S07E19 Am I Called to Be a Missionary? With Marvin Slaton (Encore Episode)

Have you ever been asked, “How did you know you were called to be a missionary?” Or maybe you’re the one wrestling with that question right now. This episode with Marvin Slaton is more than a conversation—it’s a practical resource you can share with friends, family, or future missionaries to help them discern their calling. 

Marvin and Stephanie break down the three key ways God speaks, how to recognize the difference between a calling and a burden, and how to move forward in a way that’s wise, healthy, and God-honoring. 

If someone’s asking you about missions, this is a tool you can send them—and a thoughtful way to walk with them through it.

Thanks for listening! Email us your questions at care@modernday.org

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Chapters

• 0:10 Understanding the Call to Missions
• 1:14 Marvin Slaton's Missionary Journey
• 2:15 Discerning the Call: Holy Spirit, Word, and Counsel
• 9:58 The Difference Between Calling and Burden
• 23:06 Walking Out Your Calling
• 30:20 Final Thoughts and Next Steps

Transcript

Am I Called To Be A Missionary? with Marvin Slaton II

Stephanie: Welcome to a special episode of the Modern Day Missionaries Podcast. Today is the first part of a two-part series we're creating for you to be able to share with your family, your friends, maybe supporters who wanna better understand what it means to be a missionary, or maybe they are wondering if they're called to missions as well.

So today's episode looks at how you can know if you're called to be a missionary. And if you are a missionary, chances are that you have been sought out by people who felt a pull toward missions and maybe they wanted to know how you knew. You know, Marvin and I hear that question all the time. So we're creating this video, this episode as a tool and a resource for you to be able to share with people who have this same question.

So maybe that's you. Maybe that's you who's listening right now. You are wondering about missions. Maybe you stumbled across this episode when you were Googling that very question. Or maybe your friend just shared this episode with you after you asked him, how did you know? Well, we still wanna encourage you to ask missionaries all about their experiences, but I'm here today with Modern Day's executive director Marvin Slaton, and our goal is really to break down that discernment process for you and examine: What are the questions you should be asking? What are practical ways to discern the call to missions and what are some common mistakes that people make? So clearly your listener feels a pull toward missions. So what are several ways you could walk out that call, depending on the type of missions God's given you?

You know, Marvin, you and I have felt the pull towards missions personally, haven't we? And we both walked out our call to missions in different ways, in different seasons. So when did you first feel the pull tour missions? 

Marvin: Stephanie, I think it goes back to my first mission trip out of high school. And you know, growing up in Texas we naturally went to Mexico a lot for mission trips, you know, and so we went 500 miles into the interior of Mexico for a week. And many worlds were rocked in a number of different ways, but really it was kind of like the genesis moment of like, man, being a missionary is a super high quality. And I enjoyed it, but it was crazy challenging, obviously in all of the ways to have your new normals for the week. 

Yeah, I think that's really my first memory of that tug on the heart from the Lord of him just beginning to open the door into missions. And I think that's an important question, how to know that you're called to be a missionary. And I think there's really three key vital things that you have to process and pray through. And, really I think it starts where it always starts as a believer, and that's asking the question of what is God saying? You know, as we're processing, am I called to be a missionary? Is this my calling? 

God talks in a few different ways. I think the first thing we're processing is, you know, the fact that we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, right? And we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and he's leading us, guiding us, and directing us. And so we're looking at, Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me about missions? What are you highlighting? And with this potential calling to be a missionary. And I think what coincides with that is obviously the word of God, right? And so there's the Holy Spirit speaking, but there's the word of God and what we're discerning. As we read the word and spend time with him. With what the word is telling us, you know? And if we're married, what the word is is telling our spouse. If we have children, what is it telling our family?

 But I think the thing to pay attention to is that there will always be symmetry and alignment between what the Holy Spirit is saying to you and what the Bible and his word is saying to you. And I think that's it. Such an important part. It's such an important piece to understand, is that there will be symmetry there; there will be alignment. The Holy Spirit speaks, the Word confirms. 

But you know, Stephanie, I think there's a third component that's really equally as important, and I think it's the component of others. And when I say others, it's that multitude of counsel, right? The multitude of counsel that comes from seasoned leaders in our life, or pastors or mentors or, even, peer friends who, they're not just the yes friends, right? Anything you could say, they're gonna be your biggest cheerleader, they're going to be your biggest fan. And it's like, yes, you know, of course you should be a missionary. You know, I'm talking more about people who can take an objective look at your life and what's going on and provide great counsel. And I think that comes out of Proverbs 1114, “Where there is wisdom, there's sound advice in a multitude of counsel,” and you know it.

