Evangelical Free Church Leaders Discuss Second-Career Missions Challenges in Finishers Project Initiative

Nelson Malwitz was experiencing a midlife crisis. At 50, he was at the peak of his career as corporate director of chemical research for Sealed Air Corporation in Danbury, Connecticut. The company that invented Bubble Wrap, Malwitz had earned seven patents for plastic foam technology. He also served as an adult Sunday-school teacher at Walnut Hill Community Church, a congregation he helped establish. He had a wife, Marge, and two teenage sons, Jonathan and David, who loved him. Yet, he felt something was missing from his life.

Malwitz’s journey began in 1967 when he was 21 and attended the InterVarsity student missions conference in Urbana, Illinois. Raised in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination, he was inspired by the idealism of the time and committed his life to missions. However, family responsibilities, a career, and mortgage payments soon took precedence over his initial calling.

Now in middle age, Malwitz sought to revisit his dream of a second career in missions. He found, however, that missions agencies were unprepared for a skilled professional in his fifties. “It was so difficult to get in, and I had no idea where the point of entry was,” Malwitz said.

Gene Shackelford, a friend from church, shared a similar experience. At 59, he retired as a vice president of Union Carbide. He and his wife were active in Bible Study Fellowship and served on their congregation’s missions committee. Yet, it took them three years to find a position in missions. “I thought, That’s way too long,” Malwitz said. “The task is way too difficult for people to get a significant second career if the missions infrastructure is not ready to take people.”

Malwitz decided his contribution to missions would be to encourage others from his generation to consider second careers in missions and to help them navigate what he calls “the missions minefield.” In 1996, he founded the Finishers Project. “As you hit 50, you no longer count your years from the time you were born, but you count the amount of time you have left,” he said. “The big idea has to do with finishing well.”

The concept has gained attention from more than 30 missions agencies, which are collaborating with the Finishers Project to host an “Urbana-like” conference in Chicago in October. The Finishers Forum addresses financial, health, and family concerns while connecting individuals with opportunities in missions.

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