|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Funding the Mission
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
I'd like to ask if anyone has any insights into how to fund missions. I'm talking specifically about cross-cultural evangelistic church planting among non-Christians from a majority non-Christian culture, to be specific. The old-style paradigm where the missionary basically gets uprooted and goes Elsewhere for a fair chunk of his/her lifetime--so not mission trips, not gap years, not mission-outreach-three-streets-over. Not saying all that isn't good and worthy, just a different set of issues from the one I'm wondering about.
To declare my own prejudices (as if you weren't aware of them ad nauseum!) but whatever...
I went into Bible study this morning, and who knows how or why (since it wasn't in the readings), found one of our senior pastors holding forth on Galatians 6:6
quote:
Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.
and 1 Corinthians chapter 9, all of it, but particularly 14-15:
quote:
In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.
I breathed through my nose and said to myself, "Not gonna say it, not gonna say ANYTHING, no no no..." until he had the audacity to point me out by name (with my family) as an example of missionaries who selflessly choose to serve without salary, yay spiritual us. Straight out hypocrisy, he knows a salary or even a grant was never on the table.
But it brought up a thorny issue that our denomination certainly hasn't solved, and that is the question--who pays to keep the missionary family afloat, for those first few months/years that the newly planted church cannot support them? And that's what I'm wondering about.
I mean, we could say, "Go raise your own support, everybody," but that puts the whole burden on the very people who are already coping with a cross-cultural move, language learning, career derail, and all that. Is it right to add the extra burden? (esp. when most of them are just plain crap at PR and salesmanship, and making them do it means oodles of time away from the field they ARE qualified in)
Do we expect the new believers to support it from the get-go--or from extremely early on--and if so, what do we do about mission fields where there is either great poverty, or else a slow response time (for example, Muslim communities)?
Do we ask the sending denomination to come up with the funds--and does that mean that we yank missionaries off the field if the year's offerings don't come up to scratch?
Do we decide it's not worth the money and ignore the Great Commission?
Is there something creative we could do? (Me, I was considering what kind of mission fund-raising money we might make off anatomically correct magnetic stickers, sold to be affixed to Certain People's cars. We were going to call it Pucker Up Enterprises.)
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
CuppaT
Shipmate
# 10523
|
Posted
This is something my husband and I have talked a lot about. We know missionaries who have to drum up support and it is hard on them. They would be doing far more good doing what they are better at: teaching seminary and leading children's camps. Our thought: there ought to be a decent percentage tax on each parish in the denomination that is sending out the missionaries so that they don't have to come home and solicit. When they want a furlough, they can simply come home and rest and visit relatives and do what they need to do without having to traverse the country sleeping in different beds every night for months at a time. The poor children of said families look so haggard, it is terrible.
--------------------
Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it any longer, draw back a little and have a cup of tea.
~Elder Sophrony
Posts: 919 | From: the edge of the Ozarks | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
|
Posted
Maybe the ‘put on a pith helmet and parachute into another country’ model of mission has had its day.
For one thing the prevailing culture of society in the Western world is alien from that of most churches. The average congregation has to learn about its neighbour’s culture before it can engage. Better start physically closer to home.
Secondly, local church leaders in developing countries can be engaged far more cost effectively. They don’t have to be trained in the language/ culture and can better adapt to local conditions and may be less prone to falling into the trap of building modest houses that look like palaces to the people they life amongst. Some mission organisations are moving their offices out to the regions and countries that they serve and are supporting local partners. It might be better to send funds to seed this work rather than people.
Thirdly the whole church should be engaged with God’s mission to all peoples and all of creation. There are new ways in which the average church member can engage directly. The www is a prime example. Most of us already have the resources in place to be on a mission where we already are.
In the end it comes down to listening to God and calling etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if the third world missionary presentation becomes increasingly rare or we see more and more reverse missionaries.
--------------------
Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
Posts: 1085 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
|
Posted
There is a missionary who comes from this city who is working full-time training pastors in a developing country. Although it's cheaper to live in that country, his "sending" church couldn't afford to support him on their own. So they enlisted the support of a few other churches in the area (us included).
We as a church have a policy of giving away 10% of our income to support work outside our church, and a decent fraction of that goes to help support this man and his family.
