Summary: This page explains my views as to why "regular" mission boards are not biblical
(Reason number 2 of 5). For the calling page, see Why we are not under a board.

(2) Mission boards duplicate overhead and infrastructure of the local church

by Missionary David R Cox

Page Outline:  
I. The Genius of God in Designing the Local Church Concept.
  A. Where does the money come from?
  B. Pressures of Popular Trends
  C. Modern philosophy of Christian Organizations
  D. Lowest Common Denominator  
  E. The local church as champion of sound doctrine
  F. Who really owns the property?
  G. Churches are communal property
II. What is the most economical way to do missions?
III. Auxiliary missions ministries that take a large share of the missions "pie".
 

(2) Mission boards need overhead and infrastructure expenses that a local church does not.

Mission boards do not function very well in a basement of a local church. Yet most local churches that decide to oversee and take on their God commanded responsibility towards missions and missionaries usually do not add any personnel to do so, and they use existing office space of the church to carry out this task. Therefore, if we consider the Lord's money, and how best it can be used to accomplish the work of the Lord, and we have to ask the question, "Is having millions of dollars in mission agency buildings, secretaries, cars, self-promotion, and other unnecessary expenses best, or Is a local church mission board where there is little or no extra money spent other than what is already being spent to run the local church best?" We should think very long and hard about this. If the millions of dollars spent in office buildings and the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on office staff by mission boards were instead spent on men and women witnessing, making disciples, and planting churches, how much more could we do?

Why is there a great lack of funds in missions yet we spend more today on missions than at any time in the history of Christianity? Where does the missions money go to then? Infrastructure is the answer.

God designed the local church as a construct or method by which men are to fulfill the work of God, to accomplish God's will. God needs no other methods except what He has established.

These words need to be meditated on deeply. Let's compare a local church with a mission board for a moment. (We can substitute any Christian organization today in the place of mission board, they all fail miserably beside God's marvelous creation, the local church.)

Where does the money come from? In a local church, money does not come from "outside" of the local church, but each person which is a member opens his pocketbook and sacrifices for the existence of the local church. Imagine a mission board that is sustained by the free will donations of its employees? Won't work. But this makes the local church financially independent of other groups, organizations, or individuals. This means that the local church "calls its own shots." The golden rule says, "He who has the gold makes the rules." The local church decides how to spend its money on the basis of God's will, without thinking or allowing popular opinion to take over.

How does a mission board (or any other religious organization) get its money? They have to go outside of its own members and "raise funds". Mission boards need money to function. Therefore mission boards enter missions as a consumer, not a supplier. Mission boards have to go after the same money that missionaries go after. It is highly irritating to me as a missionary to see a mission board promote a project like a new office building for them, where they are asking churches to donate (missions funds) to them because they need a million dollars to build a new building. Imagine a lowly missionary doing the same. The mission board would highly criticize them for wanting "such a luxury", and if the missionary was under that mission board, they would discipline him for his "unruly" promotion. They even would say it is unbiblical and wrong for him to do that. Yet what is good for the goose is not good for the gander!

Pressures of Popular Trends - Another consideration here whereby we see the genius of God is in the pressures of popular trends on churches and on religious organizations. We are in a spiritual war. In this war, God has the correct doctrine and conduct that we as believers should follow. Satan attacks God's work. Most often these attacks come in the form of provoking or causing God's people to disobey in doctrine or conduct . Satan does this in any way he can, including the use of influence, pressure, and "politically correct" pressure. An independent, autonomous local church does not have to respond to popular trend pressures. Its economy is internal. It can "weather" a storm of heresy and still stand. Religious organizations that are dependent on fund raising must bend and blow with the wind or they cease to have funds to function.

Modern philosophy of Christian Organizations - A modern Christian organization that raises money from donations simply has to be very careful NOT TO BE TOO SPECIFIC on doctrine and conduct. The more rigorous and restrictive in your doctrine, the less people will support you, and you fold and go bankrupt. Therefore the formula is simple, take the pulse of the majority of Christianity, try to pick out the group that is the largest and most financially generous, and make sure your doctrine and practice fits with theirs, especially not offending them, nor smaller groups so that you can raise money from all of them.

