Missions on point, Episode 254.

Thank you so much for allowing us to be a part of your day. We are in a series on Training for the Sending Church. These next few episodes we will deal with education. Having asked lots of questions in the evaluation section, we move into the area of equipping church leaders to help their own church become educated as a sending church.

As is our custom, we begin with the Bible truths. Facilitating church leaders to become unified in understanding the biblical basis, purpose, and practice of missions is a huge step toward leading and communicating those truths to the congregation.

First we need to make sure that the church leaders are unified and clear on some of the most basic elements of missions. It is quite easy and common to make assumptions only to discover later that lack of common understanding and direction undermine progress or, worse, become irreconcilable differences.

Among these essential elements and misconceptions are :

• What is the  Gospel? The Gospel is simple and clear. It includes:
• God’s holiness,
• man’s sin deserving of Hell,
• Jesus’ incarnation as the God-man, His sinless life, substitutionary death on the cross, his resurrection and ascension - paying the penalty of our sin
• The necessity of a response of faith in Christ alone for salvation
• The acceptance of the sinner into God’s family by grace through faith
• The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 1 that anyone who distorts or adds anything to the plain and simple Gospel should be accursed.
• The Gospel is not “loving people,” doing humanitarian and relief work, or fighting for someone’s sense of  “pursuing justice.”

• What is missions?
• Missions is taking the proclamation of the Gospel and planting of local churches in cross-cultural contexts beyond the reach of your own church. Those planted churches are taught to continue to worship, learn, and grow together in Christlikeness and to continue the missions process.
• Missions is not humanitarian or socio-economic uplifting. It is not righting the wrongs of human oppression. It is not disaster relief or refugee assistance or causing war to cease.
• I am not saying that doing these good things is wrong! It does imply, however, that those good outcomes are not, in or of themselves, missions. They might be utilized as a strategic means for proclaiming the Gospel and planting churches. Those outcomes might be a welcome result of biblical churches. Yet, we must never tolerate classifying anything and everything people do “in the name of Christ” as missions.
• Key diagnostic questions to determine if something fits this definition are:
• Is the proposed ministry beyond the reach of our church?
• Is it cross-cultural?
• Does it make proclamation of the Gospel a priority?
• Is the intended goal a healthy local church of believers arising from the proposed ministry?

• What is a Christian?
• A Christian is someone who has believed the Gospel, repented of their sin, and accepted the free gift of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.
• Normally, a Christian lets people around them know of their trust and new identity in Christ publicly in baptism and by becoming a member of a local church.
• Christians gather together regularly to worship God, learn more about their faith through teaching from the Bible, and to obey God’s Word together.
• A Christian is not someone who has fulfilled some checklist of attendance or tacit agreement with some requirements.
• A Christian is not someone who exhibits no discernible change from their former, pre-conversion life.

• What is a local church?
• A church is a body of believers who are mutually committed to worship and grow spiritually together in a particular locale.
• A church has biblically qualified leaders who have responsibility given them  to teach the word, shepherd the members, and lead them in ministry.
• A local church is not simply a regular gathering of people in a Bible study. It is not even a regular gathering of professing believers.

I bring these up by reminder. Some of you may think, “Why keep bringing these things up?” It is because, in our day, clarity on these things has gone all fuzzy and squishy. It is good to remind ourselves and recalibrate our thinking to be “on point.”

There are other issues and definitions that are important. But these, in our present day, are the most basic elements which have been grossly and popularly twisted away from their original biblical meaning. It is of great importance to a church seeking to become a good sending church to revisit these definitions and agree on them. Then, in turn, the leaders teach the other leaders of the church and all teach the whole church. In this way, the whole church is brought to unity and clarity on the fundamentals of missions.

The good sending church knows that the Bible teaches of God’s intention to receive rightful worship from every ethnicity on the planet. He does so by local churches sending qualified missionaries to every tribe and nation. God has designed the local church to be the source of sending workers into those fields; and, the local church is the end result of fruit of that labor. It is our joy and responsibility to involve our church in this glorious task. Regularly seeing, hearing, and teaching missions from God’s word helps the congregation understand and rise in participation in missions. 

Part of growing a sending church is embracing and teaching these things. Then, there is the practical aspect of delegating the management of the details to a Missions Committee or Team or Board or Task Force. Appropriate delegation of responsibility and authority is a marker of a good sending church. Good Elders grant a scope of ongoing responsibility to others. The Missions Team can do a lot to advance the cause of missions in the church. They also make it much easier to recognize, equip, send, and shepherd missionary candidates to be sent by your church.