Supporting work like this seems to work best when there is a personal connection between the person being supported and the church doing the supporting. That might be because the "missionary" is from the local area, or it might be because he's a friend of someone in the congregation or something. But we try to cultivate the relationship - he's back in this country every couple of years and tries to visit all his supporting churches, and we get regular prayer letters from him and so on.
--------------------
blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
|
Posted
In a previous church I was in...
The missionary we'd been supporting for years decided to return to the UK. We decided to continue to support the organisation they'd worked with, and that organisation put us in touch with another missionary who was working with them and needed more support.
--------------------
blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
|
Posted
My experience in the UK is that there's been a growing move from central, organisational, funding to generating personal support. Mission agencies provide a conduit, admin and other resources, but largely folk have to drum up the money from wherever they can.
This tends to mean a mixture of the sending church from church budget, any other fellowship they have strong links with, and then direct personal support from individuals. The result is usually filtered through an agency, and some of those operate a system whereby excess support for one person/couple can (with consent of the donors) be skimmed off to help others who have a shortfall. But basically it depends on having good personal contacts.
I'm also aware of models where the missionary is employed and does the mission work "on top". There'll probably be some personal support too, so that the salaried job doesn't have to be so demanding that it takes 80 hours a week ...
[ETA] Also, most people I know doing "mission" work aren't planting churches as such. They're out doing other jobs (OT, nursing, development, youth work etc.) and using those roles to dread the gospel. So even though they see people come to Christ, they aren't going to be creating a church that will then support them where they are.
I do have one friend, a pastor, who is currently planning to go work full time for free whilst his wife works in order to build a congregation which will hopefully then be able to support them. I won't be totally surprised if they don't get random love gifts from folk back home, though. Although maybe that's how living by faith works, I dunno, I don't have enough!
[ 22. April 2013, 07:36: Message edited by: Snags ]
--------------------
Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
...using those roles to dread the gospel.
A freudian slip that neatly sums up how a lot of people feel about mission and evangelism ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
--------------------
Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
Posts: 1085 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
|
Posted
I rather agree with Midge on this. There is still some need for people to go overseas to help churches overseas, but it must be on their terms not ours. I'm not sure there are that many pioneer mission field left where evangelism is not better done by local Chrstians who speak the same language and live in the same culture.
Something I'm really uneasy about is the 'franchise' picture of mission, where the goal and mark of success is church planting - in areas where there are churches already that may be a bit dull or complacent, but are there. It's a business model, not a Christian one.
If you feel God has 'given you a heart for' Slough (to pick a name out of the clouds) go and join a church there. There's nowhere in the UK, the USA, the rest of Western Europe and I suspect most of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America that hasn't got a church in it already. Don't claim it's your calling to plant a new one. And don't claim you have been 'called out' of the existing church so as to show it the true way that has been revealed to you alone.
--------------------
Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
who pays to keep the missionary family afloat, for those first few months/years that the newly planted church cannot support them? And that's what I'm wondering about.
Different denominations have different funding structures. I'm amazed that any church organization would fail to support its missionaries - even if it is understood that they are doing it on a volunteer basis.
But like others I agree with Midge on this.
In my denomination American "missionaries" were only visitors responding to local interest - never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks. The next step was to train local leaders who would actually plant the church. Any funding required was basically used to bring them to the USA for training.
Now these leaders have created their own theological schools in-country. We don't pay for any missionaries, but do raise money to send to help overseas churches.
--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
Maybe the ‘put on a pith helmet and parachute into another country’ model of mission has had its day.
For one thing the prevailing culture of society in the Western world is alien from that of most churches. The average congregation has to learn about its neighbour’s culture before it can engage. Better start physically closer to home.
Secondly, local church leaders in developing countries can be engaged far more cost effectively. They don’t have to be trained in the language/ culture and can better adapt to local conditions and may be less prone to falling into the trap of building modest houses that look like palaces to the people they life amongst. Some mission organisations are moving their offices out to the regions and countries that they serve and are supporting local partners. It might be better to send funds to seed this work rather than people.
Thirdly the whole church should be engaged with God’s mission to all peoples and all of creation. There are new ways in which the average church member can engage directly. The www is a prime example. Most of us already have the resources in place to be on a mission where we already are.
In the end it comes down to listening to God and calling etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if the third world missionary presentation becomes increasingly rare or we see more and more reverse missionaries.
