Back to the Future of Getting to the Mission Field

I want to start with disclaimers to derail what I would assume would occur with this post.  What makes this a difficult subject is that people are already invested in the present system and if changed could undermine support and livelihood.  I’m not saying that missionaries don’t have Biblical convictions about the way they did and are doing things regarding getting to the field.  They did and do.  I’m sure many missionaries would resent the idea that they are defending the way they’ve practiced based on continued flow of support money.  So let’s get it out of the way that I believe that you missionaries have reasoned this out Scripturally and didn’t get into it thinking that you went the path of tradition.

My goal really isn’t to affect present missionary support, but to think about how missionaries will get to the field in the future.  I like that churches support missionaries with their money.  Our church does and will support more.  However, this is not the direction that I’m primarily heading with our young people, that is, checks sent from churches.  I don’t want them planning on support from other churches.   Others might say that what I need to understand is that what I’m proposing just won’t work.  I’d like you to consider with me what is the Scriptural approach.

The title says “back to the future” because the model “back” in the first century as found in Scripture could be the “future” of getting to the mission field.  Since Scripture is sufficient, I don’t believe we are to look into the Bible to justify something that we have done or do, but to find the very patterns there and make those our own.  Where we haven’t done that, I don’t assume there were evil intentions.  I figure they were mainly pragmatic or what some people would call “practical” reasons.  “And if it’s practical, well, it must be Scriptural, because God is practical, isn’t He?”  This logic defies the sole authority of the Bible, but it is commonly used.  God is more practical than us, especially because He knows everything, including the future.  He knows the problems that our swerves from Scripture can cause over several generations.  We may think we’re ‘OK’ because the situation looks good for 5, 10, 50, or 200 years.  The just shall live by faith, even in missions support.

THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE

The norm for getting to the field has been deputation, one hundred per cent support, leave to the field, stay three years, come back for one year of furlough (reporting and gaining new support), go back for three more years, and so on.  Missionaries are most often supported by numerous churches, anywhere from fifteen to one hundred churches at from ten dollars to one thousand dollars a month.  Missionaries will be on deputation usually from six months to three years, sometimes traveling the entire country to get support.  I don’t know how many churches on average must be visited to get one supporting church.  Missionaries tell me that they are often in churches of which they definitely wouldn’t be a member, but “that’s the way it goes” because “that’s just the way it is, I guess.”

Some of the missionaries would rather not have a few to many of their supporting churches.  Some of the supporting churches would rather not have certain  of their missionaries.  To get the support, usually missionaries take a pre-trip to the field to get some basic knowledge, experience, and some pictures for what is now the DVD (multi-media) and was once the slide show.  They have the requisite missionary card and maybe the brochure.  They market themselves.  Churches might expect it.  Of course, there are the incessant calls to pastors or at least their secretaries or answering machines that are par for the course.  The missionary must jump through the required hoops and this process often feels like a dog and pony show beneath the dignity of a human being.

SOME CONCERNS WITH THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE

The United States has sent out the bulk of the missionaries for the last 100 years because of Scriptural influences, tied into the financial status of the nation.  The amount of capital available in the U.S. has been greater than other countries.  The financial support flows from American churches to American missionaries in foreign lands.

But what if the American finances dry up?  They could.  We could easily reach the point where our economy will not sustain the rampant sinfulness.  And then what?  Do missionaries come home?  Do we stop sending new ones?  It seems that our missions support philosophy is tied into the success of the U. S. economy.  Can third world churches send out missionaries using our same model?  Why not?  Shouldn’t the right philosophy be able to be practiced everywhere?

Have you noticed that as money has gotten so involved in missions that the mission board has taken on a greater status?  We have all new categories of Christian “servants” with faux authority—the director, the chairman, the field representative, the field secretary, the home office manager, etc.—somewhat mirroring a government bureaucracy, siphoning off money that could go directly to the missionaries.  None of these roles even faintly appear in Scripture, and yet are now given a lofty status among Christian leaders.  I’m sure many of the men and women in these non-scriptural positions possess sincere motives and purpose.  Could something not found in the Bible be necessary to accomplish God’s work or are we merely propping up these organizations for their continued existence?

