Mission Support... 4 essential guidelines for effective cross cultural mission giving

Let’s talk about missionary support. 

Not the easy type that includes stuff like prayer and encouragement. We’re talking financial. Money. Dough. Greenbacks. Benjamins.  Are you getting the picture?

What I want to open up is the whole discussion of support of both long-term and short-term missions.  With more and more churches and groups opting to send people directly to the field, as opposed to through denominational systems, the time has come for some frank talk on how we can better fund our Great Commission work.

As I have heard many times, rarely does a day go by without some sort of financial appeal making its way into our mailboxes, be they electronic or that old standby in front of the house or on a post.  

We should also be honest about something... short-term mission is here to stay.  Any discussion of funding ongoing mission work around the globe that does not deal with this reality cannot seriously address the issues.  As such, it forms a central part of my thinking and suggestions.

Here are three areas I believe we need to consider:

• Direct regular support of national pastors and non US based churches.
• STM leadership and host receiver support.
• Goer-guest, short-term [STM] participant support.

Today, we will deal with in country national pastors their churches, their needs, and our ability to offer financial support. 

As a person who leads numerous short-term mission experiences every year, I am involved with many pastors and leaders on the field. Often these pastors have only one goal in life, to serve God with all of their heart, mind, body, and soul.

The decision to become a pastor in Mexico where I serve, and many other emerging countries around the world, is a decision to struggle financially, often to leave behind family and friends, and lead a life constantly under examination by others.

Let’s look at the financial side of this and the impact of short-term mission. 

Here’s a picture of what that might look like. You decide whether it rings true to you or not.

A perspective pastor begins by sharing the Gospel to his family, friends, and people who live nearby. Soon he has a small group of 10 – 15 people gathering weekly for a time of worship and bible study. As the weeks go by, this newly organized group continues to grow and quickly multiplies to between 20 – 30 adults.

Maybe, through various means, a US church gets connected through short-term ministry and the two leadership teams dream about future ministry. At some point during the relationship, the US church expresses a desire to help support this fledgling ministry.

When the US group returns home, their leadership makes the case to the home church that there is a vital Kingdom interest in helping this new church and their pastor financially.

Up to this point, every thing is good. However, this is where many US churches, all with good intentions, get off track. Because with big hearts, we respond without any guidelines. Guidelines that can make the difference between just throwing money at a problem, and being part of the solution to a very real issue.

Here are some guidelines that I believe can make a difference for you, your church or mission board, and that national church, or pastor you want to support.

Be generous. Give enough to make a difference. If your objective is to support a pastor or a church, make sure what you give can do the job. Often a US church decides on a gift of $100.00 a month, without regard to whether this amount will actually be a help, or a hindrance.

Let me explain. 

Often a gift that only does part of the job leaves the church, and the pastor, in a place of always needing more. With scant resources, it is nearly impossible to stay afloat, never really having an ability to move ahead. This leads to the frequent letters or e-mails sharing about a new urgent need.  When you don’t make enough money to care for your family, or pay your bills, there are always new urgent needs.

Support and all its synonyms, words like undergird, bear, carry and hold up suggest something much more.  Perhaps a gift of $500.00 a month is a more realistic amount in light of local living expenses and church expectations. Think about that for a moment.

Would you spend $500.00 a month on a ministry in your own church if you knew that ministry would be serving between 20 – 30 people each week? If the answer is yes, why not a Kingdom ministry elsewhere that also is making that kind of difference?

Whatever amount you can give, you will feel better about it if… 

You only give money to an established church. By established, I mean a church with a leadership team that makes the decisions, a level even a small mission church can reach. This ensures that there is accountability within the local body and that the members of the local church body you are supporting is aware of all outside support of the local ministry. 

A corollary within this, to protect both the pastor and his family from charges of abusing his position for financial gain, is that the treasurer of the church should not be related to the pastor or his family.  Now this can be a big hurdle in small churches, but you should hold firm on this, as it helps ensure accountability.

Do not designate your funds. This is hard for US churches, but I believe it is vitally important. Let the local church leadership make the decision on where to spend the money. As people who are there 365 days a year, they, better than us, know where the needs are greatest. 

Years ago I was helping a church in Ensenada build their worship center.  A church that was not serving through Adventures in Life came to do some work.  They had explained to their home congregation that they were going to pour a floor, even though at that point in the construction, we did not need a floor.