There's the story of Modern Day that actually really highlights this. You know, in 2005 I was on a short-term trip to China. I was on a bus and we were out in the countryside and we were going to evangelize to some villages there in very rural China. And I was listening to worship music and I was journaling, reading the Bible, just having a quiet time on the bus. And I felt the Lord speak to me the words Modern Day. So I journal them and write them down, but I have no idea what it means. And then just after that, I feel the Lord tell me that the archaic world of missions is supposed to be married to the modern day world of technology and advancement. And so I'm writing it all down with no idea what that means.

Okay, so I have a quiet time, finish the short-term trip, and come back from China. What I didn't do, Stephanie, was run off, start my own 501 C3, you know, get my own nonprofit going, start fundraising for it, start you doing all of the things, creating a board and all of the infrastructure. That's what I didn't do by the grace of God. So that trip was in the summer of 2005. When I came back, I submitted what the Lord was telling me to a group of trusted people in my life, seasoned leaders, and mentor close friends that I could trust. And Stephanie, it was three years later, the summer of 2008 that Modern Day missions actually started. But I share that story because it highlights that God, he's into partnership, he's into team, he's into collaboration, but he's also into a multitude of counsel. I was hearing the Lord on the bus and I was even reading the word and there was symmetry there, but there was that third critical element of that cloud of witnesses, of that multitude of counsel. And it took three years. But my goodness, I'm so glad that it happened that way because it started out in the right place. And so again, I think when you're looking at that question and my call to be a missionary, it starts with: What is God saying through the Holy Spirit, through his word, and then through the multitude of counsel as well.

Stephanie: That's so good that you highlighted the importance of all three of those happening because as we mentioned in the beginning, mistakes that potential missionaries make are people who are trying to discern the calling. And I think one of the big mistakes people make is missing one of those three. You know, it might often happen through that last one, through the confirmation of other people who speak into our lives.

They'll just feel this desire to go and everyone around them is saying, no. No, I don't think this is right. I'm not sensing this, but they'll barrel ahead anyways and we'll talk about that in a little bit. What happens if you barrel through on a call? 

Or maybe it's the personal piece. Maybe someone is telling you you should go or dragging you along. Or we will see this with spouses. Sometimes one spouse will drag the other spouse and there's not a confirmation in each of their hearts and there ends up being a lot of marital problems later on, on the field and through his word. I think that we can find a lot of verses that obviously support going into all the world and preaching the gospel of every nation so we can find God's support. But it is interesting to notice, hey, what are the verses that are standing out to me in this season? 

And even when I go back to the first one, you mentioned you personally, how's God speaking to you personally? He does it in different ways. You mentioned there was some journaling, you were hearing some specific phrases, and that is a valid way and a frequent way that God speaks to us. I think back to my story all of a sudden. I wanted to go to Peru, and I didn't know why, because that was the last place on planet Earth I wanted to go, and I suddenly couldn't stop thinking about it. It was like an itch I needed to scratch. It was a desire that kept growing. So it's paying attention to what are some of the desires that are growing in your heart? What are some of the phrases that are coming? What are some of the deep gut feelings that you have in your heart? 

And then, like you said, checking that against the word. Bringing it before the council of others. So for people who are listening, pay attention to what's going on in your heart. Pay attention to what you're noticing in God's word, and pay attention to what safe, good, healthy people in your life are speaking into it. What a great place to start. Where would they go from there, Marvin?

Marvin: Yeah. I think the next step really as you're processing and praying about this calling to be a missionary is being able to define correctly and really internally within yourself, the difference between a calling and a burden. I think that's so important. You know, as you're hearing from the Lord and as you're moving that direction, it's like, Lord, is this a calling or is this a burden?

Because they're different. You know, a calling is birthed out of God's will for you, right? It's birthed out of God's will and it's his plan for your life. And generally, it's fairly specific and clear for you. Okay? But with a calling, there is a burden that comes with a calling, but I will say this, a burden does not always have a calling. A calling does have a burden, but a burden does not always have a calling. Again, your calling is wrapped up in God's will for your life generally. Very specific, and I would say comprehensive to what you're going to be doing. It covers everything, not just a specific burden. And I think a burden when you look at defining that, it's typically related to when you have a revelation of a need that arises for something or someone, right?

