Church pastor, I’d like to take a few moments and ask you a question. It’s a question I asked myself several years ago while serving as Pastor of Shenandoah Baptist Church. It’s a question that ended up taking me on a different path in my ministry in ways I could not have imagined.
A Real-Ministry Scenario
Let me paint a scenario for you in which to frame the question. Consider two young people who grew up in the same local church. Both are taught missions and both are aware of the significance of being a part of a “mission-minded” church. Both prosper in Christian nurture, growth, and service. Both attend the same highly-approved Bible College and Seminary. During their education, one senses the call to go into cross-cultural ministry and prepares for that type of ministry. The other senses the call to prepare for a hometown pastoral ministry and does so.
They both graduate at the same time and call their pastor for advice and counsel for the next steps. Here is where the story changes:
To the person preparing for hometown ministry, the pastor says, “We are so glad to hear that you have been called to this ministry. We’re sending you a check to cover your moving expenses. We have an office for you. Your salary will be as we have discussed plus you will have the same benefits package as the rest of the staff. Welcome to the ministry.”
To the person preparing for a cross-cultural ministry, the pastor says, “We are so glad to hear that you have been called to this ministry. You will need to select a mission board that will help you raise prayer and financial support. When you have selected a field, please contact us and we will do our best to have you speak to our congregation about the work to which God has called you. We wish you every success and will be praying for you. Welcome to the ministry.”
While I may have taken some liberty with the specific details of the above scenario, I believe I have accurately stated a dichotomy that happens all too frequently in hundreds of local churches today.
The Contemporary Norm
After significant study, it became clear that the evangelical church, even since the Reformation, has not been willing to examine its responsibility to world missions. For the last four hundred years, it has been blinded with a problem. While some local churches have accepted the opportunity and responsibility for world missions as primary to their purpose, the vast majority of our local Bible-believing congregations still treat missions as an option and missionaries as orphans. As a local church pastor, I became convinced this needed to change and became determined to do so.
The first step I took was to change my attitude. Then I needed to lead the church and our missionary friends to change theirs. The problem I saw was that our view of missions had been shaped by our evangelical heritage, where we assumed the way missions had been done in the past is the way it should be done today. Missions was the work of boards, agencies, and individuals. The local church was not expected to do anything but respond to requests for prayer and funds. Missionaries and boards would do everything else. The local church had no other responsibility but to “support” them in their work. Its praying and giving would be incidental and, in the end, insufficient.
I realize that the above is an oversimplification and you may feel it is unduly harsh. I hope the point is clear: I saw very little ownership in the local church for missions except as another program. As I began to ponder the approach to missions that I had been taught and up to this point had believed was the only biblical approach, I began to see a much different role for the local church to play. My attitude about missions began to change and I’m delighted to report that over the years I was pastor at Shenandoah, the attitude of our church also changed. The blessing that God has given to us has been more than we could have ever dreamed.
The Biblical Norm
Our traditional approach to missions was to invite a few “missionary candidates” to our Annual World Conference. Most of these candidates were unknown to us except
by letter, phone, and referrals. Through such information gathering, we learned where these missionaries were going and what they planned to do. We knew they were in the process of raising support for their work. They would come to our church at their instigation or our invitation. The good news is that we had a heart for missions and wanted to be involved. The bad news is that we still believed the work of missions was “their” work and not primarily that of the local church. This is where we changed our attitude.
In this new approach, we now believed that biblically the work of world missions belonged to us as a local church and we could no longer treat missions as an appendage, option, or burden. It was to be our central business and deserved center stage in all we did. “Foreign” missions must be taught, administered, and funded with the rest of everything else we refer to as the church’s work. Today, missions is the heartbeat of Shenandoah Baptist Church, not an annual point of emphasis. It took several years to reach this place in our ministry. How did we accomplish this and what does it look like? In the rest of this article, I’ll outline six steps that we have taken in faith and which the Lord has blessed in changing our entire ministry.
Six Steps We Took
Step 1: We refer to our missionaries as our “staff”. This terminology helped us focus our responsibility for them. The missionaries could see their relationship with us was more than that of a supporting church. Instead, the missionary became a supporter of the ministry of the local church and its strategy for ministry. This naturally posed a new question: if the church hires other staff full-time, then why not do the same for missionaries? We decided that’s exactly what we needed to do which had profound implications.
Step 2: We choose the missionary staff. We look for God to raise up missionaries within our congregation. We have a process that starts with identifying potential missionaries at an early age and providing multiple training opportunities for them. Should they hear God’s call for missions after receiving formal seminary training, they are invited to live and work with the local church for an extended internship. During this time, the candidates minister in the local church and are observed and nurtured in personal growth patterns and personal relationships. Gifts, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses are evaluated and encouraged. We may also partner on a limited basis with other churches or agencies in sending our missionaries. They too work with us during an extended internship so that we can move to the next step.
Step 3: We match the missionary staff to a field targeted by the local church. We work with boards, agencies, and missiologists to keep us informed of target mission fields. These specialists certainly know more about those needs than the local church so we depend on them for information. At the same time, the church knows more about its staff. By matching the knowledge of a missions agency with the knowledge of our staff, a more effective and strategic placement can be made.
Step 4: We choose the agency to which our staff will be assigned. This decision involves the church, the agency, and the staff. Using this approach, a bond of interdependence and responsibility is established.
Step 5: We delegate authority to the agency and instruct the staff to be accountable to the agency. While we believe this step is critical to success, we intentionally limit this delegation so that we as the sending church maintain our responsibility to the missionaries. This serves as a reminder to us that the work of world missions belongs to the local church and we must be active in it.
Step 6: We fully fund the work. We fund our missionary staff at 100% just as we do all our staff. This is a matter of faith. In the few cases where we have partnered with another church, we always suggest that the sending church provide 51% of the financial support so that the accountability relationship is clear between the sending church and the missionary. Some have raised the question about the inability of some churches to fully support a missionary. There are many ways I respond to this concern. I typically raise one question: “Is it proper for a church full of people who can collectively support a missionary – even partially – to lay the entire burden of raising support on the missionary? Whose work is this anyway?
Conclusion
The results we have seen from this approach to missions have been most gratifying. First, the church congregation is heavily involved with our missionaries throughout the year. We call several of our missionary staff home for the annual missions conference which is THE event of the year. It’s like family returning home because they ARE family. We have moved beyond the sending-the-check-and-reading-monthly-prayer-letter phase. When I’m asked “How many missionaries do you support?” My answer is “None – our missionary staff supports the church.”
Second, we have several missionaries that we fully fund in fields that we believe God would have us minister. We have seen missions become the overarching value of our church with the tremendous blessings God has given us in seeing the Gospel taken to the uttermost parts of the world.
While this brief article cannot address all the challenges we encountered and how we solved them nor answer every question, let me say that this change in our approach to missions has been worth it all. Perhaps it will stimulate your thinking to seriously address the question brought to my heart over 30 years ago: Whose work is this anyway?
If you are a church interested in learning more about how to train, support, and send missionaries, click here to see how we can help.
Click here if you are an individual or family called to the mission field and need help getting started.
Note: The article was excerpted from a seminar offered by Pastor Robert Alderman at a Pastors Summit conducted by Biblical Ministries Worldwide in Spring and Fall of 2006. Pastor Alderman is the minister at Shenandoah Baptist Church in Roanoke, Virginia, USA.
