Sunday, January 28, 2007

Mission Budget

I have a couple questions for any interested readers

1. What percentage of the income in a local church would you direct toward missions if it were solely up to you?
2. How would you spend that percentage? Just give the sum to Global Partners? Specific Wesleyan missionaries? Non-Wesleyan missionaries you know about? World Hope? Local outreach? What ratios would you use?


Over the next few days I'll be sharing with you about my plans/goals for our church's missions budget including specific information. I'd be glad to hear about yours as well!

8 comments:

Elliott Innes said...

Great topic!

Well, in my dream world every church would be giving a minimum of 10% to missions. I don't really think this is a biblical mandate or anything like that, I just think in our personal lives, we give (or should... or that's another blog) 10% of our income to the church, and this symbolizes our commitment to that body. Likewise 10% to missions is a good starting point for showing a churches commitment to missions. Some may think that's unrealistic, I think it requires some hard core faith.

As far as the "Who" of it all: Again, in my dream world, it owuld all go to Dena and I... just kidding. But seriously folks. I don't think just throwing the lump sum @ Global Partners is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bite the hand that feeds me... literally... but with the new support building system in place @ GP, moneys that come into the GP office will be used for office expenditures or magazine publication etc. Individual missionaries are required to raise every penny of what they will need in the field, there is no "pot" in which to dip if a missionaries funds go dry, so I would condone giving directly to missionaries (besides, GP office gets operating funds by assessing an administration fee on every dollar missionaries raise... NOT A BAD THING.) Also, keep in mind, missionaries cannot go the field until they have raised all their funds, therefore it is better to support 1 missionary at $10,000 then 10 missionaries @ $1,000. This also gives all parties a sort of "ownership" (probably not the best word) in the agreement. I mean that the church will feel that the missionary is actually an extension of their miistry, rather then just some guy that passes through and speaks every 4 years, and the missionary will know that this church truly believes in his work and that they are ot just throwing their money around in order to say "We are involved in missions."

Ok, as far as other orgs... I think that Wesleyan, baptist or whoever should first and foremost support their own organizations. In our case, yes that is GP & World Hope, but I do not think it is necessary to give them all the money. If another org or individual seems to impact your church then for heavens sake, help them out.

Finally, remember sacrifice. Don't just set your budget based on available moneys, rather ask yourselves, and your church "What can we do to sacrifice in order to do more?"

So there is my rant. Hope some of it made sense.

matthew said...

Great comments Elliott!

I agree that 10% is a good bench-mark, not a biblical mandate, but a good guideline. I recently tallied the % for each of the 32 churches in the WNY District and will be sharing some of those results in the next couple days.

I also definitely agree with you NOT to send a lump sum to global partners. Our church was doing mostly that in the past and now we are working with individual families. Much better for everyone it seems.

It'll be interesting to see if anyone agrees/disagrees with your 1/$10,000 vs. 10/$1,000 statement. I am sorta in between on that one, as you'll soon see.

I hope some more missionaries and missionaries-to-be comment these next few days.

Robin said...

Hey Matt. I think I would agree with most of what Elliot said. My church gives 10% and I think it's a good place to start, especially if you're going from nothing or random. I do agree you should give to missionaries/missions familys too, and not just the org. I would also add that Wesleyan churches should support Wesleyan missions first, not because we're better but because we basically get ALL our income from Wesleyans. So if Wesleyans doing give to GP? World Hope is cool too, but I would focus on particular projects and again not just give to the org.

I would also look to your own congregation too, and if there are missionaries going out from your church, support them first.

And if I may add a personal note, if you're looking for a particular missionary to support, I know one who's FAR from reaching his goal...

theajthomas said...

I would agree with Elliot and Whitey.
-10% is a good benchmark.
-I would say do GP (missionsaries, definitly not the org) up to 10% and then after that consider organizations that do stuff GP doesen't like wycliff or MAF.
-Support the living snot out of World Hope but I would do it from a different budget line.
-Support fewer missionaries more strongly. The specifics of this depend out your budget. I'd love to see our church significantly supporting one missionary unit in each reagion of the world (africa, asia, south america, eastern europe, etc)

Dena said...

