The Cargo Pants Conundrum: The Trouble of Our Missionary Stereotype

Close your eyes. And imagine a missionary. What do they look like? What are they doing? How do they relate to people? 

Now, do you look like that person?

Hopefully, you said, yes, and are therefore well on your way. But if you like me, the answer to that final question is no. So if God has given me this compelling, heart-level call to the nations, where is my actual place in this work?

Before I went overseas, I asked myself this question. My stereotype of a missionary was a guy in cargo pants, the kind you can unzip and turn into shorts, and Jesus sandals, Chacos specifically. Everywhere this man goes people flock to him, and he never meets a stranger. He is a relentless people person, charismatic and extroverted. 

Just writing this description makes me socially, and emotionally exhausted. I wasn’t, nor have become, this person.

While the stereotype of a missionary may look a little different these days, I’d venture to guess that the “cargo pants conundrum” is still just as prevalent. You probably don’t match up with your stereotype of a worker.

And thank God you don’t!

God has crafted and formed you uniquely. He has blessed His people with a diversity of gifts that we might work together in unity and complexity. 

We need the cargo pants missionary. We also need the slacks-wearing businessman, the Carthart craftsman, and the board shorts bro (or brah? I don’t type in surfer…). 

Bringing it into the context of the Bible, I began looking at the story and person of Paul, a premiere example of a missionary. There is so much we can learn from his story and his work, and much of it we may and should incorporate into our lives. Paul even told us to do so. “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1) But with Paul, you may fall into the cargo pants trap. I did. 

As I worked through this question, studying Scripture and praying, I realized that Paul is never alone in his journeys. There’s Barnabas the encourager. Priscilla and Aquila the hospitable tentmakers. And Luke the doctor and journalist.

Looking at my interests and skills, and then at the call to go to the nations, I began gravitating to the example of Luke. He wrote the majority of the New Testament, he interviewed a variety of the key figures in the early church, and he followed Paul on much of his missionary journeys. I began loving the little in Acts where “they” became “we” in the text. I’d think to myself, “ah, there he is. There’s Luke.”

While we don’t have evidence of Luke giving sermons or evangelizing, his writings persist to this day so “you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.” (Luke 1:4) Luke is a “fellow worker” with Paul (Philemon 1:24) and an amazing example of how God works through a variety of people, even those who do not wear cargo pants.