Phil Graf on Missionary Life

Phil Graf lives in Lisbon, Portugal with his wife and kids. They are actively involved in planting a church. But not only that – Phil is fueling a movement of church plants in Europe with Christian Associates.

I asked him what’s the hardest part of living a life on mission.

He replied “It’s all hard.”

He explains:

You’ve got to figure out a way to be a spouse, to be a parent (if you have children, if you have a spouse), and be missional. The more you can engage your family in that, the better off it will be. So don’t have the kids sequestered somewhere while you have a God conversation around the dinner table. Keep them involved. Give your kids freedom to jump in. Don’t control them too much….

..I think the hardest part is how do I take these relationships that I’ve begun and how do I get God into the conversation. I run with a bunch of people who have become pretty comfortable in the world. They might even be becoming a little too comfortable being of the world. And I don’t know that God is going to get into conversations until we have lots of relationships and lots of acquaintances – but we’re not seeing a lot of disciples. We’re not seeing people surrender leadership of their lives to Christ and be baptized and be discipled because they don’t even know that God’s around because we haven’t brought Him into the conversation. I think that’s probably the biggest stumbling block. Being in a hurry, being consumed by cross-cultural living, and struggling to really get God into the conversation.

Watch this video as Phil explains these challenges of life as a Christian missionary who is embedding in a foreign culture.

(Note: This is a continuation of the post: Embedding + Initiating + Gathering + Churching)