Partnership

Ray Porter’s recent article on Missionary Funding (EN, November 2009) raises important issues.

But it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. How then should long-term, international cross-cultural gospel work be funded? What is the responsibility of those who set their hearts on doing this kind of work? What is the proper role and function of a mission society, and how ought such organisations to be funded today? What is the biblical model for the relationship between churches and would-be mission partners? Ray’s concerns arise out of his long and distinguished personal experience of global mission and his undoubted passion to see proper provision made. However, a statement like ‘there is no biblical justification for burdening missionaries with fundraising’ frames the argument in a way that does not help any of the parties to grasp the biblical model of gospel partnership, which is an essential piece of the biblical picture.

The article draws attention to the comparative comfort of the financial guarantees many Anglican ordinands enjoy and the insecurity of some independent students, including those seeking international, cross-cultural ministry — but it is actually the supposed ‘job-for-life’ security offered by institutional denominations that is abnormal in the light of the New Testament. Such financial security is also wildly out of kilter with the reality experienced by most believers down the centuries and around the world today.

Responsibility

The fact is that gospel workers have almost always had to take a significant measure of responsibility for their own livelihood, and the New Testament witness to that is clear and unambiguous. For example, the Apostle Paul took responsibility for himself so that, while defending the right of the gospel labourer to receive his pay, he personally declined to exercise that right, preferring to fund his ministry through the labour of his own hands and the generosity of those in long-term partnership with him, such as the church at Philippi.

According to this pattern, a church should certainly play its part in funding those with whom it is in gospel partnership, but to argue that the responsibility for funding lies solely with such churches (or, equally, with a mission society) is to go way beyond what the New Testament suggests. This is not to say that there is anything overly prescriptive laid down in the New Testament — it is to say that there is a significant role for the prospective mission partner to play within the framework of relationships involving individuals and churches with whom they are in fellowship as well as the mission society within which they aspire to serve.

Gospel partnerships

There is, of course, nothing analogous to a mission society within the pages of the New Testament. Such organisations are a relatively modern invention, but, rightly conducted, they exist not only to hold before churches the imperative of taking salvation to the ends of the earth, but actually to serve those churches in developing their engagement in God’s mission, locally as well as globally. One vital way this can be done is by brokering gospel partnerships that express the many-stranded rope that constitutes biblical koinonia (the Greek word often translated ‘partnership’, but which carries the sense of common possession, fellowship and active participation — see e.g. its various translations in Philippians 1.5, 1.7, 2.1, 3.10, 4.14, 4.15).

Portfolio of support

This implies that a mission society ought to regard itself not as a substitute for church, but rather as serving both ends of the koinonia rope: the mission partner on the one hand and the churches on the other. It is highly likely — and, indeed, healthy — that a mission partner should be in koinonia with more than one church and a (probably rather larger) number of individuals. Taken together these will constitute a portfolio of support — but, as such, this group of churches and individuals should perceive themselves to be far more than mere supporters, for they too are called by the same gospel into active mission engagement wherever they are. Partnership is a dynamic relationship between men and women who believe the same gospel, contend for the same truths, proclaim the same message, serve the same Lord, suffer for the same cause, and love, communicate, give and pray for one another within the special relationship they enjoy by virtue of being ‘in Christ’ together. It is this rich New Testament concept of koinonia that is the key to addressing the challenges that Ray Porter highlights and constitutes the missing piece of the jigsaw that holds in proper relationship the respective roles of mission partner, local church and mission society.

Looking to God

In dismissing the approach sometimes (although wrongly) described as ‘living by faith’, we must not jettison Hudson Taylor’s other well-known affirmation that ‘God’s work done in God’s way will not lack supply’. It is not, therefore, too much to say to a candidate that they should look to God to provide sufficient gospel partnerships for them to be able to realise their ambition to serve, and that such provision (or the lack of it) should be regarded as a legitimate, though not conclusive, test of God’s will for any particular venture.

Likewise, a mission society is itself an exercise in koinonia, trusting for funding according to the will of that same Lord via its individual membership and link churches. It seems entirely proper that this income should include payments from those who use its services, notably churches at home and serving mission partners abroad. This rightly raises the question of the extent to which mission societies serve churches in their engagement in God’s mission and, similarly, how effective they are in providing pastoral care and the facilitation of koinonia to mission partners — but that would be to stray onto another topic that would require a further article.

In gospel business together

A mission society’s role is not solely to facilitate the selection, training and deployment of mission partners — it includes the provision of ongoing pastoral care (where possible, alongside local church support on deployment) and assistance in establishing and maintaining active gospel partnerships with suitable churches and individuals. For a mission society to insist on this being in place prior to deployment is surely a wise and sensible requirement, not in order to ‘burden missionaries with fundraising’ (as Ray puts it), but precisely the opposite, i.e. to protect the mission partner from having to fundraise while on the job.

This insistence enables them to head off confident in the knowledge that individuals and churches are committed to gospel partnership with them for the task they are to undertake and the length of time envisaged. They are in gospel business together. Releasing them from financial anxiety to focus on the work in hand, it will also encourage the freedom to fulfil their responsibility within such a partnership, to pray for, and communicate with, their partner churches and individuals. The benefit of setting a godly example and stimulating their partners’ engagement in God’s mission in their home and place of work will help correct the disastrous notion that somehow the mission field consists only of some far off overseas location, and foster the sense of mutual engagement in God’s mission.

Where such international gospel ministry bears fruit and, over time, attracts local funding that militates against long-term financial dependency on home churches, so much the healthier for all concerned. But, until that is in place, it would be as undesirable for mission societies to assume responsibility for guaranteeing funding as it has become financially imprudent to do so, principally because it would undermine the establishing of koinonia — a concept that needs to be rediscovered and nurtured among us. It is within this framework that the important dimensions of mutual concern and sharing come into play.

This runs counter to a worldly individualism and is the very antithesis of the ‘commercialisation of friendships’ that Ray so rightly deplores. Philippians 4.15-17 reminds us why this matters: far from letting the churches off the hook in terms of their responsibility, the Apostle commends the practice of gospel partnership as bringing God’s blessing on both parties. Mission societies have a critical role to play in teaching and promoting this biblical model and in fashioning their role according to it. The result will be the clear priority of building relationships of trust and accountability between mission partners and those churches / individuals who have sufficient confidence in them to back them for the work they aspire to do.

Individual mission partners should take responsibility for establishing gospel partnerships, including raising the funds needed for their engagement in gospel work. They certainly deserve to be helped and encouraged to the maximum degree in that process and the exercise should always be pursued as one element in establishing partnerships that conform to the many-stranded nature of biblical koinonia. The warmth of the personal relationship between the Apostle and his ‘beloved brethren’ in Philippi should encourage us to pursue the building of such gospel partnerships confident in the One in whom we find our koinonia.

Alan Purser,
Crosslinks

© Evangelicals Now - April 2010
Please consider supporting this ministry by subscribing.