International Mission Board (IMB) trustees, during their March 30-April 1 board meeting, received a staff report showing a slight increase in missionary resignations last year. IMB officials said the report disproved rumors the IMB’s “New Directions” emphasis is spawning a large increase in resignations.
The report, presented by David Garrison, associate vice president for strategy coordination and mobilization, showed missionary attrition in 1999 was 5.35 percent of the total missionary force, now at 4,886. New appointments in 1999 more than made up for the losses and the actual number of IMB missionaries under appointment in 1999 climbed by more than 200.
The 5.35 percent attrition rate for 1999 is the highest since 1992, when the rate hit 5.55 percent. For the past 10 years, attrition rates have fluctuated between 3.8 percent and 5.55 percent.
The IMB counts resignations, terminations and deaths in its attrition rates. It does not count retirements. The 1998 attrition rate was 3.96 percent, which was lower than the preceding four years.
Other concerns
The report showed only 26, or fewer than 10 percent of those who resigned, cited concerns with IMB policy or personnel. Issues pertaining to calling, stateside job offers and matters related to children were the dominant reasons given for the other resignations.
The report also showed resignations tend to be higher in “older fields,” such as South America and Western Europe, and lower in “newer fields,” such as East Asia, and also the highest among people 41 to 50 years old. Garrison said people 41 to 50 are often struggling with issues pertaining to teenage and college age children and aging parents.
New Directions is the name given the board’s decision three years ago to organize in such a way as to target the whole world outside North America. It includes focusing on people groups instead of countries and seeking to promote church-planting movements.
A special trustee committee studying whether to appoint divorced people as career and associate missionaries also reported it voted 6-2 to not change the current policy, which allows divorced people to serve only as two-year International Service Corps (ISC) workers. The ISC program allows for reassignment, and some divorced people have served as many as five consecutive two-years assignments.
(BP)
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