I think there is still both room and need for sending crosscultural missionaries, since there are still so many unreached people groups. I'm not talking strict geography here--you can get quite large "pockets" of one language group living together in the midst of a different group, with nary a church to be seen. You can't count on the local Christians to do it, because there aren't any yet. And while it would be lovely to have the surrounding culture Christians (if any) do it, they too would be facing the same cultural/language gap that a third party would have--which puts them back in our boat.
And if there aren't any Christians yet, you can hardly train them, fund them, or empower them. Those steps depend on the initial one, of getting the gospel into the community--which is what I mean by church planting. Not congregational planting, but serving to introduce the church universal.
ETA The internet has language and other barriers of its own. And the poorest or most "out there" geographically aren't going to have access anyway. I don't want to give up on them to do only the easier types of mission.
[ 22. April 2013, 11:55: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Felafool
Shipmate
# 270
|
Posted
One of the NT models of funding mission is 'Tentmaking'.
ISTM that this is a sustainable model in a globalised world which provides work opportunties almost anywhere. It also solves the support issue from cash strapped local churches.
OK it means that you will not be spending all your time and energy on what you feel you should/want to be doing, but it healthily reinforces the fact that our daily work in itslef is valid ministry and mission. It also sets the scene thatthe 'missionary' is not the person who has to do everything. Indeed, it models the realisation that every Christian should be a 'Full Time Christian Worker' (see LICC Re-imagine project).
From personal experience, since leaving ministry training school, the first 25 years of my involvement in mission (home and away) was based on tentmaking. I then had the opportunity to be salaried for church ministry, and on reflection I feel that might have caused me to lose a cutting edge because I was no longer interacting with people in day to day ordinariness.
--------------------
I don't care if the glass is half full or half empty - I ordered a cheeseburger.
Posts: 265 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Felafool:
One of the NT models of funding mission is 'Tentmaking'.
ISTM that this is a sustainable model in a globalised world which provides work opportunties almost anywhere. It also solves the support issue from cash strapped local churches.
My opinion isn't based on any direct experience of missions work (well, apart from a couple of two-week trips!) but I'd agree with Felafool. ISTM that living and working in a community is the sturdiest, most genuine way of carrying out mission; then maybe (like Paul, Barnabas and the other Apostles) moving on once a local church has been established. That may take some time, I realise!
Lamb Chopped, if you're willing, I'd love to hear about the thinking process behind your decision to do your missionary work in the way that you do. You're struggling to make it work, in a context you obviously feel a strong calling towards. Could you and / or your husband try to get secular jobs and fund your efforts that way, or is this simply not a realistic option for you? (Maybe because there's no appropriate work available, or because having a secular job wouldn't fit with how your denomination expects missionary work to be done...)
--------------------
My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
|
Posted
Back when I lived in SE Asia I knew several missionaries. All were on their own financially. They had felt the call, the home church didn't choose to send them so didn't sponsor them. (Most that I knew, the home church said "you are an active worker in church affairs, we need you here, so it cannot be God's will for you to go.")
One was retired military and lived on that pension. Plus the newsletter monthly appeal for money.
Another sold their business and trusted God to support them; they did have enough social security credit to provide a little in older age, but had to raise money meanwhile.
A younger couple had nothing but their monthly newsletter.
Logistically it took building up a mailing list, sending out a monthly newsletter with photos about their activities - how many converts, a photo of an adult baptism, how many Bible studies, a photo of a young woman smiling holding a Bible, an appreciative quote from a recent convert. A gentle but clear hint that we would love monthly support from you so we can continue this important work.
Occasionally one of the independent ministries will contribute some money and then put photos in their own newsletter of your bible study, labeling it one of their projects to help their own outfit look more active and attract money for themselves - mutual benefit in that they get to claim your activity, you get a one time donation from them.
Trips home are a circuit of any churches that will let you speak and pass the plate, recruiting more people to support you monthly and receive your newsletter.
Today it's probably web pages and emails, but from what I've seen you are still on your own financially.
Denominations have some missions budgets but it's probably spent on institutional structures - I attended a "mission church" in USA, Episcopal, university area, budget heavily subsidized by the mission funds because the denomination wanted a university area church and it couldn't be self supporting. Walk in, it looked like any other episcopal church, I didn't know it was a mission church until I was on the budget committee.