And, but the thing about burdens is they come and go. Burdens can, they can easily come and go. And so I think, being able to clearly define that difference between your calling the will of God in your life, that very specific plan, and then just the burden, you know, which again they can come and go is very, very important in those initial phases. Because again, I think your calling will be very comprehensive. It's going to include that burden. Or maybe a couple of burdens, but it's going to include everything else that comes with missions, not just the burden, because again, if you're a missionary for 30 years, that burden can change and it probably will multiple times.

Stephanie: So a calling and a burden. They sound similar, but they're different. And they both call for action, but they call for different kinds of action. So it sounds like what you're saying with a calling, we are being called to say, take a step forward into the missionary call. It's something that includes our whole purpose in life. Whereas a burden is something that is more or less specific. Something that can change as time goes. And I remember our pastor talks quite a bit about calling versus burden. And he says, if you go on the field with a burden instead of a calling, you become a burden. And so let's talk about that for a little bit. Break that down. What happens if you ignore the calling and then what happens if you ignore the burden? 

Marvin: I think you know that first one. What happens if you ignore the calling and stay, or I would even say not just stay, but you go the other direction? I have someone who I'm close to and they're in their mid-twenties now, and they have a very specific calling on their life. They know it, the people around them, that cloud of witnesses, the multitude of counsel. Everyone knows this, but we also all know that when you graduate from high school and you're in your late teens, early twenties, what type of season is that? It's a season of preparation, right? It's the season of education. It's a season of mentorship and internships and all of those things in building yourself up for your calling, right? And so this, this person though, even though they knew their calling, they didn't embrace the season of preparation. They stay in a sense. They actually went the other direction. They didn't embrace any of it. And so, and what happens, and this is a little bit like Jonah we'll get to in a second, is when you don't embrace your calling and you stay or go the other direction, you tend to find yourself going wayward in a way that you would not have liked. And my friend, who I'm giving the example of right now, he's going down a really discouraging road. It's a depressing road. And honestly, it's a dark road that he's going down, but it goes back to, he has this calling, but he didn't step out into the preparation for the calling. 

And I think we see that in the story of Jonah, right? Jonah had a specific calling to Nineveh. Jonah not only stayed, he went the other direction and where did Jonah find himself? In the belly of the whale, right? On a wayward road that God and his grace and mercy brought him back to his calling. But I think Jonah is a great example. My friend's story is a great example of there being a calling, you know, but you not stepping out into it, whatever that initial season is for your calling and you stay or maybe you even go the other direction.

Stephanie: You know, Marvin, what you're saying really reminds me a lot of when me and my husband, Danny and I, were in charge of a missionary internship when we were down in Peru, and we would have a set of young adults come down every year and they would come down because they were in that discernment process. And so the internship was a way for them to do some further discerning. At the end of their time serving five or six months, we would sit down and have some conversations about what this all looked like. And all of them had a missionary burden. And missions should be in all of us, yes, because of the Great Commission, but it's a little extra heavy on some of us.

And so we would sit with them and process, hey, what is the relationship to missions that you feel like God is pulling you into? And for some of them, they felt that missionary calling to come back and serve on the field. And as we know, missionaries can be based in the, in their passport country, they can serve in, in different cultural communities or they can go overseas. And so did they have a missionary call that called them to move and be a part of that other culture? Or did they have a burden? And what does that look like? A practical example, some of our interns went back and became mission pastors, or worked in the missions department of their churches. Some of them felt called to start prayer groups to pray for missionaries, some adopted missionary families, and took them under their wing and just began sewing into them and checking up on them. So, God's calling you to do something if you're feeling this itch towards mission, God's calling you to do something, but it's really critical to discern what that is. Is it to go as a missionary or is it to stay where you're at and do missions perhaps in a more local context? 

Marvin: Yeah, and I think, you know what if you know, you ignore the burden and you stay. And I think the thing to me and to revisit this from what I said earlier, is that if you have a calling to be a missionary, it's going to be comprehensive. It's going to cover every facet. What do I mean by that? It's going to include your marriage. Your family and that preparation, it's going to include fundraising in your finances. It's going to include the ministry aspects of it. It's going to include the relational aspects of it. It's the calling that is going to comprehensively cover you. 

Whereas if you step out into, you know, even if it's local, but a foreign line, especially on a burden, typically you are honed in on, again, this revelation of a need. It's a need for someone or something, but even though you know you have this revelation, are you also considering your family? Are you considering finances? Are you considering your community? Are you considering, you know, kind of the comprehensive approach, which is I think, what a calling does for you. And so that's why I think it's, it's so important, Stephanie, to have a clarity there in your life between, you know, am I called or is this just a burden? And again, a calling will have a burden, maybe even a couple, but a burden is not necessarily your calling in life. 

