E-Books
Seventeen e-books are available for download here, or for reading online. These books are also free and may be freely shared. They can be downloaded in several different formats:
- pdf (our recommendation)
- doc (Microsoft Word)
- zip (a zipped copy of the Microsoft Word file)
- mobi (for Kindle)
- epub (for Sony eReader, Nook, and other compatible e-readers)
Effective Kingdom Service in Hostile Places
Advanced Training and Support for International Workers and the Organizations that Send Them:
Setting Up Member Care for Hazardous Contexts
Download this book: pdf kindle mobi generic e-pub
About this Book
The Christian missionary movement’s final push is to reach the unengaged people groups living in hostile and inhospitable places. For International workers serving in these places, however, the stress they face is beyond imagining. This stress becomes a tool the enemy uses to ruthlessly attack them in their weakest places. Most missionaries to hazardous places succumb to this stress in less than two years and return to their home countries feeling like personal and spiritual failures.
In his series, Serving in Hostile Places, Dr. Burke applies lessons he learned serving as an Air Force psychologist, and from over twenty years of missionary service, to the intense stress that international workers experience as they take the Gospel to hazardous places. He then applies proven methods to help international workers develop Godly resilience. This resilience insulates missionaries from the stress of their service through integrating neural functioning, deepening their understanding of God’s grace, and relying on their God-given transcendent nature to overcome their fleshly vulnerabilities.
In this second book of the series, Dr. Burke addresses the unique training and support needs that international workers serving in hostile places have. They need screening, training and support that go beyond what most sending organizations provide their workers. The training and support they need is more like what special forces in the military receive. But for missionaries, these specialized interventions and support will not make them warriors; rather it will help them overcome their fleshly-vulnerabilities and develop Godly resilience under intense stress.
Meet the Author: Hamilton T. Burke, Ph.D.
Hamilton T. Burke, Ph.D. (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) is the founder and Executive Director of Great Commission Consulting, (https://2819consulting.com/) a non-profit organization that provides professional psychological services to individuals and organizations that seek to fulfill the Great Commission throughout the world.
Hamilton studied psychology at Asbury College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arkansas. He served as a clinical psychologist in the US Air Force prior to serving overseas for twenty-plus years with his family. While overseas, Dr. Burke started two counseling centers that trained and served indigenous people and he developed and supervised a member care program for people serving in hazardous places.
Memories and Musings about Missionary Member Care
The first part of the book is about the author's journey into missionary member care. It also contains many examples of what he has done in member care as well as tips about what to do and what to avoid. The second part of the book is the story of his websites and how they developed.
What Missionaries Ought to Know
Many of the "What Missionaries Ought to Know" and "Stewardship of Self" series are available in a collection as an e-book containing 74 chapters. This is a great way to have the entire series on your computer to refer to as you have the need and opportunity.
The e-book "What Missionaries Ought to Know" was updated in August 2017 with new chapters containing the newest brochures.
Missionary Transitions
Missionaries go through major transitions when they move from their passport cultures to their host cultures and when they return "home." Of course, these transitions are discussed in this book; however, missionaries also go through transitions before they leave, while they are serving on the field and after they return. This book includes information about many of these transitions, including the final transition for all of us, the transition from earth to heaven.
Missionary Member Care: An Introduction
This is a new e-book giving an overview of member care for those interested in providing it or in receiving it. Written in a question/answer format, this book is useful for missionaries wondering about doing member care or in using it.
Though it is written for missionaries, it is also appropriate for use in an introductory university course in member care because it contains hundreds of links to primary sources of information. Each chapter begins with a “short and simple” answer to the question asked in the chapter title so that readers can quickly decide if they want to know more about the issue.
Before You Get "Home": Preparing for Reentry
This is a new e-book on preparing for reentry.
Written for people anticipating a return to their passport country several months in the future, this book helps them leave "right," making it easier for them to enter "right."