For this reason, Satan has lots of "Christian people" out there with putrid doctrines and practices (grossly unbiblical). We see a growing pressure for women pastors, for acceptance of homosexuals as non-sinning brethren, ignorance of divorce as a disqualification for ministry, worldliness in ministers and members of churches, sexual promiscuity as okay, women leading men, especially their own husbands in the family, church, and civil affairs, entertainment being the center of everything instead of worship and service of God, and the list goes on. When a Christian organization thinks about these things, it is financial suicide to publish a lot of strong statements about these issues, because they will undoubtedly offend potential or actual financial contributors.

Lowest Common Denominator - So their simple solution is to go to the lowest common denominator, or in other words, make no statements on these issues unless pressed by a supporter, then make sure it is only with that particular individual (not widely published as your stance, so that the next supporter that asks holding the opposite view, you can flip-flop on the issue and nobody ever know). These are notorious for being telephone conversations (illegal to record them without permission remember). This is the status quo of every Christian organization. They financially suffocate if they come out too bold and open on the issues of the day. If they do come out on these issues where the Bible clearly teaches an unpopular position, their position is to take no position.

The local church as champion of sound doctrine - But when we look at the design of the local church, the entire design of God is that the local church sets doctrine and practice from the Bible, and they are not to follow the popular movements. Instead of bending with the pressures of popularity, THE LOCAL CHURCH CHANGES PEOPLE INTO WHAT GOD WANTS THEM TO BE. The local church has a situation where the leaders have rapport and support for what they are doing from their people. Even though the stance is unpopular, they can hold to it, and they can even be bold in the promotion and championing of that position. With homosexuals, the pressure is tremendous in some areas, but it is not able to overcome even a small group of God's people who are firm in following the Lord. Financially, this position that homosexuality is sin in all cases does not financially affect them. They do not get their operating expenses from homosexuals anyway (if they are in their church, their discipline them and convert them or expel them). In the case of women being prohibited from preaching, teaching, or leading over men, this pressure is high everywhere. But men with the help of God can take the correct stand and weather the bullying by Satan. Christian organizations fall easily to these pressures because they have to "raise operating funds" from many groups that are not of their same position, and this translates into a softening or muting of a correct position on these issues.

In summary, churches are in the position of holding to biblical doctrine, strongly preach and convert people to that position, and survive antagonism against the biblical position, but Christian organizations are in the position of gathering great amounts of God's people's tithes and offering in infrastructure, then caving in on the issues and carrying God's people's money with them in their compromise of God's word.

Who really owns the property? - To build a building, it costs money. Normal people and groups cannot afford to purchase a new building every other year. It is just too costly. So infrastructure is a cost that needs years to build up. Satan has been extremely wise in stealing the infrastructure of God's work. A denomination or church will be built by spiritually strong men of God, and then they over the years invest their tithes and offerings (really God's money) on infrastructure, and then Satan manages to carry the group off into doctrinal error or conduct error with the corruption of these leaders, or if he cannot do that, with the changing of the guard (new leaders taking over for retiring or dead leaders). Thus we start over at scratch.

Who owns the property and infrastructure that God's people purchase with tithes and offerings? In the case of a local church, the church is organized around a set of doctrines, not a service like a Christian organization. By changing the doctrine, we change the basis of the community, and it is very obvious. People reject this and complain, in fact, they usually fight against it. If some in a church decide Christ was not born of a virgin, or the Bible is not inspired, there is usually a great battle over the issue. So the principle difference between a church and a Christian organization is the purpose. One is based on holding to a service (a Christian camp that closes its camp ceases to exist. A Christian school that has no students because it terminates that service, ceases to exist.), the other is based on holding to a purpose, God's purpose which involves evangelism, making disciples, and the core doctrines of that group, "the fundamentals".