Stephanie: Absolutely. And for many of us who are called to be missionaries, we're going out and we're joining other teams or we're joining up with organizations. We forget sometimes that the choices we make affect the people who are already there. Not only the local people who are there, but the other missionaries. And if we go with a burden and we become a burden, we can really risk hurting the ministry that somebody else has done. And I've seen this happen. I mean, I've watched it with my in-laws who've been missionaries for years and years. And sometimes you would see people go on the field because nothing else was working in their life. They lost their job, they were bankrupt, and they're like, I don't really know what else to do. So I think I'll try missions if that's enough. If that's how you're approaching missions, let me just clue you in right now, as Marvin was saying, with the holistic approach, that's not a good way to start. Missions are not your end. All resort missions aren't what you do when you can't think of what else to do. It's something that God places inside of you; God is calling healthy people to the field. So we'll get into this a little bit more too within these two series, but it's important to go to the field in a healthy place, so you could be a blessing to the people you're serving.

 But Marvin, what does it look like to walk out your burden then, in a healthy God-honoring way? How can you thrive if the burden is where you're finding yourself? 

Marvin: I think it starts with a plan of action, right? If a burden is that revelation of a need, you know, with, with something or someone, I think it's important to start at the place of a plan of action. And I think typically that plan of action will include four different things. It's what I have seen played out in my life and, you know, my experience with missions over the past 20 years. And I think those four different things are: praying, serving, giving and going.

You know, let's just use an example. Let's say you have a burden for an orphanage that's in Africa, right? But you're not called to be a missionary in Africa, but you have a burden for this orphanage that's in Africa. Then by all means, your plan of action begins to pray. Ask leaders of the orphanage, how you can pray, develop a prayer team, you know see what all you can do in the realm of prayer. Also, not just praying, but serving. Ask the orphanage in the leaders, how can we serve you stateside here in America or wherever your home country is? How can you serve them? I'm sure there's a number of different ways that they can be served. And of course giving financially, you know, finances are such a huge aspect of everything in life. Not just missions, but missions included. So asking the Lord, how can we be financially involved here? And then the fourth thing, which I think is just as important, go and visit. Right. Go and visit, go on a short-term trip and serve them, you know, in the flesh there. Serve them at the orphanage and for a week or two weeks or a month, whatever it is, and be there in person to pray with them and to hold their hands and to help them and encourage them and whatever ways that you can be a blessing to them in that time.

And so I think again, Stephanie, it's a plan of action. It's praying, it's serving, it's giving, it's going is the greatest way you know, to walk out a healthy burden. 

Stephanie: Yes. And a burden is such a blessing when you're walking it out in a healthy way. You think about missionaries, how many people with a burden for missions does it take to get a missionary and keep a missionary on the field? It takes a lot. I mean, you think of it in the context of a church. There's the lead pastors. How many staff members and how many congregation members are a part of that congregation to make it up. We need people who are leaders there. You need people on staff. A lot of people need to come together to make something happen. 

Well, if you look at missions, the missionaries are kind of that point of the spear. They're the ones who are called to go and to be there. But a burden is not a lesser calling. A burden is a beautiful and a wonderful thing, and every missionary who is listening to this is like, thank God for all the people who have a burden for what it is that God's called me to do, and a burden for missions. So if you have a burden, celebrate it. Be excited that God's called you into it. And as you said, Marvin, look for those four ways as to how you can walk those out. 

Now how about for the others who are listening and they're still sensing, okay, I think for me it might be the calling. I might be the one who's called to be sent. How can they walk out their calling in a healthy God-honoring way? 

Marvin: Right? Yeah. I call this the four Cs of a healthy calling Christ commitment, hovering and just to kind of unpack that a little bit, you know, when you know you're called and you're going to the mission field, you are going to need an anchor. You need an anchor, and you're a plumb line. You know, and what is so important, not just for those called to be missionaries, but whatever you're called to in life, you need to be in a healthy place. You need to be anchored into him and his word and the spirit, and what I call that vertical relationship. It needs to be healthy and it needs to be anchored in, but especially if you're gonna go into all of the new norms of a for foreign country.

