Missionary funding | Ray Porter

The most exciting thing about teaching at a theological college is seeing students go out into ministry.

Some have obtained a curacy and can look forward to a further three or four years of training on the job. Others have obtained similar posts as assistants in Free churches. All of them can now look forward to an assured salary and housing. Their future financing will be the responsibility of their church.

Different for missionaries

In great contrast to this will be those who have applied to a mission agency to serve in cross-cultural ministry. They have seen God supply their needs over the years of study through friends, churches and trusts.

Unlike other leavers, they now need to return to their supporters and say that they need ongoing support. No trusts to apply to now. Churches may agree to give some support, but, in general, they are left to what is euphemistically called ‘friend raising’. The agency will have specified the costs. Not only will there be the costs of maintaining the family and their ministry, but there will undoubtedly be additional structural costs. British charity law and financial regulations will have increased the ‘back office’ so that those going to minister the gospel will also be asked to contribute to the fixed salaries of maybe 20 other people.

Test of faith?

The raising of funds may well be presented to these missionaries as a further test of faith and a necessary indication that they really are called to this ministry. If funds are slow to come in, or insufficient, there may be accusations that the individuals are prayerless, untrusting or uncalled. Gone are the days when mission agencies would speak about a shared desire to advance the work of God in another culture and where sharing was common so that together there would be a mutual trusting in God for his supply to the whole organisation. Now everything is individualised. ‘If you cannot raise your £40k or £50k, we cannot accept you to serve with us’, they may be told.

How we got here

How have we got to such a situation? The first mission agency from the UK sent out Anglican clergymen as chaplains to the colonies. They were given a stipend like any other cleric.

William Carey was supported by the Particular Baptist Missionary Society for his passage to India. He believed that support would be needed until someone had established themselves economically in the new country. Thereafter they would be self-supporting. When Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission in 1865 he believed that his missionaries should make no appeal for funds, but ‘move men by prayer alone’. He expected that God would supply the funds for his work either through the sending country or locally in the country of ministry. ‘God’s work done in God’s way will not lack supply’ was his principle.

Those joining were asked to pray for the cost of their passage. Some joined as self-financing missionaries, but others shared in all that was given for the needs of China. Church support (and membership) was marginalised in this nondenominational venture. This pattern was largely adopted by similar mission groups as they emerged in the next 50 years and continued well into the second half of the 20th century. Declining commitment to organisations, increasing individualism, the abandonment of the non-solicitation policy of Hudson Taylor, the increase of humanitarian missions and relief agencies, the growth of short-term missions — all were contributory factors to the present situation.

Undoing the mistakes

We need to undo both the mistake of Hudson Taylor in sidelining the church while recapturing the mutuality that he encouraged. The more recent growth of individualism must be countered with a true understanding of communal responsibility through both churches and agencies. The key issue is the relationship that a sending church has with both the missionary it is sending and the agency that they are joining, if they have one.

Churches should regard the missionaries they send with the same sense of responsibility as they show to their ministers or other church workers. If a church cannot support the extra cost themselves, then they should be following the pattern of Carey in gathering together like-minded churches to give that support. Why is it that some churches talk loudly about the role of the local church in sending missionaries, but do not organise support for them? Church finance is not an easy thing, but it is noticeable that many churches work harder to provide finance for ministry that will be directly beneficial to their own local needs. It is not unknown for keen evangelical churches to contemplate cutting missionary support if their finances are stretched. Some large churches are very good and generous in the support of those they send out, but others give little direct support from the church as a body, but expect the missionary to gather finance from those who know them in the congregation. This seems to be a defective understanding of what it means for a church to call and send someone into world mission.

Mission agencies

A church seeking together to support the work of those they are sending into world mission is one side to addressing this issue, but what of the mission agencies? By the individualisation of support they may have abdicated their own responsibilities to seek funding for those that they believe should be sent with that agency.

They have done a disservice to the churches by encouraging them to support people they know rather than the gospel ministry for which they were set up. In 3 John, the Elder commends Gaius who ministers to strangers who were journeying because of the gospel and condemned Diotrephes who was only concerned for people he knew.

They have also compounded their own problems of finance. For each person who completes his/her service with an agency, support will cease. For each new person who begins ministry with the agency, new supporters must be sought. There is a continuing churn of supporters who know and care little for the history and activity of either the agency or the situations in which people are working overseas.

Office workers

The support figure of a missionary will include the costs of the agency support and administration structures. Why should those who are called to gospel ministry be asked to be salary providers for those working in agency offices? Agencies challenged on this will reply that whereas someone going to preach the gospel may gain support, who would want to support an accountant or secretary or regional representative?

Perhaps there is here a vision for mission that needs to be captured by Christians who share the expertise of the administrators and accountants and so can understand the need for such workers in mission offices? There are Trusts to support people in training for gospel ministry, but where are the Trusts established by Christian accountants to provide and support accountancy services in world mission? Where are the Trusts set up by Christian personnel officers or media experts? Front line Bible ministry is not the only calling for Christians.

Support from converts

There is another area that needs fresh thinking — support from those to whom the missionaries are sent to minister. There is a Pauline principle of making the gospel available free of charge to those who have not heard it, but there is no evidence that Paul gave away his tents. Where services are provided there can be appropriate recompense. Once a group of believers has been established, it is part of biblical teaching that they should begin to support the ministry they receive. To allow a believing people, however poor, to be only recipients, and not givers also, is a form of paternalism and increases the development of a dependency culture. To begin to contribute to the costs of ministry gives the developing church a sense of ownership to the whole project and makes easier the transition to national leadership.

Dependence on God?

But some may object to this suggestion of a more rational approach to mission support and want to argue that there is tremendous spiritual value in the sense of a daily dependence on God that comes to the missionary who lives by faith. A sense of such dependency should be part of all Christian living whatever we are doing and however we are financed. The stress, commercialisation of friendships, time consumption, curtailment of long-term ministry and the other unnecessary destructive effects of the current system need to be set against this. There are enough spiritual tests in all incursions into the realm of the enemy without adding fund-raising to them. No church or mission board should demand that their missionaries become fund-raisers unless they are prepared to minister under the same conditions themselves.

I look forward to the day when those called into cross-cultural ministry can proceed with the same financial confidence as those entering home ministry so that they can give 100% of their energy to the ministry for which they have been called and equipped. There is no biblical justification for burdening missionaries with the task of fund raising.

Fund-raising is the responsibility of the churches and the agencies that send them.

Ray Porter,
Director of World Mission Studies, Oak Hill Theological College, London