Anyway, God calls you to the mission field, it's up to you and God to support you. And God does have amazing ways sometimes.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
South Coast Kevin, we are in fact tentmakers, I'm just feeling a bit whiny because we were never given the choice (nor warned that it was likely to turn out that way). But that's my personal problem.
I do think though that tentmaking is not the best option in a lot of cases. It's a real bear when a pastoral emergency comes up but your boss has an entirely different set of values and is dead set on having you continue to pull weeds or flip burgers or what have you instead of responding to the person in a crisis. But you need the money, so you suck it up and deal. You have a whole lot less flexibility when it comes to providing certain services at times when people need them or can access them (our mission work has involved a lot of English language teaching, tutoring and hospital interpretation, for example, and the population we work with has trouble traveling after dark). You also have just plain fewer hours in the day to do this stuff. And depending on the work you do, you may wind up with conflicts of interest (as Mr. Lamb did for a while--no fair evangelizing while working in a public service type job with federal funding).
There's also the question of whether forcing missionaries to go the tentmaker/deputation route is a good thing for the sending church (I'm not talking about independents right now). I mean, this is happening in my own denomination right now, and what I'm seeing are a few overly-developed Christians (you know, like pathetically over-developed muscles?) and a whole lot of people who have grown accustomed to letting those few carry the load alone. There are some in the middle, of course; but I think we'd be better off with everybody in the middle.
I think it throws the whole body of Christ out of whack, frankly. And I'm pretty sure Paul agreed, the way he keeps going on about the various churches participating in different efforts and how good it is for them.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
|
Posted
Mrs Eutychus and I have done both - tentmaking and full-time. While I'm still engaged in ministry today, I no longer see myself as tentmaking so much as having a job (self-employed) which allows me time to engage in other ministry.
I look back with a certain degree of nostalgia and regret on the period during which we were full-time. It was great to have extended time to pray and study and not feel pressured by rat-race kinds of factors - and others around us appreciated having someone like that there, too, with availability.
I also have to salute the generosity of those who helped support us financially.
However, I wouldn't recommend full time mission work, long term to anybody today, especially cross-cuturally.
Reasons include:
- too much pressure to produce results to satisfy supporters back home leading to hypocrisy/lying/impossible pressure/disconnect between spiritualised prayer letters and reality
- tendency of mission agencies to see their staff as cannon fodder and provide insufficient pastoral support in the event of burn-out or other unexpected departure factores, talking up the "sacrifice for the gospel" part and skipping far too quickly over the "pension plan" part
- frequent exclusion from employment legislation designed to protect employees, with a dose of spiritual abuse thrown in
- disconnect (as has been mentioned) from the daily routines of those around us (I could never understand why everyone wanted meetings over at 10pm sharp!)
- tendency of congregation to think full-timers are their servants and distract them into lots of things they are not called to be: removal man, plumber, car repair man, etc.
- creating a precedent that cannot be followed: if you plant a church as a full-time missionary trained up in some foreign bible school, that sets the expectation for who is qualified to plant and lead churches. Your congregation will likely find itself dependent on outside leadership instead of developing a model that does you (or your successor) out of a job.
- similarly, your congregation may find it hard to assimilate the notion of giving to support a pastor/minister, because at the start it was all funded from abroad (which is also a sneaky way of building in dependency to the home base). There are zillions of examples of this in France.
- these days we live in a globalised world people up and leave to work in far-flung foreign parts all the time. Christians can do the same without being missionaries™ and simply "gossip the gospel".
My €0.02.
--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
|
Posted
Don't have much experience of this. I've seen it work well when a church has sent out a group to plant abroad, and continued to treat the success or otherwise of that mission work as if it was another dimension of the church's own local life. So if it's not going well, the sending church see that as their problem as much as the people who are abroad. People from the sending church go over regularly to support where they can - whilst the 'missionary' church are expected to raise their own funds, there are people back home who see fund raising as their responsibility as well.
Sometime in the future the boot may end up on the other foot. The mission church might be the one with resources and the 'sending' church needing the extra cash. Happened with Jerusalem for example.
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
(our mission work has involved a lot of English language teaching, tutoring and hospital interpretation, for example, and the population we work with has trouble traveling after dark).
