What Every Missionary Needs to Know About Lament

Mark Vroegop, lead pastor of College Park Church, explains the lost spiritual disciple of lament and how it’s particularly potent for cross-cultural workers.

What Every Missionary Needs to Know About Lament: Mark Vroegop Explains

Lament—though it litters the psalter—is a lost art form in modern evangelicalism. In a culture as torn-apart as ours, it makes sense that engaging grief biblically can open spiritual doors previously shut. Not only that, but embracing the grace of lament can also prepare missionaries and pastors for the pains and losses that often mark the suffering, missional life.

Mark Vroegop, lead pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis, trustee at Cedarville University, and council member of The Gospel Coalition, joins us to discuss his new book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. In this interview, we dive in to his own experience seeing missionaries like Jennifer DeKryger experience loss, and we talk about the pastoral and personal benefits of this lost spiritual discipline.

Along with being married to Sarah and the father of four children, he is a contributor to 15 Things Seminary Couldn’t Teach Me, and blogs regularly on his personal site. Follow Mark on Twitter.

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Alex Kocman & Scott Dunford

Alex Kocman is the Director of Communications and Engagement for ABWE. He serves as general editor for Message Magazine and co-hosts The Missions Podcast. After earning his M.A. in Communication and B.S. in Biblical Studies, he served as an online apologetics instructor with Liberty University and a youth pastor in Pennsylvania, where he now resides with his wife and three children. Read his blog or follow him on X/Twitter.

Scott Dunford is the pastor of Western Hills Church in San Mateo, Calif. Previously, Scott served as Vice President of Mobilization and Communications for ABWE and as a missionary in East Asia. Scott graduated from Northland International University (B.A. in Pastoral Studies), earned his M.A. in biblical studies from Central Baptist Theological Seminary, his M.B.A. from Cornerstone University, and is currently enrolled in Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s D.Min. program with an emphasis on missions.