Grit challenge!
Grit is a common word in my household. My husband serves with a missions organization as a mobilization coach and equips potential goers to go to unreached people groups. The organization partners with local churches to help future goers to be developed as church planters to unreached people groups.
They have three steps in their process:
- Discover
- In this step, a mobilization coach will help people discover God’s heart for the nations and the Biblical basis for missions.
- Develop
- In this step, mobilization coaches will lead them through a 10-week disciple-making intensive and then a 9-month missional community group.
- Deploy
- Finally, the mobilization coaches will help the potential goer discern their calling and help match them to a team and sending organization.
To be a goer in an foreign context takes a lot of grit. One leaves family, friends, and country and is catapulted into a context where relationships are few, language and culture are foreign, and life is generally more difficult. Most who launch will return before starting their second term and since it usually takes at least two terms to see fruit, most will go and return without seeing much fruit, often incredibly wounded and traumatized.
As part of preparation to move overseas, potential goers are required to move across town to a specific part of the city where there is a high concentration of people from unreached people groups. The thought is that if one can’t move across town, they certainly aren’t ready to move overseas. We made this move back in 2021. It was HARD. In our transition, we moved cities, changed churches, and our kids changed schools. Saying goodbye to our church body, neighbors, and school friends brought a season of grief and great difficulty for our family. I can’t even imagine how we would have fared if we had moved across the globe at that time. This move gave us a bit more grit as we moved away from suburbia and into the city. In this, we cut our square footage in half, and were welcomed by roaches, bedbugs, constant hot water outages, gas leaks, and occasional gun shots in the area. Looking back, it was a season of grit development that I’m incredibly thankful for.
Now as a mobilization coach, my husband often gives his potential goers “grit challenges”. These include abstaining from a luxury for a short amount of time (usually a week) in things like:
- Taking cold showers
- Forgoing a/c or heater
- Not sitting on the toilet
- Cooking all meals at home
- Walking to the grocery store
- Sleeping on a hard floor
Some participants embrace these challenges while others resist them.
In reading this week’s book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, I couldn’t help but thinking that this needs to be a mandatory read for every mobilization coach and even every potential goer. [1] Angela Duckworth is a psychologist with a special emphasis on grit, which she has shown to be more important than talent in predicting success. [2] Grit is a combination of passion and perseverance in which people who are passionate about their goals have the stamina to keep pursuing their goals despite setbacks and difficulty. Duckworth researched a variety of subgroups to see how grit factored into their success. These subgroups included West Point cadets, students at Chicago Public Schools, National Spelling Bee contestants, associate degree holders and more.
In a Ted Talk, Duckworth confesses that she’s not exactly sure how to increase grit. [3] However, her best knowledge is that increasing in grit requires a growth mindset, as described by Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. [4] Dweck’s research has shown that our mindset greatly influences the way we lead our lives. Dweck has two broad categories to describe our mindsets: fixed mindset and growth mindset. A fixed mindset believes that “qualities are carved in stone” and that there is a fixed amount of talent, intelligence, and even moral character. [5] In a growth mindset, however, people believe that they can continue to improve and be developed through dedication and hard work, and that initial talent is just a starting point.
For my husbands organization, I have recommend that the mobilization coaches are intentional about developing a growth mindset in potential goers by following the steps outlined by Dweck. I also recommend that they do a grit assessment as part of every potential goer’s evaluation.
Maybe the best evangelist or most charismatic leader isn’t the best predictor of success overseas but maybe grit is.
References
[1] Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (New York, NY: Scribner, 2016).
[2] “About Angela,” Angela Duckworth, accessed November 11, 2024, https://angeladuckworth.com/about-angela/.
[3] Angela Lee Duckworth, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance?subtitle=en.
[4] Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Ballantine Books trade pbk. ed (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008).
[5] Ibid, 6.
[6] Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Duckworth | Talks at Google, Talks at Google, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ONEAcBeTk.
About the Author
Christy
9 responses to “Grit challenge!”
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Hi Christy, I appreciate that you shared your lived experience moving to experience some of the inconveniences of mission work. I admire that journey in others as it is definitely not mine. Was there one particular aspect of the experience that made you/your family want to give up? And what did you do when those thoughts were strong?
Hi Diane,
Giving up comfort is definitely a difficulty. It’s takes tremendous mental strength to take every thought captive that can bring temptation towards an easier life. I certainly don’t have it figured out, but keeping my eye on the prize (of Christ) helps keep my mind in check!
Hi, Christy, thank you for your sharing. First, I do like the three-step process: ‘Discover, Develop, and Deploy.’ Second, I would like to thank you for the missionary work that you do.
My life was greatly influenced by missionary work to our islands. I grow up in church that was help founded by missionary, then to a high school and then to a small bible school. Now that I have been living out here in the states, I can understand the sacrifices that the missionaries made,
And maybe learning some basics of a new language should be added to the grit challenge. Thanks again.
Christy, that’s a big commitment on your family’s part. How do you plan to help your children grow in their grit scores? Or will you wait until they’ve left home?
Where else in your life – and/or your family’s life – could grit play a more major role, now that you know something about it?
Hey Christy! I enjoyed reading this. Looking at your husband’s organization from the outside in, how do you rate the grit of those your husband coaches? Do they naturally possess it, or are they taught?
Hi Daren! It’s a combination of both. People who come into the program already have a bit more grit than the general population, but they try to grow it over the course of a year or more in preparation for the field. I would love to do a survey of people to see what things increased their grit over time. Can you look back and point out times in your life that grew your grit?
Hi Christy, Cockroaches are the worst. I have a cat for this reason. She eats all the creatures that find their way into our house. Looking at your grit list, I would say cooking all meals at home proved to be the most challenging for me in North Africa. It involves a lot of planning and prep. Washing lettuce takes an eternity. However, I would say I have developed grit in my African kitchen. I keep thinking about my call to Africa and how all the psychological assets of grit that Duckworth outlines are necessary: interest, practice, purpose, and hope. Specifically, purpose and hope have fueled my grit in the desert. Which of Duckworth’s psychological assets most fuel your grit during this specific season in your life?
I definitely thought about you and Kari as I was writing my post! You were amongst some incredibly strong saints that came to mind!
Purpose probably fuels me the most. If I can maintain the vision and purpose, it allows me to push through difficult things.
Christy, I think your move to mobilize people to relocate among those in different circumstances is an incredible move, and sets the global workers up for better success when crossing cultural and geographic barriers.
I wonder about the translation for people who are not preparing for mission deployment. What is the most critical insight for those who would “Discover, Develop, and Stay where they are”?