I am not convinced this really *is* mission work, so much as community development / replacement social services. And my worry about missionaries doing it, is that it enables the rest of society to ignore the unmet need and discourages people who are not from that faith community from assisting in the development and provision of such services. I would have thought it better to fund raise and campaign for these services to be provided.
As in, funds could be raised to set up a charitable trust that provides free telephone interpretation (and/or trains up interpreters). Hopefully, this could create a long term solution that doesn't really totally upon a specific individual.
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
<tangent>
There is some shading of one thing into another there, Doublethink. I think mission in the classic sense is a calling to proclaim faith to and share faith with a particular one of the "ἔθνος ethnos". Translated normally (e.g Matt 28:19) as "nations", it might be better understood as "people groups". Classically, missionaries have a sense of calling to a particular place where a particular people group is to be found. I think it may also be a calling to a particular "ethne" or people group in any area where they may be found (including somewhere local).
What they do there can be a mixture of faith sharing by proclamation or by incarnation.
When Gladys Aylward moved to a remote province in China she became a helper of Chinese women suffering from footbinding. She also became a proclaimer and protester to the community leaders that the practice was wrong. She made similar moves re the conditions of prisoners. Then she led 150 orphans to safety out of a war zone. I'd say her actions were consistent with her missionary calling. I also reckon they were, profoundly, illustrations of faith sharing by deeds. Of course they might well have been done by someone of a different faith - or none. But they weren't. They were her response as a Christian to the community she felt called to serve.
</tangent>
[ 24. April 2013, 07:11: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lucia
Looking for light
# 15201
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
(our mission work has involved a lot of English language teaching, tutoring and hospital interpretation, for example, and the population we work with has trouble traveling after dark).
I am not convinced this really *is* mission work, so much as community development / replacement social services. And my worry about missionaries doing it, is that it enables the rest of society to ignore the unmet need and discourages people who are not from that faith community from assisting in the development and provision of such services. I would have thought it better to fund raise and campaign for these services to be provided.
Those of us who are concerned for Integral mission get frustrated at the way people want to divorce social transformation from verbal proclamation. They go together and advocacy, campaigning if you wish to call it that, should be a integral part of that too.
Mr L and I work as volunteers with a christian based development organization. Believe me, as an organization we have enough difficulty getting funding from donors for the projects we are involved in. It is very unlikely we would get funding for salaries. The local non-christian social organisations we partner with have no funds to pay our staff. The government ministries here that we work under agreements with are happy to have our help but are not going to fund us. The church is a tiny minority in the country we are based in and in no position to support us either. And so we have to fund raise for our own support to be here. Welcome to my world....
And yes, it is incredibly frustrating that I know I will spend this summer telling people about all the good things that are happening here through our work with local organisations and at the end of those talks there will still be people wanting to reduce what we are doing to evaluate it purely in terms of a very narrow view of what mission is about... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
(our mission work has involved a lot of English language teaching, tutoring and hospital interpretation, for example, and the population we work with has trouble traveling after dark).
I am not convinced this really *is* mission work, so much as community development / replacement social services. And my worry about missionaries doing it, is that it enables the rest of society to ignore the unmet need and discourages people who are not from that faith community from assisting in the development and provision of such services. I would have thought it better to fund raise and campaign for these services to be provided.
As in, funds could be raised to set up a charitable trust that provides free telephone interpretation (and/or trains up interpreters). Hopefully, this could create a long term solution that doesn't really totally upon a specific individual.
Doublethink, I seriously disagree with you here. If Lamb Chopped and her husband have concluded the part of God's mission that he has called them to do, and the needs of the people they serve, includes TEFL teaching and interpreting, then that is part of their mission. It's not for others to gainsay that.
It's irrelevant that somebody else, somewhere else, thinks social services should be doing it. There may not even be social services where Lamb Chopped lives. Besides, campaigning that somebody else ought to provide the services, means that meanwhile, nobody does. So that definitely isn't mission.
--------------------
Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
(our mission work has involved a lot of English language teaching, tutoring and hospital interpretation, for example, and the population we work with has trouble traveling after dark).
I am not convinced this really *is* mission work, so much as community development / replacement social services. And my worry about missionaries doing it, is that it enables the rest of society to ignore the unmet need and discourages people who are not from that faith community from assisting in the development and provision of such services. I would have thought it better to fund raise and campaign for these services to be provided.
