Part III: Analysis and Implentation (D)

 

 So far we have looked at the mission projects the church wants to be involved in, the budget for global outreach and now it is time to determine the dollar amount of support for those projects.

As with earlier topics, when it comes to determining financial contributions, one size does not fit all.  It is the role of the mission’s team to determine global outreach expenditures.  

First, what is the budget of each missionary or missions project?   For a North American missionary family of four, the annual support need will probably range from $50,000 to $70,000.  Obviously it depends where missionaries live in the world.  In developing countries it will obviously be less that developed countries.  The mission’s team must do its homework in understanding how to analyze a missionary’s budget, which would include asking the sending mission agency about cost of living in those countries as well as going to the Internet for cost of living index.   While Kenya may be a developing country, cost of living in Nairobi is much higher than another city in the country.   Obviously a family of four will be different for a single missionary.  My advice is to ask the missionary to help your team understand their financial needs and work accordingly.

This financial analysis also would apply to national missionaries, mission organizations and projects.  If the project is for Sudanese refugees, instead of just responding to the appeal, “$20 dollars will feed a refugee for a month,” find out what their budget is and how the money is spent.  There is always overhead in every project, whether it is the cost of promotion, administration and personnel needs and they are usually legitimate.  An astute mission’s committee (team) should be able to inform the congregation how much a $20 contribution actually goes to feeding the refugees.   

Determining Support Amount

How much to support missionaries and mission projects?  Again, it depends on your scale of priority.   If those missionaries and projects were in the 15 – 20 point scale, perhaps your church would support them 5% of their total budget.  Let’s suppose a missionary or project’s annual need is $65,000 (about $5,500 per month) meaning your church’s monthly contribution would be approximately $270 per month or $3,240 annually.  Perhaps their missionary activity is in the 10-point scale and you want to support those in that group at 3%.  Your support to those people and projects, using the same annual budget would be around $165 per month or $1,950 annually. 

Of course every dollar counts and every contribution is appreciated.  However, some churches have a standard amount of giving no matter the need.  A monthly contribution of $100 means a missionary must find 54 other churches or people to give that amount to reach their budget.  There is always outgoing expenses as well, emergency travel or unforeseen ministry expenses (the breakdown of a vehicle or the sudden devaluation of the local currency).  For the missionary that means they must find at least 60 or 65 donors at that $100 level just to stay current with their financial obligations.  My recommendation is that churches make an attempt to provide at least 3% for each missionary project that is 10 points or more on your scale. For those who are less than 10 points, either discontinue their support or commit to giving them 1% of their support needs.  (There is nothing wrong with supporting the retired missionary living in Omaha, if that is what they need to live on.  After all, they were faithful servants representing your church for 40 years. )

When is the last time you gave your missionary a raise?  A church supporting a missionary $75 per month since 1980 is actually contributing, adjusting for inflation, approximately $26.40.

No matter how you analyze your mission program one thing is clear…the support should be focused and intentional.  Who, what, how much, should be a process.  I believe that if the local church leadership will treat missions in a serious, prayerful and thoughtful way, it will energize the whole body of believers for the Great Commission.

Part III: Analysis and Implementation (C)

How does a church body determine their support?  We have discussed the “who” or “what” to support, but there needs to be a discussion on how much.

Mission Budget for Local Church - Determine how much your church is engaged in giving to foreign missions.  Most of the studies have concluded that most churches in America give less than 5% of all income to mission causes and less that 2% is dedicated to the unreached/unevangelized people of the world.  The first task of the missions team is to determine how much your local body gives to foreign missions.

Most churches believe that 10% of a Christian’s income, the tithe, is a good standard for faithful giving.  Though the average throughout the Western church giving to missions is a nickel out of every dollar, I would suggest that the missions team move the local church to give a tithe, a dime, to the Great Commission cause.  (My apologies for my bias, but a part of that 10 cents should not include home missions or local evangelistic outreach, but money actually going outside the continental U.S.  If the church desires to support AWANA or a homeless shelter, which they should, then it should be separate from the 10% dedicated to missions). 

