Extending communicated sense-making theorizing to social groups: missionaries’ use of metaphor, personification, and in-group vernacular

Abstract Exiting the totalistic and intensively focused structure of missionary service prompts sense-making as missionaries return and adapt to life at home. Drawing from organizational, religious, and interpersonal communication literature, we use the communicated sense-making model to explore how 26 Christian missionaries made sense of their experiences and post-missionary identity. Our findings suggest that missionaries used three sense-making devices—metaphors, memorable messages, and personifications—to find certainty in uncertainty, mobilize identity work, and position themselves toward others. We extend the communicated sense-making model by clarifying the functions of sense-making devices, introducing personification as a novel sense-making device, and proposing in-group vernacular as a shared set of linguistic and ideological resources that can enable or constrain sense-making surrounding difficult life events and transitions.