Tips for New Missionaries Support

Tips for New Missionaries Support focuses on raising missionary support, understanding what you are supposed to be doing.

Raising Support

For missionaries that are just starting out, please note, missions has always been difficult. Paul was thrown in prison and persecuted for his faith, but many other Christians in his time were not so persecuted. What makes Paul exceptional is that he was “on the front lines” sort to speak. Pastors and missionaries are on the front lines of Christianity, so being in that special place, you will get a lot of attacks from Satan.

If I could go back in time, and I could give myself advice before I entered missions, what would I say?

Understanding God’s Provision and Missionary Support

The New Testament pattern is that the churches sent out ministers to promote Christianity around the world. We cannot get away from that singular thought in understanding missions. But doing this needs to be address in practical ways that are “doable“. If you have a million dollars in the bank and drawing $25,000 interest off of that every month (which I doubt is possible), you don’t need any more support. Just go. Do it.

But for most new missionaries, they are broke, working secular jobs while they are trying to hold their finances together and get financial support so that they can do what God has called them to do. How do you do that? With help. That is the only way to understand this.

Understanding Missions

The first thing you need to “get under your belt” is that you are not who is sending you out, but God is. If you are called and qualified to serve as a missionary, then God will provide for your financial needs. The Greek word “apostle,” apostolo, means to send with a mission. In classical Greek, the word apostleship was used for a Greek city state that was trying to prevent war between them and another city state, and so the elders of one city send “a delegation” (our concept today probably) of people who would officially represent them, and had the authority to make treaties and contractual agreements. The word “apostleship” included all those with the representative, their food supplies, and even a ship upon which they traveled. So think an entourage.

So the idea of a missionary is that of a mission to accomplish.

So there is a rule here that comes into play, and it must be rigidly observed if success is to be achieved.

1. You must do the job.
2. You must report to those who sent you how the work is going.

If you ever fail in either of these two points, then you are destined for problems. Financial problems with those who are sending you, and problems with God who called you.

So EVERY MISSIONARY must attend to both “the job” and reporting. The reporting is going to visit your supporters and to keep them informed on how things are going with “the job.”

Focusing on what is “the job”?

Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

The missionary command in this verse is to reproduce Christianity. There are two clear parts to this, evangelism, and teaching those converts or edification of the saints. The Bible is not extremely clear, but most commentaries I have read seem to think both Timothy and Titus were pastoring churches on the mission field. I do not presume that every missionary has to be a pastor, but it is an option if God calls you that way. (He has called me that way.)

But the requirements for a missionary should be taken from 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1, the requirements for a pastor. The focus here is that the minister has to be a man, and he has to be a good example of Christ. I do not doubt that women are highly involved in missions. I do not want you to think that. But single women on the mission field have a glaring problem, which from my studies over 40 years, I have not seen a valid biblical reasoning for single missionary women. The requirements Paul sets out for a Pastor is clearly that the minister is a man, and if we remember that the original manuscripts did not have chapter and verse divisions, and we need to read 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as a preface to 1 Timothy 3. Women are not to have authority, or to direct men in the mission of the Lord. They are to be silent.

I see no problem with my wife teaching our women’s prayer breakfast, and I approve 100% of that. But we do not let men sit in on that because that breaks Scripture.

1 Corinthians 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 1 Corinthians 14:35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

Women need to minister to women, and you cannot do the job with two key elements: (1) people need to get saved, (2) churches need to be established with those who are saved. Christ never sends out missionaries like drunken sailors who go around the world having babies, and leaving them on their own. The mission of Christ includes the care of the saved AFTER they accept the Lord.

As an aside, after 40 years of being a pastor on the mission field, I look back over those who made confessions of faith with me, and many of them I doubt, yea, I am sure, they are unsaved to this day. The presentation of the gospel was clear in my opinion, but their concepts about many key things in salvation just wasn’t there. Catholics (I work in Mexico) teach that water baptism is when you are truly saved. Church of Christ people also believe this. So a quick prayer and dunk’em is the worst thing you can do for these people.

Salvation needs to be nurtured before it is fully embraced. Can a person hear the gospel and immediately be saved? Absolutely. But most probably it will take years of reading, studying the Bible, and listening to good sermons before you see real spiritual fruit.

