|
|
How Much Should Support Be?How much money should a Church send monthly to each of their missionaries?by missionary David Cox This is a simple question, and most churches answer it in the form of trying to balance how much money they have to give to their missionaries versus how many missionaries they want to have.
This page is a simple presentation of some ideas to take into account in trying to decide how your missions budget should be designed. First of all, let's set some simple parameters that will greatly affect what we do for missions.
The answer to these questions are the factors that guide (or that should guide) a church in deciding how much to give to their missionaries on a monthly basis. Let's look at each one individually. (1) What number of missionaries is the least we can have? This question has to be answered on an individual church level of course. The answer to this should be a factor of what the church's income is, what the church's mission burden is, and any outstanding church economic factors may arise. Let's be frank here, and so let's deal with what is out there. Most churches have very little or no missions burden, and their idea of missions is just to have some pittance going to missions so that they can justify and defend themselves against any criticisms that they are not missions minded. The greatest threats (speaking as a veteran missionary in the arena for years) to missions are the following: (a) Other economic interests, (b) doctrinal perversions and misunderstandings, and (c) ignorance. (a) Other economic interests - Most great missions churches go down the tubes when they get involved in the Christian School movement. They see their "ministry" in the Christian school as a "mission's" cause, then it absorbs most of the missions monies, then it comes to eclipse everything except a very small pittance given to missions. Questions here to ask are "Is a Christian School necessary in a place where there are several other good Christian schools available?" "Are people getting saved, organized into local churches, and reproducing the Christian faith through this Christian school as they should be through a good mission's program?" "Is it necessary (and ethical) to make the church the benefactor of the Christian school?" The last one I will elaborate. Christian schools are not run as businesses, because the cost would be excessive. So churches take church funds and buy buildings, equipment and pay salaries, besides subsidizing student tuitions. Is it ethical or correct before the Lord to use mission's funds for this? Is this not just moving money from one pocket to another? Parents tithe, and their tithes come back to them in the form of reduced tuition or school benefits? The IRS has investigated and gotten involved in Christian schools because of this very question. A Christian school should not ruin the church's mission's program, but almost always it does. Buildings - After Christian schools, the church's own desires for structures for its own ministry is the second most threatening factor to missions funds. Quite frankly here, each church needs to make its own building and ministry a first priority, because without that, there will be no funds for missions nor salaries nor anything else. But so many pastors have great egotistic ideas of grandeur that work themselves out to a never ending building program. Schools help them justify the need of more building space for "the ministry". In the end analysis, we Christians will be raptured out of here one day, and Satan will use the beast and the false prophet to take what is left to make a one world religion. Knowing this (and believing this) we need to understand that the majority of our church funds should go into the Lord's work, e.g. into people evangelizing and teaching other people, not into things, buildings and properties. If a wise person was to study the movements and Church History, he would see very quickly that Satan has a very detailed plan that he uses over and over again. From nothing a church gets a following, then property follows, then organization, then unity within a larger (not local church) framework, which then they go bad in doctrine and conduct, and then all the physical property is lost to the apostate group holding control over the property, and the faithful pull out and start over after having lost 40 years of their tithes and offerings, given to building physical things. A church would be wise to limit physical property to a minimum of comfort, being realistic about their growth potential. After visiting fundamental churches that can seat 1500 with a real attendance on Sunday morning of about 40, it is a tribute to what can be done, not to our Lord. It should be also stated that in the New Testament, we see the financial priorities of a church falling into these categories: 1st - salaries of the workers in that particular church, 2nd missions and benevolence towards people in their congregation, and 3rd physical building and properties. Actually we never see a concrete example of this last one, we only assume they met in properties purchased by the church. We see Barnabas donating property to the church, but other than that, we see churches meeting in people's homes, and sometimes we assume in buildings of their own. The synagogue model - We need to also comment that the New Testament church was most probably set up on the model of the synagogue. How did the synagogue function? The Jews refused to set up synagogues in an area until they had 10 families of Jews gathered that wanted one. Once that requirement was satisfied, a rabbi was chosen for the group. Each family (working wage earning member of the synagogue) would give 10% of their income to the synagogue essentially for the sustenance of the Rabbi. Somebody would donate land, and every member would donate time, labor and materials to build the synagogue. The