I agree with the others about the % guideline, and not giving all directly to GP. I think churches should first support any missionaries going out from their own congregation, even if they are not going with that denom's org (as long as the org they are with does not seriously conflict with that denom's beliefs). My home (growing up) church does not support us because they are stretched too think supporting others, and that makes me sad. If the missionary is supposed to be an extension of that lpcal church's ministry, then wouldn't it be nice to support someone who was involved in your local church and who the people actually know?

That's all I have to say, I think you guys are all on the right page with what you have said so far.

me said...

I agree with the 1/$10,000...

What if missionaries had a max of ten-twelve churches that ubber supported them. Then they would be able to get to know these churches, and impact individuals. Missionaries would be able to either:
(a) come home on shorter furloughs or
(b) spend a month at each church as the missionary in-residence...

I like the 10% idea, but no church I've ever gone to has done that. And keep in mind not a cent of USF goes to GP. (It goes to the district and the NA HQ offices) GP is soley funded from the % they take from missionary budgets...

Missy said...

Sorry for the late post. I've been having my own issues with these topics for a few weeks now, and honestly, I'm still unsure of how to respond or react.

My dream would be for a church to give 15-20%. I agree that ten percent is a good start, but why stop there? I have no idea what it is that my church gives, but i know that we do the faith promise thing. Because i haven't been home in so long, I'm not even sure how that has gone.

I don't want to repeat what everyone else has said about the whole GP and World Hope stuff. I agree with just about everthing that has been said.
And yes, i do agree that we should be supporting more than GP and World Hope. I think this starts personally though. I think that there is a general lack of giving as of late. Many people seem to be thinking that the church has enough money to give and so they will depend on the church to give their share, but they forget that the church can only give what has been given them.

IT is very frustrating as well to see people and churches only supporting Wesleyan things. Personally, I'm not sure that I"m going to stay with a wesleyan organization and it disheartens me that many churches and people that I know would stop supporting me once they found that out. I've heard many people tell me, "Don"t worry, God will provide." or "I'll pray that God will speak to hearts for you." But, what about your heart? The people who are telling me this haven't even thought about giving to the mission field! It is very hard as a missionary to put my faith in and keep my faith in a God who relies on his people. So many people have told me that they know God is calling me and they desire to see me go overseas, and yet do not show that in any other way but talk.

Perhaps it would help if chuches could 'adopt' a few missionaries and support them with all of their hearts and wallets. But at the same time, encourage the church members to also look at what they can do individually beyond the church walls and denominational boundaries.

I'm not sure if this is making sense. It seems to me like a bit rant. I"ll probably blog about this soon anyways.

matthew said...

Heidi,

thanks for your comment. I think what you said makes a lot of practical sense. I'm sadly surprised though that you've never been to a church that gives 10%. On the other hand, I was very surprised that so many in my district do give 10%+

Missy,

thanks for your comments :) I figured most missionaries would push for a higher percentage. I have mixed views about it i guess in that I think a church can give 'too' much to missions. That sounds anti-spiritual to some people, but there are a lot of people in our own communities that need the gospel too. I don't think 20% is too much, but I do think there is a limit eventually.

I appreciate your emphasis on the personal side of giving as well.

I understand both sides of the debate regarding whether to help non-wesleyan missionaries. We've had some discussions about that in our church. It's a tough issue. We are wesleyan churches and there are wesleyan missionaries that need support. if we don't support them, who will? on the other hand if a church personally knows a missionary, it'd be a shame to drop them just because they aren't wesleyans.

Just so you know, in my district $298,415 were given to wesleyan missionaries while $716,780 were given to non-wesleyan missionaries. So it's clear who's winning that debate at the moment, but I bet it's getting closer by the year. I think the tide is toward wesleyans.

I'll keep an eye out for any posts you do on this subject. God bless