 So I think it starts with Christ, but what's cool is that in Christ, what he continues to do is sink into you that commitment of the calling, right? If you're anchored in good, if the vertical relationship with the Lord is good, then that commitment to the calling, he's gonna keep reinforcing it, keep reinforcing it, keep giving you creativity, keep giving you ideas, keep I would say refreshing you in calling. So I think, I think they go side by side, Christ and commitment. 

But also I think, you know, just as important is the covering piece. If you're gonna do it healthy, anything in the kingdom of God, it requires a healthy covering. We don't believe in lone rangers and doing things by yourself. Why do we not believe that? Because that's not what the Lord calls us to in his word, right? We're not called to do ministry and life by ourselves. And so I think a covering of a wonderful sending church or a church that you're serving under in the nation you're living, or as a sending organization, and that pastoral care, that leadership, again, that wise council, I think is huge to have a healthy experience. And I'm doubling down here, Stephanie, in this place because I've seen in my years of experience, people who do not have sufficient covering before long they can begin to wander. You know? And so I just say a covering is so vital for a healthy missionary. 

And then, and then last, I would just say community. And this is definitely not last or least, community. And I would say if the vertical's right, what the vertical's going to tell you is that the horizontal piece is very important. Living life in community. Your friends, your coworkers, other missionaries, people at the church who you're serving with are going to be strategic. It's going to be key in your overall health as a missionary. And so I've seen this play out so many times, Stephanie, I can tell you from being the executive director at Modern Day for 13 years, that when I look at the healthiest missionaries, it's right vertically, but it's also right in the communal sense there. And most of the time, Stephanie, those missionaries who are operating in a very healthy way and a life-giving way, they have a home church that's fully behind them in the states or wherever they're from, or they have a church that's fully engaged with them that they're serving in where they are or they have both, which is really ideal is to have both of them.

So I call it the four Cs, Christ, commitment, covering, and community. If you can get symmetry there, if you can get all of those things aligned, which takes a plan of action, it takes intentionality, it takes work, but is your calling not worth working for? Right. It's worth working for. And so that would be kind of the short of the advice I would give. 

Stephanie: Which is great. And I know the last point you were going to get into as we were talking earlier, ties into kind of the last point from burden, and that is going and being around missions, getting exposed to it, experiencing it. How does somebody do that? So I found myself all right. I think I know between burden and calling, but there's just a little bit more I need to do and I'm gonna get some firsthand experience. So say more about that. 

Marvin: Well, I think too when you're assessing your calling you know, obviously God's speaking, how to rightly define that difference between a calling and a burden and all of those things. But I think it's really hard to know specifically talking about being called into missions unless you have exposure and experience. And we get that exposure and experience through short-term trips. Going to foreign nations, going to other nations for a week or two weeks, or whatever it is, and experiencing all the things. It helps you more clearly understand and process the difference between a burden and a calling. I also think, Stephanie, it reveals your capacity and your aptitude for things and missions such as a new culture, a new language, all of the new normals you can begin to assess as you're on that short-term trip. Is this something that's in my makeup that I can do? You know, and I think it can also reveal what you have passion for and what you don't have passion for, right? And I know in the many different short-term trips I've been on, that has played a huge part in cultivating, Marvin, what do you have passion for in missions? And you have the exposure, and you have the experience, and you're able to see, oh man, it's these things that make me come alive. Or, you know, these things, they're awesome, they're wonderful, but they don't really make me come alive.

But then you're able to establish, sift through and prioritize, you know, the things that in your life make you come alive. Because the reality is that Christ wants people who are alive in him. He wants missionaries who are alive in their calling. Right? And so I think a huge part of being able to, maybe I would even say finalize, you know, your calling is just through that exposure and experience, you know, that that I think comes through through short-term trips.

Stephanie: Absolutely. And there was a quote that you shared that I think really sums up what you just said. And it says, “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then do it. Because what the world needs is people who have become alive.” And that was from Howard Thurman. And that is such a powerful way, I think, to end what we've been talking about today.

We're just grateful to everybody who's been listening because clearly God's doing something in your heart regarding missions, whether you've got a burden, whether you've got a call on your life to be a missionary, something is stirring in you, and we wanna encourage you just from our team here at Modern Day, take that next step.

You now have been given some practical steps that you can take and walk into. Take it, put it before the Lord, and start that discernment process to see what it might be that God's calling you into. For those of you who are still feeling that pull toward calling, we wanna encourage you to tune into the next part. Part two is gonna be looking at, I'm called to be a missionary. Now what? And we're gonna get even more practical about the next steps you can take. But thank you for your love for missions, for God's people, and for joining us today. We will see you in our next episode.