rabbi's tithe would pay for incidents of candles and such within the synagogue. On this system, the rabbi received an average of what his people's income was. No great building programs were needed. (b) Doctrinal perversions and misunderstandings. Here I place the threat of Calvinism, which unfortunately seems to be in direct opposition to missions. The bottom line conclusion of Calvinism is that God has already decided everybody going to heaven and to hell, nobody can change either. Once that works its way into a person's mind and theology, why sacrifice to reach the world with the gospel? Those who are elect will get to heaven anyway, no matter what I do or don't do. This ignores the that God commands and we are obligated to obey. This ignores the factor that uses means to accomplish His will, and the means He uses is obedient sacrificial Christians. Paul wrote more sacred Scriptures touching and explaining election than anybody else in the Bible, and Paul's life shows what a dedicated Calvinist should be. He abandoned and renounced all his material possessions and his economic stability to take the gospel to the foreign mission field. Paul died in missions, he had no real personal possessions to speak of, and he endured great personal hardship. Unfortunately, modern Calvinists see missions in the sense of spreading their precious doctrines of grace (Calvinism) which is directed more at changing already existing Christians into Calvinists rather than getting the unsaved to Christ. Paul never preached Calvinism to any group of unsaved people. His comments on election and predestination were always directed to give comfort to Christians under duress and suffering. God is in control, don't worry about these problems and persecutions. (c) Ignorance. Here one of the greatest threats to missions is that preachers just simply preach on other things instead of missions. Let's focus for a minute. What is the single most important thing, doctrine or thrust in the Bible? Is it not the salvation of men's souls? This was so important that God the Father had to emphasis it to us with the precious life of His only begotten Son. No other doctrine necessitated the death of Christ as salvation does. Why? Because it is the most important. The church exists to carry on the work of God, which explicitly is the salvation of men's souls from sin, and their discipleship into functioning churches to continue this very mission. "Missions" is simply an extension of the mission of your local church (or it should be). Whatever else you should do as a local church, you should be winning the unsaved to Christ in your locality. This takes precedence over every other thing you can imagine a local church or a ministry should be doing. Within missions, this means that those "missionaries" that are not actively winning souls and discipling them into local churches should receive a minor priority (or less part). Your missions budget should not be filled up with good things to miss out on the best. Missions is defined as getting the gospel to the unsaved, and those that accept the gospel, discipling them, and getting them active in local churches where they are (to repeat the cycle). (2) What is the most missionaries we want as a goal? Churches make boasts to claim that they are better than one another. This is pride very simply. The wherewithal of one church cannot compare with the wherewithal of another. God will judge each church not by what they do, but what they could have done with what they had versus what they actually did.
It should be understood that if a local church can support one missionary or 100 missionaries, that is not a point of pride, but rather what they do for missions as a whole. How to come up with a good standard of how many missionaries - It would be wiser to consider so many church members (working adults) should be able to support so many missionaries. This issue of missions is one of emphasis in the minds of the leadership. It is beyond me the thinking of some churches. We have traveled a day or two from where we were living on furlough to present our ministry in a church, only to receive a sub $50 love offering, sometimes as low as $25, and sometimes nothing. Yet Sunday night after church the people file out to McDonalds and each family spends $25 A PIECE on a snack for their families. A church of 100 people find it hard to come up with money except to please themselves. This is tragic, but true. (I recommend that if each family was to invite the missionary family out to a good restaurant, and they take that amount and give, then the missionary would receive enough in the love offering to offset his expenses.) (3) How long do we want our missionaries to be raising their support? Most churches will answer this question with a figure of 3 years (around 36 months) maximum. The point is, after this length of deputation, some churches begin dropping the missionary's support while other start getting frustrated with him and still others start putting pressure on him or his mission board to get him to the field. (4) How often and how long do we want our missionaries to return on furlough? Most churches consider a 4 year term with a one year furlough as being the norm. (5) What do we want our missionaries to do on their furloughs? Most churches piously answer "Rest". This is laughable. Furlough and deputation is the farthest thing from restful there is. First you have to call pastors to book meetings to fill every Sunday you will be home on furlough. Next you must try to fit in a visit to existing churches in the slots where you will be close and yet have no meetings. You have meet new pastors that have taken over in your supporting churches. Then you are trying to do things like bring up your support, get kids schooled, catch up on visiting family, etcetera. In the end, when you return to the field from furlough, you are finally able to rest. OVERVIEW Very simply, let's get a grip on the facts of missions and missionaries. (1) No missionary goes out auto-supported (1 Corinthians 9) nor should he. He is representing the Lord Jesus Christ, and churches in the United States. Therefore he should have his expenses and needs taken care of. (2) The logistics of Support
