A Brief History of Psychology and Missions in JPT: Looking Back, Around, and Forward

Abstract

influential to psychology practitioners and researchers involved in missions. Member Care. O'Donnell (1997), in his seminal article, "Member care in missions: Global perspectives and future directions," provided the now frequently referenced definition of the term member care: "Member care is the ongoing investment of resources by mission agencies, churches, and other mission organizations for the nurture and development of missionary personnel. It focuses on everyone in missions (missionaries, support staff, children, and families) and does so over the course of the missionary life-cycle, from recruitment through retirement" (p. 144). Concurrent with O'Donnell's work were the influential Reducing Missionary Attrition (ReMAP) studies (Taylor, 1997; Bloecher, 2005). Over the eight years between the ReMap I and the ReMAP II studies, the missionary attrition rate among New Sending Countries (e.g. Brazil, Ghana, Philippines, etc.) dropped by 50%; moreover, attrition rates in Older Sending Countries (e.g. Canada, Germany, U.S.A., etc.) remained low, in spite of global trends toward shorter appointments and frequent career changes (Bloecher, 2005). Bloecher (2005) in fact credited the contribution of on-field member care efforts and more comprehensive candidate selection procedures for these improvements in attrition rates. Many of the participants in the ReMAP studies who spoke of the effectiveness of member care efforts were mission agency leaders, rather than the missionaries themselves. To address this gap, Camp, Bustrum, Brokav, and Adams (2014) investigated the effectiveness of current member care practices specifically from the perspective of missionaries. This paper augmented

A Scoping Review of Psychological Assessment in Mission and Ministry Candidates

“…On completion of identification, screening, and the assessment process, nine articles were included, which either gave commentary on how psychological assessments should be conducted or which reported personality assessments in candidates applying to work in church ministry or cross-cultural mission. A further five articles (Barnett et al, 2005;Cousineau et al, 2007;Isacco et al, 2020aIsacco et al, , 2020bRosik et al, 2016) were added based on the bibliography of these nine articles (Crawford & Wang, 2016;Dimos & Hasz, 2017;Ferrari, 2017;Gingrich, 2016;Jack & Wilcox, 2018;McGlone & Sperry, 2020;McGlone & Viglione, 2020;Rosik et al, 2017;Thomas & Plante, 2015). Jack and Wilcox (2018) published the only article that was not based on a US sample.…”

“…Two opinion/review articles have been written on this topic since the year 2000, which indicated a clear need for more research in this area (Crawford & Wang, 2016; Gingrich, 2016). These papers highlighted that pre-service psychological assessment is a key part of reducing attrition in cross-cultural missions (Crawford & Wang, 2016). These psychological assessments also need to take into account the added complexity of assessing family systems, as it is often a whole family unit that is working cross-culturally, rather than just an individual (Gingrich, 2016).…”

“…The publications reviewed from 2001 to 2021, which focused on the psychological assessment of ministry and cross-cultural mission candidates, revealed there have been nine studies (Barnett et al, 2005;Cousineau et al, 2007;Dimos & Hasz, 2017;Ferrari, 2017;Isacco et al, 2020aIsacco et al, , 2020bRosik et al, 2016Rosik et al, , 2017Thomas & Plante, 2015) and five opinion pieces written on this topic (Crawford & Wang, 2016;Gingrich, 2016;Jack & Wilcox, 2018;McGlone & Sperry, 2020;McGlone & Viglione, 2020). Most of these studies have been conducted within the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and focus on the suitability of individuals for a ministry leadership role and the risk of sexual offending (Ferrari, 2017;Isacco et al, 2020aIsacco et al, , 2020bThomas & Plante, 2015), whereas those conducted in cross-cultural mission candidates focused on preventing attrition on the field through identifying potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses (i.e., mental health conditions) and a poor fit for the role (Barnett et al, 2005;Cousineau et al, 2007;Dimos & Hasz, 2017;Rosik et al, 2016Rosik et al, , 2017.…”

“…There is a consensus that psychological assessments need to be standardized and used consistently as part of recruitment (Crawford & Wang, 2016; McGlone & Sperry, 2020). They provide an important impartial and independent contribution to the decision about whether someone is suitable for a ministry or mission role.…”

“…The Reducing Missionary Attrition studies, ReMAP I (Taylor, 1997) and ReMAP II (Hay et al, 2007), addressed the unique ministry needs of cross-cultural mission workers and led to a substantial improvement in on-field member care and a more comprehensive candidate selection process with the aim of reducing on-field attrition rates (Crawford & Wang, 2016). ReMAP I supported the value and use of psychological assessment in predicting the ability of an applicant to cope under cross-cultural pressure, as an important tool to help missionaries understand themselves and their partners and recognize areas in which they might struggle in a cross-cultural situation (Donovan & Myors, 1997, p. 56).…”