The Missions Committee or Team is not just a body assigned to propose an annual missions budget, operate the special missions emphasis weekend, and administrate short term missions trips or projects.The Missions Committee or Team has a deeper responsibility for helping the leaders of the church educate the whole church family in missions. They have the wonderful and sometimes weighty responsibility for finding ways to teach the whole congregation about missions and give them opportunity to become involved in missions.

The Missions Committee or Team certainly has responsibility to get the church involved in caring for the missionaries whom the church supports. If there is one or more missionaries who have been sent out from the church, that level of support and shepherding is multiplied even more. The missions team becomes responsible for creating and monitoring the steps of equipping and qualification for missionary service for those who feel called to missions in the church.The missions team may even delegate further to a specific subset of people assigned to have particular watch-care over a missionary sent from the church. This sub-team we call a Barnabas team or Prayer and Care team. Much has been written about this in our articles on Propempo.com and in the Missions on Point Podcast episodes. For additional information, please see the Missions on Point book available on Amazon, along with the Study Guide. The Missions on Point book is available in hardback, paperback, and audiobook through Audible.

One other major topic deserving attention here is the whole matter of funding for missions and missionaries. There are basically three ways in which churches fund missions. One is through some percentage or allotment from the general fund's income of the church. A second is through pledges, usually called faith promise or some equivalent. A third is through individualized support designated through church funds. By designated support, we mean individuals in the church are allowed to designate donations specifically for the support of a specific missionary. In every case, under the law, donations given to the church for ministry are under the authority of the church. The church has an obligation to honor the designation of the donor if that designation is in alignment with and approved by the church.

While I agree with designated donations for special needs, I don't agree with regular designating support as the primary means of support for a missionary sent from the church. The same would apply for even missionaries that aren't sent directly by the church, but are supported by the church. The dynamic problems which arise are that certain missionaries win the beauty pageant and get a lot more support than other missionaries who may be doing great work, but are not as platform savvy or winsome in their approach to fundraising. It also fuels an unhealthy allegiance between individual donors and recipients, rather than honoring the role of the local church to fund ministries with wisdom, balance, and objectivity.

I believe that it is in best interests of all parties and ministries involved for people to give through the church to the church's approved missions ministries and administrated by the missions committee or team under the oversight of the elders. The missionaries should never be put in a position of feeling like they own certain donors' support, or that they can build up some equity of surplus support that is completely under their control. Likewise, donors giving through the church should not feel that 100% of their donation must be used exactly in the way in which they designated it. Doing so just doesn't make sense in general funds terms, neither does it make sense in missions funds terms.

The most common means of funding is through some percentage of the general fund. Usually I teach that the upper level goal for that should be about 25% of general funds set aside for missions and retaining ongoing balances in that mission's fund. That's a goal for most churches. A few churches exceed that goal. Fifty or more years ago, some churches thought that the goal should be 50% of income goes to missions. However, churches that can sustain that amount are unusual. Having that goal should not be a normal aspiration for most churches.

The faith promise method is worthy of consideration. It is also time honored and has certain virtues in building faith and generosity among the church membership. I think it is a fine compromise to have both a general fund percentage and opportunity for faith promise giving. However, it's totally up to that local church leadership.

In my opinion, designated giving to a specific missionary or missions ministry should be limited to only special or emergency needs on a one time basis per specific need or opportunity. Publicly promoting direct-designated giving across the whole church family usually ends poorly. It is neither healthy for church solidarity nor for church-wide relationships with the missionaries nor honoring of the church leadership in managing the priorities and giving of the church family for missions.

There is one other method of missions giving. That is, giving through a denominational and/or affiliation missions funding percentage of the general fund and/or annual missions fund drive. Accountability for and allocation of those funds almost never matches the values and priorities of a thoughtful, autonomous local church. It is far better for the local church to wisely select and fund more directly those ministries and missions opportunities which best match their doctrine and priorities.

So, in the big process of training for the sending church, we've touched on elements of definitions, delegation, and funding. We could go into more detail, however, we prefer to help each church on a case-by-case basis. We want to see every good church that desires to be a quality missionary sending church grow in their own potential.

We pray that you and your church would so aspire to become a missionary sending church that, through your own prayer and sincere effort, God would use you in that way. May we together commit to see God’s glory through the gospel of Jesus Christ fill the earth!