So if you need around $5000/month coming in (some places more, some places a bit less), then look at how you get that kind of support. How much does your church give per missionary? $25, $35, $50, $100. Figure on the basis of your particular giving to missionaries, how many churches would he need like you to get to the field. $5000/$50 a church = 100 churches, $5000/$100 a church = 50 churches. How easy is it to get support? Consider how many missionaries visit your church in a typical year. 4-10. How many do you actually take on for support? 1. So a typical missionary (based on you as a typical church) would have to visit 4 to 10 churches to get one supporting church. How long do you expect a missionary to take to raise his support? (From above, 3 years) Three years is 36 months, or (52 Sundays in a year x 3 = 156 Sundays). Conclusion - So if your church is typical, then in 156 Sunday he would raise between (1 supporter per 4-10 deputation meetings) 16 to 39 supporters in 3 years deputation. If they each give $50 per month, then he will have between $800 to $1950 of his $5000 needed support. If they each give $100 per month, then he will between $1600 to $3900 of his needed support. At $50 per church, our typical missionary must take around 7.7 years deputation, and at $100 per church, he must take 3.8 years. Of course this 4-10 deputation meetings to get one supporter is greatly changed if he can find a niche group that he distinctly associates with and which excludes other "outside" missionaries. Within this kind of a group, he probably can expect closer to one supporter for every 4 deputation meetings. Also this types of close nit groups usually give more than $100/church. In some such cases I have heard of some churches giving $1000-$1400 per missionary. Also raising one time expenses to get to the field is easier. In one occasion (I was not in that niche group but attended the meeting) a church raised $10,000 in a week of mission conference for one of their missionaries passage fund (to Africa). So you see, churches by their giving habits and their support habits decide what happens in missions. The missionary is not a deciding factor in this formula, but rather the individual church, its people, and most especially its pastor. In most cases, the church needs to take a hard look at its mission's policy, and gets involved in missions. THE SECRET OF GREAT MISSIONS GIVING - Many pastors (especially younger men) are confused on the secret of raising money for missions. As a pastor, you need to give generously and sacrificially to your missions program. By doing this, you have the advantage of teaching your people to give and be generous and sacrificial. The pastor must be the cheerleader in this task. He must push missions. By doing this in a way such that the money raised is not going into his own pocket, he can teach his people about giving without it being "self-serving". I have met a number of pastors that are highly jealous of what their missionaries get, and they see money given to missionaries as in competition with their own plans and programs in their local church. This is not the case. Their missions program is something that teaches their people how to give, and once they learn from their pastor, they will carry that spirit (mean and stingy or generous and sacrificial) over to their own church's financial needs. By promoting missions in their own church, they take care of their own needs. The pastors that learn this early and abide by this, never have financial needs in their own ministries. Those who seek to "grab" money for their own selves, their own particular projects and plans, find that the money quickly evaporates, and they are squeezing turnips to get blood. It does not work. I have actually had pastors take part of the love offering raised from me for whatever purpose and reason, and without my consent. They had financial problems (which they advised me of before coming) and I know why after seeing what they did. Honesty, integrity, openness, and a total lack of greediness and covetousness has to be seen by the people in the leadership of the local church. Moreover, according to my understanding of such passages as 1 Timothy 3 and 1 Peter 5, greediness, covetousness, and other such traits is a disqualification of a man from the ministry. Who gives what - On one furlough I kept track of how much each church gave me in love offerings, and I estimated the attendance during the meeting I had with them. I put them into a spreadsheet and figured out what was given divided by how many present to get a factor of how much per person present the love offering represented. In some 75 meetings, the highest ratio was in churches with the lowest number of people present (a half dozen or less present giving about $50 per person) , and the largest churches (one over 1500, but most a few dollars per person present) gave the lowest amount. The larger the church the less likely they will take up an offering and just give you a set $100 love offering. In one occasion I traveled 2 days going and 2 days returning for a week long missions conference and they gave me no love offering. In that year I had two churches that gave me no low offering even though the churches were well off financially, with 3 or more pastors and more paid staff, schools, etc.) When it comes down to the bottom line of things, I like to return to the Lord's teaching of the widow's mite. It was not what she gave that impressed the Lord, but what she had left over after giving. Nothing. She gave of her very food for living. |