April 24, 2000
Disagreements discounted as source of missionary attrition
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___ FORT WORTH--Political conflict and changes in philosophy at the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board have not significantly increased the turnover in missionary personnel, IMB trustees were told during a recent meeting in Fort Worth.
___ While the percentage of the missionary force being lost to death, resignation ortermination has been slightly elevated in recent years--and a wave of retirements has swept the missionary ranks--record appointments of new missionaries have brought a net increase in the number of SBC international missionaries under appointment.
___ The number of career and short-term missionaries under appointment at the end of 1999 totaled 4,815.
___ IMB staff members highlighted results of the annual personnel attrition study after several trustees asked specific questions about the data, said David Garrison, associate vice president for strategy coordination and mobilization. Specifically, trustees wanted to know if "New Directions"--a recent reallocation of missionary resources from traditional fields of work to newer areas that remain largely unreached with a Christian witness or where people are more responsive to the gospel--has increased the IMB's attrition rate.
___ The answer to that question is "no," Garrison told the trustees.
___ Of 272 missionaries who left IMB appointment in 1999 for reasons other than retirement, only 26 (9.56 percent of total attrition and one-half of 1 percent of the total missionary force) cited disagreement with IMB philosophy, policies, staff or structure as a contributing reason, Garrison said.
___ He admitted some who resigned could have failed to cite their true feelings about IMB philosophy changes but expressed confidence that was not likely to have been true in many cases.
___ Overall, the IMB's attrition rate in 1999 was 5.35 percent, the second-highest in the past 10 years. The highest rate of attrition (5.55 percent) was recorded in 1992, the year former President Keith Parks resigned and trustees created controversy by defunding a seminary in Ruschlikon, Switzerland. Fifteen missionaries resigned in protest of that action.
___ Otherwise, attrition rates for the decade averaged around 4 percent annually.
___ Information for the study was gathered through a lengthy survey form completed by missionary supervisors every time a missionary resigns, dies or is terminated. The forms are filled out by regional supervisors and not by the individual missionaries themselves.
___ The most common reason cited for leaving missionary appointment last year was a change in understanding of God's call. That explanation accounted for 25 percent of all departures.
___ "Fifty-eight individuals resigned because of a change of call; six resigned because they felt they were never really called; and four resigned because their families in the U.S. did not affirm their call," noted an executive summary of the study presented to trustees.
___ Other reasons most-frequently cited for resigning were taking a stateside job (18 percent), issues related to missionary children (16.54 percent) and personality concerns such as problems with self-esteem (12 percent). Concern about IMB policies, philosophy and procedures ranked fifth in the list.
___ Other reasons given in more than 8 percent of all resignations were concerns about family back in the United States, difficulty adjusting to the mission field, work-related issues, health issues and interpersonal problems.
___ Seen on a worldwide scale, missionary attrition rates ranged from 2.39 percent in East Asia to 8.65 percent in the Caribbean Basin, the report said.
___ In addition to the Caribbean, the highest attrition rates were found in West Africa, Eastern South America, Western South America, Middle America and Western Europe.
___ These higher-turnover regions tend to be "older, more traditional fields," Garrison said. On the flip-side, the regions recording lower attrition rates tend to be the newer, developing mission fields.
___ A notable exception is West Africa, which experienced an attrition rate of 8 percent last year but is a newer, growing field of service. "It is not a traditional field, but a tough, tough place," Garrison said.
___ Age plays a significant role in predicting which missionaries will resign, the study found. Half of all those missionaries lost to attrition last year fell within the 41-50 age range--twice the percentage of attrition found in the next-highest age bracket, 30-40.
___ This is understandable, Garrison said, because the mid-life years of 41-50 are when adult children take on more responsibilities for aging parents, when children go off to college and when personal life crises often crop up.
___ More than half the missionaries lost to attrition last year had served eight years or more, but 31 percent had served five years or less.
___ That's a commendable track record, Garrison maintained, when compared with the average tenure of a pastor in a Southern Baptist church, which is about three years.
___ One factor found to influence most positively a career missionary's likelihood of remaining on the field is overseas experience prior to appointment. Those who served short-term assignments as Journeymen or International Service Corps volunteers prior to career missionary appointment accounted for only 8 percent of last year's attrition, while those with no prior overseas experience accounted for 91 percent of the 1999 attrition.
___ For an accurate picture of turnover among missionary personnel, however, retirements also must be factored in. In the early 1990s, the IMB began seeing an increase in the number of missionaries retiring.
___ Data were not available to ascertain whether the increase in retirements was due to political/philosophical concerns or simply the result of a large pool of veteran missionaries reaching retirement age.
___ The number of retiring missionaries spiked in 1991, to 105 from 68 the year before; 1991 was a year of highly strained relations between then-president Parks and trustees, leading to his departure early in 1992.
___ The number of retirees fell back to 64 in 1992, then spiked again to 103 in 1993. From 1994 through 1999, retirements have ranged from 64 to 99.
___ Meanwhile, the number of new missionaries being appointed continues to climb every year, more than offsetting any losses to attrition and retirement.
___ For the near future, "we're looking at projections that we could have 8,000 missionaries, up from less from 5,000 now," Garrison said.
___ He credited a greater sense of connection between stateside churches and the missionaries they send out and the impact of volunteer missions projects as contributing factors.
___ "We're seeing a lot more young people coming out first for short-term service," Garrison explained. "Our big growth categories are Journeyman and International Service Corps. We want to see a lot of those folks come back as career missionaries."
___ The Journeyman program is for recent college graduates who commit two years to overseas assignments. International Service Corps is a more flexible program of volunteer service with varying terms of duration.
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