As such, when people in a church "own" property (building, vehicles, or anything else), they get money for that property because the present a doctrine and people donate to that church because of their doctrine and practice. Somebody dies in the leadership of that church, the pastor for example. The next pastor that takes his place has to follow the doctrine or there is a defense of that doctrine and the pastor is removed. The essential doctrine and practice stays the same through the passing of generations, and the investment is preserved by people of like faith. Of course reality is that many leaders know how to change a church's doctrine and practice to corrupt it, but it takes a lot of time, and running off key people who would not go along with changing things, and replacing them with milk toast members. But this is difficult to do quickly, and that is what makes it a good thing. So somebody dies or changes their position from the standard the church is presenting as their position, and they are removed or at least opposed. In a Christian organization (camp, school, mission board, etc), all of this is removed from the sight and knowledge of the common supporter, and very seldom does it come to light until it is too late.

In a Christian organization, the trend is that some "great man of God" is raised up by his "stand on the issues" (doctrine and practice) and then God's people invests heavily in that ministry. He passes on but the ministry continues, and others take his place, of course, always ascribing to be loyal and "the same" as that great man of God. Somewhere down the line things change, and this is when astute wolves change things without people knowing. Now the real doctrine and practice is changed greatly, but the people only remember and see what they want to see, that great ministry of the great man of God.

Colossians 2:18 refers to this "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind."

This is the worshipping of the angel (angel means messenger) instead of the sender of the message, the Lord. People are voluntarily making themselves submissive to messengers, and worshipping the messenger above the Lord who sent the message. I think about Bob Jones University where I went to school. Dr. Bob Sr was a "great evangelist" that gathered a great following. He was known in his day for "calling a spade a spade". He was extremely vocal on the issues. He was an evangelist and gathered his following around his doctrine and practice. He started a school and the funds came from good Christian people that heavily invested in a "ministry" of millions and millions of dollars. Then he died. All were told the school will stand the same place it has always stood. His son, Dr. Bob Jr. came on the scene. He was no great evangelist nor great preacher. He was not known for pithy sayings that expressed Scriptural principles. He was renown for his acting career! But he was still outspoken. In comes Dr. Bob the third, and with him, a change in the school's slogan "The world's most unusual university" to now "The world's friendliest university." Public relations events are now the norm where the students go into the community (not to evangelize) but to clean up parks and do community service. We see a great change in the school over the years.

But there is really nothing unusual here. This is how things go. Harvard and Princeton were two of the first Christian seminaries in the continental USA. Why? Because promising young preachers went to England to study Bible and never came back. So Harvard was formed to keep this from happening. Harvard did not graduate its first generation of students before Princeton was formed. Why? Because Harvard had "gone bad", changed from where they started from. This is common fare in the birth, life, and compromise (death) of a Christian organization. Yet seeing this repeated without end in history, we continue the same faulty practice.

When the leadership of a Christian organization changes their position, doctrine and practice, they carry away with them the assets they have accumulated over the years from God's people. This is something that causes us or should cause us great concern. We should be extremely cautious and slow to invest God's money in any religious organization that can flip-flop on its doctrine and go bad. I have personally seen Fundamental groups and organizations that suddenly get the "revelation from God" and start speaking in tongues or whatever.

Churches are Communal Property - God has designed the local church so that this is more difficult to do.  Churches are built around the concept of communal property, whereby the property has to stay in the hands of people with the same beliefs and practices as were in place when the people donated money to it. Christian organizations try to pretend they do this, but it is hopelessly impossible. The external pressures of popularity and acceptance (in order to get donations) overweighs the desires of the leaders to keep the organization on track. The result is that the organization will ALWAYS compromise and have problems, whether with the current leadership or the future leadership, it just will happen. That is because of the dynamics of the situation.