I tried as hard as I could to explain to them that it would be better to not pour the floor and allow us to use the funds as local leadership saw fit on another part of the project.  They politely explained that their church had given money for a floor, not some other part of the church we were building and it would be dishonest and deceitful to their people to not use the money for a floor, even if it was not in the best interest of the local church.

On their last day the leader apologized to me explaining that he needed pictures of his group working on a floor.

If we trust a local church, and her leaders enough to serve along side their ministries, we should trust them enough to make good decisions with the resources God has provided.

You will be amazed at what this simple step will do for your ministry partnership.

Have a clearly agreed upon exit plan. in the late 1980’s I was involved in a new church plant here is Las Vegas. As a small group there was no way we could support a pastor. So our denomination agreed to support us for a period of five years, with that support declining by 20% each year.

That was such a blessing for us. Their support told us they believed in what we were trying to do, but it also told us that at some point, we had to be self supporting.

Open ended outside support of national churches is the kind of support that encourages dependence. It does not lead to stronger church bodies and in fact tells the local members that they themselves do not have to sacrificially support their ongoing ministries.

A clear, agreed upon exit plan, will help you avoid hard feelings in the future, and give the local church the time it needs to build a strong financial base.

Let me give a final note on your exit plan. There will be times when circumstances change. The recent economic downturn here in the US is a perfect example. That will demand that everyone involved be somewhat flexible.

But please understand this. Those working on the field, and receiving outside support, have few, if any options to replace a sudden withdrawal of support.

If your church finds it necessary to eliminate, or substantially altar an agreed upon support amount, or plan, I believe you need to give that church at least one year notice to avoid a potential catastrophic situation.

So there you have it. Four guidelines that can help you become a better steward of the resources God has given you or your church when it comes to direct regular support of national churches and pastors.

Be generous, give to an established church, do not designate your funds, and have an exit plan.

Next up... STM Leadership and Host-Receiver Support

[this is a reworking of a previous piece and the first of a three part series]

Missionary Ink... are tattoos a line in the sand for missionary service?

I am sitting in a Starbucks in Las Vegas enjoying a hot cup of coffee on another hundred degree day.  As I look out the window, there's a couple sitting at one of the outside tables.

Both of them are fully tatted up with almost all exposed skin real estate below the neck covered in ink.

As someone who thinks almost constantly about how the church can reach out to new generations of people, the tattoo culture has intrigued me for a while.  How does the local church, not the hip, niche ones in urban centers around the country, reach out to people who have made their bodies a work in progress art project?

This is not an issue that is going away any time soon, and it impacts more than just the local church.

Let’s leave behind the local question and think globally... to the “ends of the earth” if you will.

In my role as a missionary in Mexico, I get a number of chances to speak to churches and groups around the US.  Receiving short-term teams and providing mission direction for churches is a big part of what I do.  One of the first things that hits me when I meet a group for the first time is how many people have tattoos.  

Years ago, tattoos were the exception, sported by only a few people, and rarely exposed in public.  Now, they are everywhere and we are confronted with them daily.  With this reality has come a new issue for those of us in the field serving people who might not share US sensibilities about freedom in Christ.

The apostle Paul famously said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “all things are lawful, but not everything is beneficial.”  Sadly, I think many are only taking the first part of his statement to heart.

I get asked all the time whether or not a Christian can get a tattoo.  To me, it almost seems like a trick question.  Sometimes a youth pastor has told his or her charges to ask the missionary, as if I have some sort of divine knowledge that they do not have access to.  Even parents send their kids to me, hoping I guess that I will deliver the bad news so they don’t have to say no themselves.

But for me, there is no easy answer on this.  Tattoos are not a black and white, or even a color issue in spite of the desire by many conservatives to stand on a specific line in Levitican Law.  

So what do we do?

I have no answers for how our church culture welcomes people covered in tattoos.  Just look around at your members and you’ll understand what I mean.  If your church is like a majority of churches in America today, I am guessing when that person walks in covered in tattoos, he going to get a few stares.  Okay a lot of stares.  Yet unless we are willing to write off an entire generation of young people, we must address this issue.

On the mission front I can only look back 19 years to a young man named Brian who served with me in Guadalajara for two weeks.  Brian came to know Jesus after he had been tatted up.  So as we talked about his options to serve, Brian came to realize that he should keep his tattoos covered while he was in Mexico.  That became part of Brian’s mission, or his offering to us and our partners in Mexico.  Fortunately, Brian was able to cover all of his tattoos.  Many people today are unable to do that.

