Missionary attrition among missionaries serving in Asia and Europe

Missionary attrition is a conundrum. Why are agencies and churches losing so many missionaries? This research explored two major concerns: Factors that missionaries identified as influencing their decision to leave a mission sending agency, and missionaries transition process from their organization.; The purpose of this study was to provide better understanding of missionary attrition. Embedded in the purpose, were three concerns: (1) The need to provide insight into the causes of missionary attrition; (2) the need to provide insight into the perceptions of missionaries regarding the care provided by mission leadership and their sending churches during their transition; and (3) the need to provide insight into the perceptions of sending churches as to why missionaries leave a field assignment, and how the church assists in the transition.; This qualitative descriptive research focused on four RQ's from the purpose concerns. The study was delimited to Cadence International, a missionary sending agency, and their missionaries in Asia and Europe who experienced premature attrition between 1991--1996.; This research was a two-tier study that gathered data through telephone interviews with sixteen missionaries, and their sixteen sending churches. Two relationships were identified between preventable and unpreventable causes of missionary attrition, and between individual preventable causes. Missionary transition and support received from both mission leadership, and sending churches did not yield clear relationships.; Conclusions and recommendations focused on mission agencies, and sending churches. A lack of adequate finances, and particularly relational struggle were real issues. Relational struggles with staff, leadership, nationals, family, and churches provided the greatest number of preventable causes of attrition. Attrition was determined to be multi-faceted. Preventable causes of attrition were cited three times as often as unpreventable causes. Missionaries indicated that (86%) of the preventable causes of attrition were attributed to relational struggle, while (14%) dealt with finances. Sending churches reported that (92%) of preventable causes dealt with relational struggle, while only (8%) related to finances.; Recommendations for better pre-field training programs in churches that provide relational connection were advocated. Better on-field and post-field member care of missionaries, both by churches and agencies were strongly recommended.