But “the job” is to make that gospel clear to them. Do not short circuit this by making the gospel a magical prayer, and everything is done. Billy Graham did this in his ministry, and a lot of Catholics went forward, prayed the prayer, and returned to their Catholic churches happy. That is not the job. Our job is to see real Christians going forth. Real Christians going forth are not straw men that are manipulated. “A real Christian reads his Bible every day, a real Christian goes out witnessing every week, a real Christian tithes.” That is all true and at the same time false. Real Christians have a soul changing relationship with the Savior, and you can see that relationship in their lives. So they do that stuff, but that stuff does not make them saved. This is the nitty-gritty problem. We exhort, but the individual needs to have spiritual life in them, and then they will respond with good works. Good works don’t make a person saved.

This is very important to understand because there are a host of missionaries running around puppet mastering straw men, and taking pictures and then boasting to their financial supporters of what they have done. While I condemn this, God will judge. Pastors and churches will have to respond to the Lord for their spiritual insight or lack of it. But as “for me and my house…”

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

As for your personal ministry, you have to fulfill the mission, which is to evangelize and edify the saints that have been converted.

So, I went on a rabbit trail here, but for a point. What you present to your supporters needs to focus on exactly that. You are doing evangelism, and you are tending to the edification part of the Great Commission. I am not God, but I see so many missionaries who are not doing the job, but they are using Madison Avenue marketing techniques to get income. This is a great problem. (See Take no Man’s Silver) When money becomes a major preoccupation for the minister, he most probably is a false prophet.

Yet we all must live. The key is balancing desire and need. Work hard, and be satisfied with what God provides. I have seen missionaries taking in $10,000 to $20,000 PER MONTH, and I have seen American missionaries living with a family on $500/month at the same time. You need to meditate on that, and think, who is really going to be blessed? The person who goes into missions broke and comes out as a millionaire, or the faithful servant who does the job with whatever it takes to do it, even if he isn’t making a killing. It is disgusting to me to hear nationals talk about missionaries as always being rich. “If we need a building, why don’t you write to your people in the states and get them to send us a million dollars for a new building.”

The point here is that missions done God’s way, is this very essence. Missionaries go at other people’s expense (their sacrifice for the Lord), they evangelize, and those converts pay for their own church, and send out their own people to the mission field, paying their own missionaries’ support. What is happening today is that every foreign missionary want their own church (on the foreign mission field) to send out missionaries, and they send this foreign nationals back to the states to raise their support. That is not the job. That is exporting American Christianity, a denomination, an earthly power and control structure.

Why this is important is because you must be razor focused on what is the job, and whatever others do, you must do the job as God wants it done. If you follow what I am saying, you will end up with less support than these other missionaries that are all glory and shine, but no substance. I serve God, and not man. Men or being popular with men is not a personal goal. I do the job God wants, and this is a very important and near-heart thing.

Again, why is this important? Because this focuses on your calling. What you are. This is extremely essential in getting you through hard times, especially economic problems. If you think not having sufficient money is our major crisis, wait until you are under the burden of caring for people, and you will find out money is the least of our worries.

I started out single on the mission field, and my support was $550/month in 1986. I was told by my mission board that that was more than sufficient for a single missionary. (I had offered to the mission board that my support level should have been $1650/month at the same time.) I had no ministry fund, it all came out of my personal support. I went to Mexico City paying $300/month for an apartment I could have a small group of people (10-12) in a service in my house. I was paying $50/month for health insurance, and $65/month for car insurance, and the misison board took out another $50 for my retirement, which they held, gave no interest, and returned to me without interest when I left that mission board.

So my balance to live on was $85/month, or about $3/day for food, medicine, personal items, etc. I wrote to the mission board director explaining this, and his answer was, “Do you want to return to the US in shame and failure after only 6 months?” I had a retirement savings of several thousand dollars and I was burning through that something fierce.

As a high point in my life, during this time of “leanness,” I was emotionally on a roller coaster. In a good month, I was very happy (those days a good month was getting $700), and then in a bad month, I was depressed the entire month. I prayed a lot, and trickles would come in, helping but not solving the problems long term. I came to a point where I decided, my joy and happiness is not dependent on my checkbook balance. Whether it is up or in zeros, I have the Lord, and I won’t let money dictate the happiness and joy in my life. Have I had hard times? Yes. But I am the better for those hard times. I would change them now that I am through them.

But the point is, are you going to do the job God has called you to do not matter if it costs you personally, or not? We are not in missions to get rich (that shouldn’t be our goal or our inclination). But the calling of God is seen in victory over hard barriers, not wasteful riches gaining.

Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Philippians 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews speaks of the Christian life, but we as ministers and missionaries, we run the race of the calling of God for our lives. We need to pursue and be patient.

Church Support

To be honest, there is the overwhelming foundation that God will fund the minister he calls to the mission of world evangelism. But the particulars of this is very much up to what you do personally, individually. There is not a large fund of billions of dollars going into some organization that missionaries get their pay checks from. Maybe the Southern Baptist Convention would come close to that, but independent Baptist missionaries are not in that by conviction.

So here comes another angle to grind on us missionaries. We get the job down at whatever price it takes, but we cannot do whatever is necessary to get that job done.

1 Corinthians 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. 1 Corinthians 9:25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. 1 Corinthians 9:26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: 1 Corinthians 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

It is with great sadness that I reflect upon many pastors and fellow missionaries that I have known that I can only conclude that doing all that in the ministry, they themselves are unsaved. I can reach no other conclusion. That is between them and the Lord, but I must strive legitimately in my race towards God’s calling.

2 Timothy 2:5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

So the point is to get support from churches. I do not want to disappoint, and my experiences are unique to me. I was with a mission board and because of what I saw that didn’t fit the Bible as I understand it, I left to go out under a local church instead. That is a great strike against me as far as pastors letting me into their churches to candidate. Many churches “in our group” rejected me, and we even lost about 40% of our support because of that decision. But I stand by that decision, and God has been good to us nonetheless. God provided and continues to provide every day. I understand this as people depending on churches and mission boards for their support, or depending on God. God can use many means to support His servants. Don’t let your mind and understand limit His ways.

So we go carnal at this point. Marketing. How do you get churches to support you? First, you have to get contact information, then call and send literature, maybe even meet in person if possible. Then success at that level and going to the next level is actually going to the church and presenting your calling. You are presenting a vision of what God has called you to do, and they evaluate that presentation. If you go and only preach a non-missions sermon, they will compare you to their preacher’s Sunday morning message and you will get very little support.

In the 1990s, I got married and had to raise more support, and that is when I went independent. I don’t see a whole lot of difference raising support as an independent missionary as being under a mission board. Pastors and churches are hard nuts to crack and get into them.

But best as I remember, I was sending out letters (email wasn’t a thing then) and calling (both for each contact) around 100 pastors to actually talk with maybe 10 or 15 pastors, and out of those talks with pastors, I would get one meeting for every 30-50 I would talk with. Out of every church we actually went and presented the work to, it was something like one new supporter for every 10 churches we actually presented the work in. Over the years, that should be adjusted, because in times of economic downturn in the country or a region, you may get nothing in support no matter how much you candidate.

So the task is daunting. You need to literally get in contact with thousands of churches to maybe get 20 supporters so you can go to the field. Today I would suspect a new missionary needs double that or more. It is what it is. But as a servant of the Lord, is my ministry mainly raising support or working with people in evangelism and edification? That is the rub here. Over the years, our support has been waning just because I am not good at spending all of my time raising support. Other missionaries are great showmen, and I am not that.

But here is the secret. God is on your side, and He is sending you. You don’t need to contact 10,000 churches over three or four years to be a missionary. You just need to contact those people that God is going to use to get you to the field. Going through all those other churches is not wasted time, because you learn patience in doing so. But there should be no discouragement if you go and are just a blessing to those people.

Again, I reiterate, you have to focus on “the job”. What your calling and ministry is or will be on the field, and that you have to really do, and do it sincerely for the Lord. You have to communicate that to your supporters.

Individual Support

I wish I could take the same position I did once at the beginning. But I cannot. I thought that I did not want any individuals supporting me (except my parents), and I only wanted churches. What I learned is that pastors are not always what they are supposed to be. We went to a missions conference once, and there were about 20 missionary families there. We were there a week, had to sing and dance (not actually dance, but they had a missionary parade, and we carried flags of our countries etc, you get the idea). It cost me about $50 in gas money to go, and another $50 in food for my family going and coming. They put us up in a hotel. They fed us the entire week. In the end, each missionary family got a love offering of $100, but the pastor’s nephew was going to Africa, and he needed to get a shipping container to Africa with his furniture, washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, etc. Going the first time. So the church raised $10,000 for that need in the conference. Meditate on these things.

