Sensemaking After the Mission: Totalistic yet Terminal Roles, Identity, and Exit.

When a mission ends, missionaries must make sense of their experiences, themselves, and their lives going forward. This process of sensemaking and its implications for religious organizations' communication with members who occupy terminal roles is the focus of this study. Based on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with former missionaries in one organization, two distinct and divergent patterns of missionaries' sensemaking and role exit emerged. Finisher sensemaking involved deidentification with vocational ministry, leaving the sending organization, and (re)constructing multiple identities through an arduous process of identity work. Conversely, bypasser sensemaking drew upon the sending organization as a resource to sustain a deep identification with vocational ministry. Thus bypassers positioned themselves as essential members and reidentified with new roles in the organization. The ongoing study of communication in/about terminal roles in religious and other totalistic organizations is discussed as well as practical implications for organizations and their members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]