So here’s my answer to all of you who have asked me whether a Christian can have a tattoo.  Sure you can.  But understand this... getting a tattoo may forever make it impossible for you to fulfill God’s calling on your life to go to the “ends of the earth.”

Let me put it another way.  

Your body is not your own once you give your life to Jesus and your decision on whether or not to get a tattoo could profoundly affect your ability to serve God on the mission field.  

I fear that even as we are seeing increased interest from young people in the mission field, whether it be long or short term, we may have to leave some of our most talented people at home.  Many of the places the church is serving, and the places with the biggest need of a Gospel witness are going to struggle with, or outright ban missionaries with tattoos.  

Why would someone choose to do something that could limit their ability to serve God in these areas?

Thinking about it like this, doesn’t it just seem a little selfish?

I’m just askin...

What's in your Wallet?

Recently the question "What's in your wallet?" has become known as the advertising slogan Capital One and their multitude of charge cards.  This got me to thinking...

Over the years missions work and by extension missionaries have changed.

Years ago when a missionary for Jesus left the shores of his or her home country, the friends, family and church of that person held a wake or funeral.  Because of the difficulty of travel, likelihood of disease or danger striking, and short life spans in general, everyone knew it was not see you later, but goodbye.

When that person landed in his new land he set out to make new friends, build or find a house and put down roots.  His first task was to become part of the community he was sent to serve.  Locals saw a commitment to be part of them and this was a major step in the advancement of the Gospel around the globe.

For whatever other shortcomings we can now trace to bad missions work, the emphasis that we had on becoming part of the community we were serving was and is not one of them.

Sadly, we are quickly leaving this attitude behind, and it is not just in the short-term world.

Recently I was in Mexico City and was greeted by a US Missionary.  Like me, he has been serving in Mexico for 20 years.  He married a beautiful Mexican woman, his kids were born in Mexico and he helps pastor a church in a small colonia of about 4000 people hidden among 22 million other inhabitants.

He also lives where Mexicans live.  His house is typical for his area, his neighbors are all Mexican, and he is not dreaming of the day he will be coming back to the states. Clearly he has given his heart to Mexico and her people.

Too bad my experiences with Rod, whose blog you can read here,  are not typical.

I asked a good friend years ago why he was serving in Kenya.  Was there a specific call or experience that led him there?  "No" he answered, "there was just an opening."  When I asked him where he lived, he said he lived where the other missionaries lived... in a small gated community.

I have regularly sat and listened as US based missionaries on home leave make jokes and mock the country where they are serving.  It breaks my heart because if the people who our churches send to be "like Jesus" cannot be counted on to be an advocate for the country they are serving, who can?

I wonder if our desire to commit our lives, and indeed our hearts, to another country is just another relic of a bygone age.  I wonder if if our inability, or unwillingness to give our lives wholeheartedly to another country and people is hurting our missionary focus.

Short-term mission is here to stay.  As surely as the monarch butterfly migrates each year and the swallows return to Capistrano, thousands of people will annually leave the shores of the US to serve in other countries.  They will go through the rituals of getting prepared, making sure their to do list is all covered.

And then they will make one final switch sometime before they arrive on site.  They will take their US money out of their wallet and replace it with the currency of the country they are going to serve.

That's the reality.

I just wish we could switch our hearts as easily to that country.

A few years back I asked my wife out to dinner.  I was pretty embarrassed when the check came.  But it wasn't because I had no money.  It was because I had the wrong money.  I was loaded with Mexican pesos.  My wife wasn't surprised, having learned long ago that Mexico had become my adopted country.

When Alec Baldwin asks in that Capital One commercial what's in your wallet, he isn't even aware of how profound that question is.

When I think about a new generation of missionaries traveling around the globe to replace the fossils of the current missionary age like me, I hope and pray that their answer to Alec's question is not Capital One or dollars.

I want to hear dinar, pesos, yen, cuna, quetzal and rupees.

Because the first step in joining the community you are going to serve in knowing where your heart is.  That's why when Tim Dearborn, author of Beyond Duty, asked a Haitian Pastor what someone must do to be a good missionary to Haiti, the simple answer he received was "Love Haitians!"

Missions is about heart.

What's in your wallet?