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Pro golfer Larry Nelson stood on the first tee at Hawk Valley Country Club. A gang of eager hackers from First Church jostled around him to learn the tip that would transform their games. Earlier, before lunch, Larry had given them the most important tip of all-how to find eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Now their minds focused not on Jesus but on hitting a tiny pellet 200 yards down the fairway. “Look,” Larry said. “The idea is to rotate your hips as you swing. That’s where the power comes from. Your belly button should follow the ball.”

Astonished by this simple axiom, all of us went out and promptly whacked the ball all over the course. When we thought about our belly buttons, we forgot everything else. So much for a free lesson from the man who last year was named the top golfer on the PGA Senior Tour.

Larry’s son Drew played with his dad last month in the Father-Son Challenge. As hard as he has tried, Drew has not been able to qualify for the PGA Tour. Larry has told him that he is trying to get into one of the hardest professions there is. “You may be really good, but you may never be good enough,” he said. “To be a professional golfer, there are some qualities in there that nobody can really put a finger on,” Larry explained.

People who recruit, train, and send missionaries say the same thing. They plead with would-be missionaries not to underestimate the difficulties of serving Jesus Christ in alien cultures. In a time when we flood our world with two-week and two-month missionaries, we tend to forget that aspiring to be a professional missionary is something radically different. We tend to downplay how hard it is to advance through qualifying school to the real tour.

At the same time, we face the baffling challenge of identifying what it takes to be a professional missionary. We list the basic qualifications, such as a genuine, life-sustaining walk with Jesus Christ, some firsthand warfare experience in the trenches with non-Christians, and some solid academic credentials. Yet we know-as we ponder our first-term casualty lists-that we have to do more than check off basic requirements.

We confess that there are some qualities that we cannot put our fingers on. The stories of world shapers in missions reveal some scary quirks that would dismay the mission bureaucracy. Some were too young, or too old. Some had serious physical disabilities. Some lacked education and experience. But somehow they turned out to be professionals who won many battles for the Lord. This does not mean we should lower our standards. No, we must make it tough to be a professional missionary. Rather, it means we should always allow room for the mysterious, unidentifiable qualities that set some missionaries apart from others.

If I had to pick one thing, it would be the faith, persistence, and courage to go the whole way with Jesus. These qualities do not emerge overnight. They do not emerge on a two-week mission trip. They develop over time as a result of climbing what appear to be insurmountable obstacles. They blossom because going the whole way with Jesus means more than anything else does in the world. While we applaud and thank God for the remarkable educational and training opportunities available to potential professional missionaries, we must remember the priority that Jesus gave to total abandonment to him. The young man who had everything asked Jesus what else he had to do. Jesus told him to sell everything and follow him. He refused. He did not go the whole way with Jesus.