in the development of Chinese missions. To see what Korean churches and missionaries have faced and how they have reacted should motivate Chinese mission leaders to evaluate their own approaches.

Several Chinese issues appear in MMH&A: Confucian cultural values, traditions that downplay honest expressions of emotional struggles, mission agency inexperience, gender inequality, lack of financial foresight, prioritization of work/ministry and unrealistic expectations. Missions research is vital for identifying these factors. 

Yet, mainland China’s sociopolitical environment is very different from Korea’s, and Chinese missions agencies are decades behind Korean ones in development and in resources. In some ways, due to historical upheavals, Chinese culture is not as rigid as Korean culture while Koreans have had longer and deeper exposures to international influences. So, we should be thoughtful when applying Korean lessons to the Chinese context.

Because this book is a more than a five-year-old snapshot, it is helpful to consider what is missing from the text. Here are seven issues that come to mind in 2025:

1. There is a significant gap in understanding of missionary needs between those who have field experience and those who do not. Many of the latter are Christian leaders. It is easy to have academic or intellectual missions roundtables, but ideas should be tested on the field and evaluated through the prism of experience and intimacy with God (John 15:4, Philippians 3:8-16, Hebrews 5:11-14). How can we close this gap besides having meetings?
2. Asian Christians have many positive characteristics for ministry. Some of these were mentioned but not all: boldness, perseverance, communalism, material resources, prayer, cultural cachet, cultural overlap with many unreached people groups, access to missions history, etc. What would a healthy and distinctly East Asian approach to member care look like?
3. Missionaries who base their identities on “doing” rather than “being” are likely setting themselves up for unnecessary harm. 
4. Wider missions networking is needed. For example, MMH&A writers seemed unaware of Dr. Anna Hampton’s Facing Danger: A Guide Through Risk (1st ed. 2016) on a theology of risk.
5. We should not be fatalistic about or excessively control suffering. A theology of care should accompany a theology of suffering.
6. How can we help churches to develop by eagerly learning from their field workers?
7. Member care is not just for missionaries—Biblical, mutual care should be intrinsic to every church or fellowship (1 Corinthians 12:12-27, 1 John 4:20-21, etc.). If church members default to intentional care for one another and their leaders (Hebrews 13:7, 17), Christians can avoid the idea of privilege for missionaries.

Another vital question should be asked about this book: How much has changed in Korean churches and missions since 2019?

One Korean missionary sent by a megachurch told me that it feels like member care had weakened. Three leaders at the 2019 KGMLF meeting were from their church. Another worker shared that several challenges described in the book are still current in Korea. On the other hand, a Korean member care leader whom we know has seen encouraging changes in a major Korean mission organization after their member care director took on the top leader role.

If, after greater than four decades of missionary sending and religious freedom at home, Korean churches still struggle to address the health of their missionaries, how will Chinese churches respond?

1. Chung Soojin, “Korean Global Mission Leaders Forum,” Center for Global Christianity & Mission, Boston University, March 16, 2018, accessed August 25, 2025, https://www.bu.edu/cgcm/2018/03/16/korean-global-mission-leaders-forum/.
2. Hyun-Sook Lee, “Marital Conflict within Korean Missionary Couples.” in Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies, edited by Jonathan J. Bonk, J. Nelson Jennings, Kim Jinbong, and Jae Hoon Lee (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2020).
3. Ibid.
4. Tabor Laughlin, China’s Ambassadors of Christ to the Nations: A Groundbreaking Survey (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2020).
5. Eujung Um, “Happiness Among Korean Missionaries and Organizational Care in the Missions Community,” in Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies, ed. Jonathan J. Bonk, J. Nelson Jennings, Kim Jinbong, and Jae Hoon Lee (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2020).
6. Lois A. Dodds, “Missionary Kids: Who Rocks the Cradle?” in Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies, ed. Jonathan J. Bonk, J. Nelson Jennings, Kim Jinbong, and Jae Hoon Lee (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2020).
7. Kyung Nam Park and Kyoung A. Jo, “How to Build a Multicultural Mission—Opportunities and Challenges: A Case Study of WEC Korea,” in Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies, ed. Jonathan J. Bonk, J. Nelson Jennings, Kim Jinbong, and Jae Hoon Lee (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2020).
8.  Ibid.
9. Jung‑Sook Lee, “Our Pain Is Not in Vain: A Concluding Summary,” in Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies, ed. Jonathan J. Bonk, J. Nelson Jennings, Kim Jinbong, and Jae Hoon Lee (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2020).
10. Ibid.
11. Jonathan J. Bonk, “‘But We Have This Treasure in Jars of Clay…’: Mental Health and God’s Servants,” in Missionaries, Mental Health, and Accountability: Support Systems in Churches and Agencies, ed. Jonathan J. Bonk, J. Nelson Jennings, Kim Jinbong, and Jae Hoon Lee (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Publishing, 2020).