Using the Exodus as a model, it gives them an overview of what is ahead so they will know what to expect and how to prepare for it.
Missionary Marriage Issues
The brochures of the "Missionary Marriage Issues" series are available in a collection as an e-book containing 18 chapters. This is a great way to have the entire series on your computer to refer to as you have need and opportunity.
New chapters will be added as Ron writes additional brochures.
Coming “Home”: The Reentry Transition
Missionary Singles Issues
The brochures of the "Missionary Singles Issues" series are available in a collection as an e-book containing 17 chapters. This is a great way to have the entire series on your computer to refer to as you have need and opportunity.
New chapters will be added as Ron writes additional brochures.
We’re Going Home: Reentry for Elementary Children
I Don’t Want to Go Home: Parent’s Guide for Reentry for Elementary Children
Ron and Bonnie (an elementary teacher) wrote We’re Going Home (108 pages) for children ages 6-12 who are returning to their passport countries.
Written at a third grade level, We’re Going Home includes the story of a family returning to its passport culture. Each chapter also has activities such as scrambled words, crossword puzzles, word searches, mazes, and codes.
Ron also wrote I Don’t Want to Go Home (54 pages) as a companion volume for parents. Each chapter in the parent’s book has information about TCKs in the Bible, children’s TCK issues today, and suggestions to help children reenter well. Both books are included in each of the files to be downloaded below.
Missionaries and Bribes
A new e-book on issues relating to bribes and corruption.
Missionaries often face situations in which bribes seem to be expected, and they are confused about to do and may feel guilty whether they pay or not. This book contains eight chapters written by Ron as well as ten appendices by other people.
The book will not tell you what to do in every situation, but in the book you will find much useful information as well as help you know what questions to ask to help you reach a decision.
Reentry After Short Term Missionary Service
Written for people returning to their passport country after a few weeks or months of missionary service, this book helps them not only reenter but also consider how they have changed and what that implies for their future.
Using Jonah and Paul as examples, it also helps them process the good and bad events that occurred.
Bribery and the Bible
Originally published in 1991 by Campus Crusade Asia Limited in Singapore, this book gives a Biblical perspective on bribery and extortion and applies that perspective to bribery issues in one country.
After five chapters defining bribery and extortion and considering what both the Old Testament and the New Testament say about them, Dr. Richard Langston (D.Miss. TEDS 1989) applies Scripture to the bribery problem in the Philippines where he served.
His insights will be helpful wherever you serve.
Psychology for Missionaries
Ron taught psychology in Christian colleges for 35 years. In this book he places psychology in a Christian perspective and considers practical implications for Christian missionaries.
The table of contents includes chapters on most of the topics found in introductory psychology text but implications are drawn for those working cross-culturally. Of course, some of the psychological content is drawn from the brochures on missionarycare.com.
(The revised .epub version for Nook/Sony is not currently available)
Understanding Adolescence
Since the “Adolescence” brochure is the one opened most frequently, Ron has updated his book, Understanding Adolescence, published by Victor Books in 1987.
Written for parents adolescents and children in their later elementary years, it is also helpful to teachers, youth workers and anyone else working with teenagers.
Third Culture Kids and Adolescence: Cultural Creations
Ron wrote a book for TCKs, one to accompany Understanding Adolescence (written for parents).
Third Culture Kids are obviously created by living in two cultures, and the whole phenomenon of adolescence was invented by Western culture.
This book examines the role of culture in creating adolescent TCKs, and includes a practical section at the end of each chapter, a section titled "What Can Adolescent TCKs Do?"
Raising Resilient MKs: Resources for Caregivers, Parents, and Teachers
The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) and Joyce Bowers have graciously given permission to post the this book online for people to download free of charge because the book is out of print.
This book contains the collected wisdom of 38 authors who wrote the 56 chapters. It was the collaborative effort of ACSI, Interaction, Inc., and Mission Training International (MTI) and provides resources for people who have responsibility for MKs and other TCKs.