Returned tentmakers into mentors
When tentmakers return home they go through what is commonly known as “return culture shock”. Adjusting to life as it used to be seems easy enough, but the surprise is that they have changed as they have seen and experienced another culture and been impacted by it.
I often hear how hard it was to adjust to no one asking them about their faith anymore. As tentmakers, they always had people around them asking about God or what they believe. At home, hardly anyone asks about faith matters.
The home church has changed while they were abroad, some friends have left, new people have come, perhaps the pastor that sent them is now gone as well. Finding their place at the church they earnestly missed is challenging. Some find it impossible to adjust and thus change churches.
There are also reminders of failure and disappointment while they were abroad while forgetting the amazing ways God used them to impact their co-workers, neighbours and friends.
Suggestions for returned tentmakers
Every returned tentmaker should consider becoming a mobilizer of new tentmakers, regardless of how they feel about what was achieved. God does the evaluation of their ministry, they themselves are not in a position to do this.
After a time of resettlement, they should also consider becoming mentors to those who are preparing to go abroad with their professions while integrating their work and faith. No one is better at helping than those who have experienced it themselves. Many state that they feel inadequate as mentors as they themselves did not see people coming to Christ or oversee a church being born. In reality, you can often learn more from other people’s mistakes and shortcomings than you can from their successes. Hearing only of successes, raises the bar of expectation too high and the new tentmaker may convince themselves that they do not measure up and therefore do not follow through on their desire to go to the nations.
If you are a returned tentmaker reading this, I urge you to connect with a tentmaking organization and offer yourself as a potential mentor. If one organization is not interested, there are many more. For a complete and growing list of tentmaker organizations, visit this website: www.tentmaking.org.
I pray that you will take the step to help someone on their journey to the nations while at the same time adding value to the time you spent abroad.
By Ari Rocklin