Some churches, though admittedly few, take 10% out of every Sunday’s contributions and place that into the mission fund.  That is probably the best way to do it, reminding the congregation every Sunday morning that their contributions truly are used to take the Gospel around town and around the world.  I have one donor church that gives 15% of their monthly income and if the offerings are up, so is my support, and visa-versa.

 Another approach is for the church to have an annual missions budget.  If a church’s annual income is $100,000, between the missions committee (team) and elders a decision is made each year how much will go to missions.  Hopefully, it’s a least $10,000. 

Some churches have what is called Faith Promise for supporting their missionary program.  Each year these churches have a mission conference and at the end of the conference the congregation gives a faith promise pledge (by faith, as the Lord provides, above their tithe and offerings, they will give a certain amount of money to missions.)  In the past it was a very effective way to energize the congregation for the Great Commission.  In today’s world, people often don’t attend mission conferences so this approach is waning.

No matter what method you use in analyzing the missions budget, it is critical for the church to know its global outreach budget.  We believe this is key to business, home and even government finance, to have a budget and work within that budget and I believe it should be true with the church as well.

Part III: Analysis/Implementation (A)

Now that the mission team has gone through the process of defining the purpose of missions for their local congregation, educated themselves in missions through Perspectives and reading, it’s time to implement a comprehensive global program.

Based on your three top priories in missions, who and what projects you now support.  Are they in line with your missions goals?  Let me give you an example (not based on any church I know…random thoughts).  Here is a list of a common mission projects:

1.     Church planting family in Bolivia working with the Quechua.

2.     Youth camp in Albuquerque

3.     Teacher of English in Beijing

4.     Crisis Pregnancy clinic in the city

5.     Retired missionary couple in Omaha (served 40 years in Botswana)

6.     Missionary with orphanage in India

7.     Bible/tract printing in Cambodia

8.     Bible teacher in Lebanon

9.     Single woman missionary in Mexico

10. Agricultural project in Mali (West Africa)

Let’s suppose that your evaluation scale looks something like this:

Church planter -                                 10 points

Unreached people or country             10 points

Church planting facilitator                    8 points

Administration/support                         5

Evangelism                                           5

Social work                                          3

Other                                                   1

Now let’s evaluate your present mission projects

1. Church planting couple in Bolivia – Their score would be 20, as they are involved in church planting among an unreached people group.

2. Youth camp in Albuquerque: Score 1 – My thought that not everything that is outside the local church budget should be paid for from the missions budget.  If the church feels strongly about this youth camp then it should funded through general offerings.

3. Teacher in Beijing 10 points for working in restricted country, perhaps 8 points for facilitating church planting or church growth, depending on what they are teaching and interaction with the local church.  If they are just teaching English with no specific outreach perhaps only a 3

4. Crisis Pregnancy clinic in the city –  Score 1, same as youth camp.

5. Retired missionary couple in Omaha (served 50 years in Botswana) Score 1.  Is this retired couple dependent on support to live?  If so, perhaps a stipend, depending on the relation of the church it has with former missionaries and for how long.   This is one of those emotional issues you will have to work through.

6 Missionary with orphanage in India Very much like the teacher in China, if it is a specific outreach to a community of Hindus or Muslims, 10 and 8 points.  If it is a stand-alone project perhaps 3

7. Bible/tract printing in Cambodia 5 points for evangelism, 10 points for unreached people.  If, however, it is just a printing press without any tie to outreach 5 points

8. Bible teacher in Lebanon – Probably a score of 18, unreached area of the world, facilitating church growth and, hopefully the planting of new churches.

Single woman missionary working with women in the church or seminary in Mexico - score 8  as a facilitator in an evangelized country.

Family involved in an agricultural project in Mali (West Africa).   If the project is associated with the national church as a means of outreach to Muslims, score it as a 20.  If it is just teaching people how to farm with no tie into outreach give it a score of 3.

Well, I think you have an idea of how to go about it.  You no doubt will create your own evaluation method as it fits your church context.  But an assessment system is important as you continue to work the process of making your missions program more effective. 

