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The Spy Who Loved Me
...From early in my involvement as a Christian working with national security, I have marveled at the striking analogy between intelligence work and missionary work. When you strip away the divergent settings, both represent efforts to recruit (convert) other human beings into doing something that does not conform with their local culture or upbringing. To prepare for his task, the intelligence officer like the missionary invests time in learning the target's language, the culture, the locale, and the best way to deliver the message. The missionary often finds it difficult to develop a convert in the same way an intelligence officer finds it difficult to recruit. Both need empathy with the target that is real, based in a mutual conviction that some higher value is more important than the particular agendas of either party in the relationship. The intelligence officer trusts that his country in some sense embraces a Right, a Good, that deserves to be served. The missionary, of course, believes in a divine-human Person greater than any one person on earth.

Like their counterparts in espionage, missionaries are alert to the potential of walk-ins. Indeed, much missionary labor today asks Christians to be living witnesses within a culture where people would not respond to a direct message. They seek to enhance the possibility that walk-ins will walk in. And just as intelligence officers often depend on networks of people to help with protection, access and support, so missionaries involved in church planting are building networks that reinforce their work....