As a veteran missionary living in Mexico some 20 years at that time, you don’t take appliances from the US to other countries because of the electrical problems there. In Mexico, we could drive up to Texas in a long day. I have had microwaves, and they break after a year here. I asked a place that fixes them why were they breaking after 3 microwaves? He said that there were extra electronics that the Mexican appliance manufacturing plants put in to protect against power spikes and low level electricity. Huh. So, we bought a Mexican microwave local and had no problems with it for years and years.

My point is that what those who control the money think, often is not really the wisest plan in the long run. Every missionary should have the personal motto of “doing more with less.” If a guy gets a million dollars and wants to go to some third world nation to start a 7-11 store, anybody can do that. Try setting up a Walmart with $10,000, and that is impressive.

As missionaries, we should not have a fever for money. I have had pastors tell me that another missionary in a missionary conference with me (I hadn’t heard of or met him before that conference, and didn’t even talk to him during it), but the pastor called me up after the conference and asked me about a bunch of questions. My home church where I grew up and was still a member of, were they hyper-Calvinists? Etc. The other missionary had warned the pastor about my home church. How he knew what was my home church, I have no idea. All of it was false. But the pastor called me up the day after we got back because of this “brother’s” warning. When missionaries are competing for missions dollars, this gets cut throat very quickly.

Many pastors want their missionaries to shine as great Madison Avenue success stories, and if you can fit that desire, you will get missions funding. If you cannot, you are out in the cold. This is a two edged sword though. Maybe it is just better that they don’t fund you if that is their mindset. You think?

Acts 8:20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Simon the sorcerer saw the power of God in his servants and tried to buy the same. He gave Peter money in exchange for secrets, and Peter refused to take his money. God doesn’t want his servants to be funded by unsaved people or by carnal Christians. That is a hard conviction to accept when you are broke, but it builds character in you. You don’t have to discern the spirituality of who gives to you, but don’t let some church or individual who you candidate your ministry before them, and they reject you, cause you to get depressed. Let God rule the day. Smile, and simply repeat,

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

We do not see the dangers which God protects us from.

At one time in my ministry when I was single, low support, and praying a lot, and God answering, I figured that I had about 30% to 40% of my monthly support coming from individuals and churches that I had never met. I do not understand that. God moved people to support me, and I am nothing. But God moved them and met my needs. That is no glory to me in any way. That is glory to God 100%. I did pray a lot, but I don’t even attribute that to my prayers.

One of the things that I never would have really understood at the beginning is that God uses individuals when churches fail. While inflation has driven up my monthly expenses through the years, what churches give hasn’t matched that inflation. I know that some churches (not ones that support me) but some are giving $1000 monthly support checks to their missionaries. There are churches like that out there. Usually, it is because the missionary is a relative of the pastor or people in the church, or there is some kind of friendship that most other missionaries would not be able to reproduce. But there are churches like that.

What has been amazing to me is to see individuals, and not just one, but various that are giving 2x, 3x, 4x more than a church. I have churches that still send me $35/month when they can. And I have individuals that are giving me hundreds of dollars, even over a thousand dollars. How is that? I do not understand it, but if you would be wise, you would not depend on a prayer letter sent to the church for those kinds of contacts. Buy a clipboard, and have a newsletter signup sheet, and contact them directly. If God moves, God will move.

I have also seen pastors that seem to work against God’s leading in individuals hearts. In other words, a church is sending you $100/month, and somebody wants to give a missionary $50, the pastor takes it, and says, “I will put that in the missions fund and we will use it to send our $100 dollar support check to him.” Meaning, I will put your check in our offering plate and don’t give him anything extra in the future, just everything in the church. I have heard that preached from pulpits also. Nothing outside of our monthly commitment. I am a pastor myself on the mission field, and I encourage our people to give extra, directly if possible, to our missionaries. I see not competition there. God is working, and if God moves somebody to sacrifice, I say, praise be to God.

Prayer Support

Beyond the carnal marketing to get support, there is a great power in prayer. If you maintain a good reporting with your supporters, you can get great power through people praying for you. The point here is not that you get cash, but God supplies. I have met a nose and throat doctor who was himself a pastor, and his wife knew me very well. I had never met her. But I write tracts and she was downloading and printing those tracts for their evangelism. In the 10+ years we have known them, he has never charged us. We go to him when we are sick. But God takes away the expenses sometimes. This is how you as a missionary accomplish the task. You do not have to always receive more money to solve problems.

Tips for New Missionaries

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