How do you gain information on missionaries and projects and their work?  First, read all the letters they have sent to your church over the past two years.  If you are not keeping these updates, shame on you.  There should be a file (and in these days of electronic filing is easy to keep missionary reports), and so go through these files and read carefully what is happening on the field.  If you don’t receive regular reports then write them a personal letter saying, in a non-threatening way, “Hey, haven’t heard from you in awhile.  What’s happening with you and your family and the ministry you are involved in?”  DO NOT SEND OUT A QUESTIONNAIRE.  Missionaries hate these things and, quite frankly, if the supporting church has been paying attention to the missionaries or organizational reports, you won’t need to send out a questionnaire.  Of course, relationships are the key to an effective missions program.  If your church members are engaged in missions, at least with regular updates, then you probably have a good idea what’s happening on the field.   Of course, when the missionary is home on furlough (home assignment) you will as a team have a perfect time to learn more about what they are doing on the field.

Next post will be on what do to with the information you have acquired.

Part One in Developing a Missions Program: Create a Team

There are two common approaches to determining the mission program of the local church.  The first is pastor led.  In many congregations the pastor determines which missionaries will be invited to be a part of a mission conference or speak before the congregation.  In some cases, the pastor has the authority to take on missionaries for support or pledge money to a project without the congregation voting on such projects.  The second approach is through committees.  Committees are important, but many times committees can be cumbersome and time consuming. 

I personally do not have a problem with either approach as long as the pastor or the committee know the issues of missions and its complexity.  I will no doubt say this many times in the course of this series, but missions is for the most part an emotional exercise and that is unfortunate.  For a mission program to be successful the emotion of ministry (serving the poor, or having a warm feeling for a family of six going to Congo), must be eliminated. 

Because “committee” has a negative connotation in some quarters, I suggest that the local body create a team, which is a trend concept that fits well in today’s twenty-first century vocabulary.

The reason to create a team on missions for the local church is, first, it fosters inclusion and a sense of belonging into the life of the church.  Not everyone has the talent or ability to teach a class or be a part of the worship team.  However, they want to serve Christ and being a part of a world outreach program gives them a sense of belonging.  Second, group decisions give balance to any project.  If the decisions of world evangelism are just in the hands of the senior staff it may not have a balanced approach.  Third, if the rest of the body is aware there is a missions team that is giving direction in the congregation, theoretically, they will have more confidence that missions is not just another program that the church is doing.

WHO SHOULD BE ON THE MISSION TEAM?

First, they should be people who are active participants of the congregation.  By that I mean they attend regularly and support their congregation financially. 

Second, they should be interested in global outreach.  Between ten and fifteen percent of people in any congregation, including liberal non-evangelical churches, are interested in missions in one form or another.  We can safely say that there is the same percentage of people in any congregation that are not interested nor engaged in missions of any kind.  Obviously the first place to look for a mission team would be people who are already interested global outreach.

The makeup of the missions team should be a combination of older and younger people, male and female.  I don’t think it’s imperative that the senior pastor is a part of the team, but I also know that if the pastor or senior leadership of the church is disinterested in missions it will be very difficult for the program to advance in an effective way.  One mission policy I am aware of state that at least one person in the leadership, be they a deacon or elder, be on the mission team.

Start off by announcing to the congregation that a missions team is being formed and all those who are interested meet.  If there are people in the church that is known to be interested in missions, they should be encouraged to attend the meeting.  At the first gathering you might prepare a questionnaire for those in attendance as a guide.  Here is a sample questionnaire.

1.     Have you ever served on a missions team/committee before?  Yes – No

2.     Do you presently support missions either through the church or outside of the local congregation?  Yes – No

3.     What type of missions are you most interested in?  (a) local missions (b) foreign missions (c) Bible translation (d) church planting (d) social action – orphanages, feeding program etc. (e) Other (explain) ________________________

4.     Would you be willing to take a course in missions provided by the church to be a part of this team?

5.     Name one part of the world or people group that most interest you?

This is the beginning, step one in creating a good mission program for your church.  We will visit the purpose of the team in the next post.