In a church, people go bad and God has designed a way to correct the situation. The church must hold firm to church discipline and separation as ideals, but there is a way to correct the situation. In a Christian organization, the rule is that the organization goes down the path that the leaders decide, and very rarely if ever does a Christian organization discipline one of their founders or a member of the board of directors. The discipline that they do is to cut off people who ask questions, who probe into situations that appear to be something wrong, or who are not of the party line. The organization decides the official policy of the organization, i.e. the party line or fundamentals. In a church, the Bible has to decide, and any leader who proposes something as an essential element of the church, he has to back it up with persuasive explanations from the Bible (exposition).

What is the most economical and biblical way to do missions? So, the burning question is, "Can what mission boards do be done in a less expensive way so as to leave more money for personnel in foreign countries winning the lost and establishing churches?"  The answer is yes, by means of a local church. Most churches that oversee missionaries do so without hiring any new personnel (the church secretary takes care of most of the work), no new buildings need to be built, and the amount of money necessary for them to do the work of oversight is minimal. Traveling to visit their missionaries is something that most pastors will do anyway, whether the missionaries are under their own church or under a mission board. So "Yes", it can be done without mission boards and all the infrastructure that they need to oversee mission.

We should think very long and hard about this. If the millions of dollars spent in office buildings and on office staff by mission boards were instead spent on men of God witnessing, making disciples, and planting churches, how much more could we do for the Lord? Do they really justify their existence? After running around in "the system" for years, seeing everything, I have come to the personal conclusion that they do not justify their existence. My opinion and personal observation is that once you get away from the biblical example of missionaries under local churches, every kind of crazy thing being called a ministry will be introduced, and they are all after a piece of the same pie, the missions budget. 

Let me digress for a minute. Let's take a 3 million dollar mission agency building complex. All of that money came from money that was "given to missions". If instead of building a building, that money was sent to support missionaries that had income of $3,000 a month, that would represent 1,000 months of support, or 10 missionaries for 8 years. In eternity, after God raptures all the Christians off the planet earth, and Satan and the antichrist takes over the church buildings for the one world religion, would that money be better spent in souls getting saved or in brick and mortar? We look to the New Testament, and perhaps we can understand the lack of emphasis in Christ's ministry in physical buildings, and the lack of much mention of building programs among the early church. It simply is not a good investment of God's money.

Auxiliary missions ministries that take a large share of the missions "pie". Today we have people and ministries that "help missionaries" by printing prayer cards, designing prayer cards, packing their possessions, printing and sending out their prayer letters, providing missionary lodging while they are in the US, and doing a host of things in the name of "missions" and as a "service" to missionaries. The bottom line is, why should there be some guy out there making $50,000 a year to print and mail my prayer letter? Where does he get his money to operate? From churches' mission's funds, in direct competition with me as a church planter.

Very good, but when the missionary goes around to raise his living expenses on a foreign field, there are no funds available. Why? Look at all the missionary "help ministries" and you will see the answer. Bottom line here, the majority of these ministries are more expensive (being free supposedly) than some unsaved guy in a secular print shop on the corner. Not just do they absorb missions dollars, they end up charging the missionaries either up front or through hidden costs more than what a secular business providing the same services would charge him. After using several prayer card printing ministries, I compared (after the fact unfortunately) with the secular printer on the corner to find the secular printer was cheaper and had better quality. In the end, you can sometimes find a  local church with a burden for missions or some Christian professional with a secular business of graphic arts or printing company or whatever will do these same services for absolutely free. This is a true ministry to the Lord. I believe that is perfectly alright. But for the life of me I cannot understand how a ministry that gets thousands of dollars more than I do as a missionary each month can turn around and charge me more for their "service" than a secular guy on the corner and give me poor quality and service at that! Many times the answer is because they are constantly doing deputation and running around in deputation services to raise money for their ministry, and they don't have time or energy to even do their ministry well. That is the reality of the majority of these so called ministries. Churches do not really help true missions by supporting or allowing them to come and endear themselves to their people. What churches do by supporting them is to rob the true man of God who is getting people saved and taught to be effective Christians in his home church.

So the "proverb" is true. We spend more money on missions that ever in the history of Christianity, and we are getting less done by it.

Last modified on 04/23/06