As in, funds could be raised to set up a charitable trust that provides free telephone interpretation (and/or trains up interpreters). Hopefully, this could create a long term solution that doesn't really totally upon a specific individual.
Well, to clarify--we didn't set out to do these things, they just sort of naturally fell on our shoulders as the only two people who had a foot in both cultures/languages at the same time. (There were ca. 7000 people in the community, virtually all with no English due to the circumstances under which they arrived as refugees.) Legal circumstances meant they started work ASAP and were therefore unable to access what minimal English/culture learning services existed at that time (held during work hours). No telephone interpretation option existed during that period, or we would gladly have stayed home. It was hell trying to do social services for a whole large community while simultaneously doing grad school (both of us) and holding down parttime jobs. But it's just really really hard to say no to somebody who calls you up at midnight to say baby Linh's in the hospital and we can't understand what the doctor's saying to us, could you please come?
On the fundraising--I agree that's a wonderful idea. But I'm absolutely crap at fund raising (which is why we're tentmaking instead) and nobody else was volunteering. Like I said, the whole thing fell in our laps. We had every intention of enjoying our new marriage, studying hard, and moving back to Southern California four years later. Didn't turn out that way.
But this is a digression. As for missionaries in general, I'm not sure there is any other way to do mission outreach bar social service, even if that's a service as simple as listening to lonely people over the Internet. Nobody cares about your message in the beginning; they've had a shitload of people trying to push a zillion ideologies on them already, usually for reasons of personal advantage, and they're tired of being used. So if you're a missionary and you want them to see that the free lunch of the Gospel really is free, unlike the offers they've had in the past, you're going to have to demonstrate it in action. And that means helping where it hurts.
Of course you have to do everything you can to avoid the rice Christian dependency. Our personal strategy was to spell it out at the beginning of every helping contact that we would help wholeheartedly regardless of religion, church attendance, or any other string, and that we would not accept paybacks of any sort (such as gratitude baptisms, financial offerings, or "I'll join the church".) Which put us in the embarrassing position of discouraging baptism sometimes, but either you do what you say or you're a bloody hypocrite, and we didn't want to be that. It would have destroyed the whole mission.
I would estimate about 1 in 10 of the families we had continued helping contact with came to faith; the rest continue to be whatever they were before, and in the meantime recommend us to all their friends in need. I'm happy with that.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
|
Posted
Thank you, Lamb Chopped, for telling some of your story on this thread. I've been away for a couple of days so haven't had a chance note my thanks. I don't really have any bright ideas but would like to wish you God's blessing and peace on your continued work. ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
--------------------
My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Well, to clarify--we didn't set out to do these things, they just sort of naturally fell on our shoulders as the only two people who had a foot in both cultures/languages at the same time. (There were ca. 7000 people in the community, virtually all with no English due to the circumstances under which they arrived as refugees.) Legal circumstances meant they started work ASAP and were therefore unable to access what minimal English/culture learning services existed at that time (held during work hours). No telephone interpretation option existed during that period, or we would gladly have stayed home. It was hell trying to do social services for a whole large community while simultaneously doing grad school (both of us) and holding down parttime jobs. But it's just really really hard to say no to somebody who calls you up at midnight to say baby Linh's in the hospital and we can't understand what the doctor's saying to us, could you please come?
On the fundraising--I agree that's a wonderful idea. But I'm absolutely crap at fund raising (which is why we're tentmaking instead) and nobody else was volunteering. Like I said, the whole thing fell in our laps. We had every intention of enjoying our new marriage, studying hard, and moving back to Southern California four years later. Didn't turn out that way.
But this is a digression. As for missionaries in general, I'm not sure there is any other way to do mission outreach bar social service, even if that's a service as simple as listening to lonely people over the Internet. Nobody cares about your message in the beginning; they've had a shitload of people trying to push a zillion ideologies on them already, usually for reasons of personal advantage, and they're tired of being used. So if you're a missionary and you want them to see that the free lunch of the Gospel really is free, unlike the offers they've had in the past, you're going to have to demonstrate it in action. And that means helping where it hurts.
