Questions about Using Your Professional Skills
Wondering how you can use your skills, degree, or career overseas? Curious about tentmaking or business-as-mission? Missionaries describe the vast ways to use your God-given talents and experience to expand His Kingdom.
Questions Professionals Ask
- What training do you recommend for a future tentmaker?
- I’ve graduated in a professional field. How much theological training do I need to serve in missions?
- I have a heart for both my profession, in medicine, and church planting. How do I choose between these? Or can I do both?
- What are the ethical implications of going into a closed country as a professional but with the ultimate goal of doing something that may be illegal, like preaching the gospel?
- Can I serve in an NGO or the Peace Corps and still do lifestyle evangelism?
Using Your Art Skills
- I am an art major and I want to serve overseas. Will my art be helpful in church planting among the unreached?
- How can God use writing, photography, or journalism in missions?
- How can a music degree be used in missions? Are there any unique opportunities for musicians?
- Are there opportunities to use fine art skills in mission? Are ministry jobs in the arts hard to find?
Doing Business and Missions
- What are tentmaking, business as mission, and business for transformation all about? Are they all the same thing?
- What could I do with a business degree in missions overseas?
- How can I use my marketing degree in missions?
- How can I learn more about using micro-enterprise projects for missions in developing countries?
- Also view our topic page with links to more resources related to BAM, B4T and microenterprise.
Medical Mission and Healthcare
- I’m just beginning university and I’m interested in healthcare. Do you recommend I become a physician, nurse, nurse practitioner, or physician’s assistant?
- I’m just beginning university and I’m interested in healthcare. How could I use overseas physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, community development, or public health?
- I’m a medical student. What specialty do you recommend for healthcare missions?
- What is the most needed medical specialty on the mission field?
- How can I be trained as a missionary health provider for the third world?
- How do I find an agency in healthcare missions that fits me?
- I’m in nursing. Should I get further training in community health, home health, pediatrics, or obstetrics, etc? Should I get a master’s degree? Should I get hospital experience here before I go overseas?
- I want to be a missionary who does more than just medical or nursing care. How do I deal with the time constraints of a busy profession and still have a personal witness and assist in church planting?
- I’m a resident physician. Should I get more clinical experience here before I go overseas? What about an MPH? Should I do a fellowship in infectious disease? Can a physician be “too” trained?
- I am a speech therapist and I want to serve overseas. How could I use this in missions?
- Can I use a veterinary degree in missions?
- I am looking into graduate school in nursing. Is there more of a need for Nurse Midwives or Nurse Practitioners, or would a dual degree be best?
- I’m interested in becoming a missionary midwife. What kind of opportunities are there for midwives? What training do I need?
- Can a DO (Doctor of Osteopathy) practice medical missions internationally? Or only a MD? Is there much room for medical missions as an osteopathic physician?
- Can medical missionaries self-support through a tele-medicine job or some paid shifts while back in their home country?
- How do overseas healthcare missionaries find others to care for their patients when they leave for home assignment?
- As a licensed massage therapist how might I serve overseas?
- Also see our topic page on medical missions for additional resources.
English and Education
- How could I use an education degree in missions?
- I want to teach English (TESL). I am fluent but I am not a native speaker. What training do I need?
- To teach English overseas should I get a master’s degree or a certificate?
Social Work and Counseling
- Can a counselor or psychologist use those skills in missions?
- I am interested in social work and sociology. How could I use this in missions?
Science and Engineering
- I am in engineering. How could I use this in missions?
- How can providing clean water fit with missions?
- I work in the sciences and am wondering about positions for scientists in missions. How can someone use their training as a chemist, biologist, or pharmacist as part of a ministry overseas?
