Over the last decades a generational conflict has been developing in the missionary community that, like so many frictions in the church, has had the advantage of entailing a potential for growth instead of being only a dividing factor. The debate had to do with the relative level of commitment between the old school of missionary work, which still considered missions as a lifelong calling, and the newer missionaries who came to the field for just another step on a flexible and somewhat less predictable career path. While the older generation saw what seemed like a lack of commitment and definite calling in the approach of younger missionaries, the latter defended themselves with appeals to the nature of the current job market in general. Efforts were made to console the missions patriarchs on the basis that the whole world has changed, and that any vocation that was once considered lifelong is now generally approached in a less committal way. Statistics were cited about how many times the average person changes their career path nowadays, about job security being lessened and depending on a person's flexibility and willingness to embrace change, and about the benefits of maintaining a general spirit of mobility in any enterprise, including world missions.

This, of course, is only one side of the argument. There are serious problems with missionary work that is performed as just another step on the career path. How will missionaries become motivated to study the language and culture of their host countries if they do not expect to stay for longer than a few years? How will they deal with adversity if they are not certain that they have followed a calling that they embrace with a commitment similar to that attached to a wedding vow? And how is the long period of preparation to be justified? Bible school, the building up of a support network, training, language school, and the many other steps that need to be taken before the actual work begins: can it be pursued with conviction and integrity if it is only in aid of a few years of service? Today's job market notwithstanding, missions work is perhaps best not submitted to attempted justifications based on career trends in general.

Nevertheless, there are things to be said for the more flexible approach as well. Recognizing God's call is not only a matter of knowing where to start and what to do, but also of knowing when to finish and when to change. The sort of commitment that had missionaries of past centuries heading to the field with whatever belongings they could pack into a coffin was an unflinching declaration of the type of commitment that burns all bridges. There is something brazenly final and uncompromising about it which, while in keeping with the total surrender that God requires, may move one to the point of extreme difficulty in remaining open to further leading. Even today there are missionaries who never even consider the possibility that their work may be finished before their life is, and that there is another realm in which they are needed and into which they are being called. This sort of example may cause those who feel a call of some sort to not respond to it at all because they have learned to think of missionary callings as something you are so sure of that you literally bet your life on it.
Given that service to God is a lifelong calling, and that this may take any number of forms that are not limited to full-time intercultural missions work, it does not necessarily follow that the job description and geographical location is to remain constant. Following God's leading is a lifelong process, and one that we often feel we need to invest much time and energy in discerning.

There is a certain efficiency in making this choice once and for all. One who has just emerged victoriously from a long struggle to find and follow God's leading may heave a sigh of relief at the thought that this process of searching and finding is now finished and will never have to be repeated. But he may be forever deaf to the voice of God telling him when to move on. At the same time, remaining always open to the possibility of God calling us to break off our tents yet again can be a very unrestful way of life, and one in which it is difficult to allow oneself to settle sufficiently in order to be of use to anyone.

Discerning God's calling is an exercise in patience, discipline, and, yes, frustration in most of our lives. And if the older missionaries I talk to are to be believed, it does not get easier. So there is, on the one hand, the sort of flexibility that has one abandoning the current ministry at the slightest word from God. This makes it difficult to do the work whole-heartedly and invest in long-term goals. On the other hand, the sort of commitment that takes a call and makes it a life purpose makes it difficult to hear and follow when it is time to declare an assignment finished or a new task as God's leading.

Now it would be very brazen of me to claim that there is a simple solution to this matter. What I will carefully suggest, however, is that the dilemma has been incorrectly stated in the previous paragraph. The idea of "abandoning the current ministry at the slightest word from God" has the disadvantage of referring to "slight" words from God, which I daresay none of us has ever come across. We may constantly encounter promptings whose origins are unclear, but if we know that God has spoken, then the ropes with which we are tied to our current situation are irrelevant. God may have revealed Himself to Elijah in a quiet whisper, but there was nothing "slight" about that (note Elijah's reaction). Ultimately what we need to realize is that searching for the will of God is not some bothersome task that we have to put up with when we could be serving Him more effectively with that time; it is the purpose for which we were created. What is incidental (or, more accurately, a mere outward result) is the service which we do. It is not a question of our loyalty to a certain form of service; what is all-important is our loyalty to the God in whose name this service is done.

-Marco Klaue, October 2003