Of course you have to do everything you can to avoid the rice Christian dependency. Our personal strategy was to spell it out at the beginning of every helping contact that we would help wholeheartedly regardless of religion, church attendance, or any other string, and that we would not accept paybacks of any sort (such as gratitude baptisms, financial offerings, or "I'll join the church".) Which put us in the embarrassing position of discouraging baptism sometimes, but either you do what you say or you're a bloody hypocrite, and we didn't want to be that. It would have destroyed the whole mission.
I would estimate about 1 in 10 of the families we had continued helping contact with came to faith; the rest continue to be whatever they were before, and in the meantime recommend us to all their friends in need. I'm happy with that.
Lamb Chopped - you say you are rubbish at fundraising, but hearing all of that makes me want to give you money. I'm serious - surely there are ways and means of getting this story out to people who might support you?
--------------------
He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
There doubtless are... but I'm seriously crap about getting letters, website updates, etc handled before the info in them is less than two years old. Plus this approach tends very much to the self-glorifying, which is disastrous in so many ways, esp. given my own pet sins. Finally, what I descrbed was the situation during the first 15 years of tge ministry; now all those wee babies have grown up and are able to interpret etc for their parents without needing us, and we've moved on to other forms of service, like counseling. And yes, we have professional training and standards.
But back to the OP. Would it be a good thing do you think to require every future missionary to learn a trade that is stable and in demand? Because tge worst of our situation was being pitchforked into it after being trained, called, sent, with the belief that the sending church would stand with us financially. Just woefully unprepared to get dumped that way.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Haydee
Shipmate
# 14734
|
Posted
I worked for an NGO that had evolved from a missionary couple, and still had a few missionaries there supporting themselves with the monthly newsletter approach.
I was always slightly stunned whenever I read one of the newsletters - on the whole what they wrote about and what they actually spent their time doing were generally so different ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
But I appreciate the difficulty. One woman I was friends with was working on organisational development, something that would ultimately benefit all the children & families the NGO worked with, and she did try to make that link in her newsletters. However, she did admit she was sometimes tempted to do the 'poor little AIDS orphan that I helped to smile again' route because she knew her support would increase...
Posts: 433 | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
Yeah, in my case if you did a strict breakdown of what I do by time percentage, the biggest category by far would be the totally un-sexy "paperwork and phone harassment of various authorities" such as Medicare, slum landlords, hospital billing departments, immigration...
Can't get much more boring than that. And who wants to read about it?
But not being able to communicate effectively with such people is a major disability for our population, and can mean losing home, job, etc. if they get no help. And the disability continues long past reaching working fluency in English when face to face, as both writing and phone conversations are harder to do understandably.
Besides, the most "sexy" of mission work stories are precisely the ones you can't tell for confidentiality reasons. Meh.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
|
Posted
Leprechaun has it i think.
Someone like Lamb Chopped + family...need...someone whose idea of heaven is collating newsletters, organising pray-ers and sorting financial support.
imho...Generally...(don't shout) generally activists loath talking about themslves, asking for money or getting praying folk to do their stuff.
The activists who are Most blessed....are those who have meticulous and steady folk behind them. Maybe people who feel that they would have like to have been called to something, but it's never happened? Maybe people who feel they have nothing to offer? Maybe people who could never travel to those areas, but who desperatly want to help...somehow?
At the very least, there's opportunity here for partnerships....for possibilities.......
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
|
Posted
I think that the long-term answer has to be that missionaries take the time before they go to convince others that this is a valuable mission, and that they are the people to do it. Convince them to the extent that they will underwrite the costs.
Others - or the same people maybe - should be able to support in terms of administration and such like. It should be on the missionaries to be able to convince others that this is appropriate.
HOWEVER, most critically, this is an underwriting commitment, not necessarily to pay themselves. But they do commit to ensuring that the money will be there, for the foreseeable future, and to discuss if they feel that the funding should be ceased.
The other thing is that this commitment should be purely one-way. The missionaries should be being enabled to do what they do. The idea that once every few years they should come back and do fund-raising presentations to their sponsors is a mistake. Providing some form of feedback is good, but it should not be on the missionary to do this.
If this funding is people, not organisations, then there is liable to be more personal involvement and interest. Which is good. And in this sort of situation, the commitment would be liable to be short term, on the grounds that if a church plant does not work, it should be stopped. If it does work, it should be financially independent eventually.
--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