WHAT IS THE NEW TESTAMENT PATTERN?

The New Testament shows a model of tent-making, that is, the missionary laboring to support himself financially.  In Luke 10, we see Jesus send the seventy out without support to evangelize regions of Palestine.  He didn’t show support to be a necessity.  I understand that we find that Paul believed that it was his right to receive financial remuneration (1 Corinthians 9:14).  Paul got support from churches (Philippians 4:10, 15-18; 2 Corinthians 11:8, 9).  However, we have no record that he was sent from Antioch with promise of pay.   Scripture does not show that he had ongoing support from churches, but that it was hit and miss.  His regular support came from his own labor (1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8).   His craft was making tents (Acts 18:3).   The pattern he took was to work the secular job of making and selling tents (perhaps repairing too) a part of the day and then carry on his preaching and teaching the other part in accomplishing his work.  He was likely taught his skill by his father as part of the child training that Jewish families practiced in order to pass on at least one means from which the son could earn a living.   He did the tent-making so that he would not be “chargeable” to those he served.  He didn’t want any strings attached to what he said and did.

WHAT HAPPENED TO TENT-MAKING?

At some point, Christian leaders started discouraing tent-making.  Some say it isn’t trusting the Lord.  Some have applied the term, somewhat derogatory, bivocational.  The man who must work in addition to his service is sometimes seen as a failure compared to the full-time man.  We must understand that Paul himself, the author of nearly half the New Testament and organizer of many churches, worked a job while he did his ministry.  Not only can it be done, but it is the way Paul did his missions work.

Instead of tentmaking, men are encouraged to go out looking for support.   Men find themselves making a presentation in a church that they don’t even want to be in.  They often find themselves attempting to minimize their doctrine so as not to be an offense, so that they can get their support.  By means of mutual support of one missionary, many churches are brought into cooperation that doctrinally and practically would choose not to be otherwise.  The deputation trail is an unrealistic trek.  There’s nothing like it in Scripture.  It is difficult on families.  Could they learn character?  Could they see examples of churches from which to learn?  It can be a positive experience to contented people who depend on God for strength and discernment.  It isn’t a way that Scripture lays out anywhere as a means of Christian growth.  For months, a family is not faithful to the assemblies of its own church or under the preaching of its own pastor or involved in the work of its own church.  And this is supposed to be the model of preparation for a field, to be out of the direct influence of its own church a few years right before the missionary takes off permanently.  And when he does come back, he’s back on the road again, away from his own church.  These are just some of the negatives of this system.

HOW COULD THIS CHANGE?

For the tentmaking to be the model, our young people will need means to earn a living to support themselves and their families.  To do so, they will need to train to make money.  We aren’t well equipped to do that in churches.   Churches often encourage members against secular work.  Based on stands of personal separation, many church parents don’t want their children to interact with the world in a pagan work environment.   As soon as children finish their Christian school or home schooling, they go off to Christian college, which also doesn’t get a young person ready to earn a living in the real world.  “Old Testament Survey” on the resume doesn’t often impress a secular employer.  The employer wants someone who knows how to make him money.

Young people leave Christian colleges and support from a church is about the only way to make it.  Parents, young people, and churches spend thousands of dollars for a college education, only to have a young person return that they have to support financially.  If not, since they have no marketable skill, they are the college graduates and even masters graduates who are flipping burgers at the local fast-food joint, which enables them to barely scrape by.  They might need two jobs to pay the rent in certain housing markets.  And how much time does that leave them to work in a church?  Very little.   I won’t go any further except to say we need to give our young people in some fashion the means to make a living that will allow time to give to ministry afterwards.  These are the kind of people with the greater potential as tent-makers to follow the model of the Apostle Paul.

This is a big subject.  I’ve barely brushed the surface, but it is something that I wanted us to think and talk about.  I welcome your comments.