The Missionary Was the Last to Know - September 26, 2007
The Missionary Was The Last to Know!
Recently I conducted a training course for a group of missionaries to help them build confidence and develop strategy to raise their support. Wayne, a veteran missionary, read a couple chapters of required reading* and came back saying, “I’ve discovered that everything I’ve been doing is wrong!”
Wayne had been doing all the normal things missionaries do to raise their support: he wrote newsletters, spoke in churches, and prayed faithfully that God would raise up people to support him and his family. After about ten years he had less than $50 in regular monthly support. In order to sustain his calling he maintained a job ten months out of every year in order to save enough money to make annual short-term mission trips. This wasn’t the way he wanted to carry out his ministry.
It was a credit to Wayne’s faith that he kept going so long. Most missionaries who fail to raise their support within a couple of years end up declaring, “I guess God hasn’t called me after all.”
Here are the three main things Wayne learned he was doing wrong, and was amazed that he was among the last to know about them.
Focused on the Wrong Need
Wayne discovered that his whole focus was on his need for support. He looked to churches and individual believers as the source of his support. He had forgotten that God had obligated Himself to meet his need. Wayne learned that God was calling him to focus on the church’s need to be reconnected with its primary purpose for existence, to be the expression of Christ to the nations. He came to believe that once he became successful at sharing the benefits and rewards people would receive from doing what God has called them to do, they would want to invest in his ministry.
Writing Letters rather than Ministering Face to Face
Wayne, like nearly all missionaries, feared asking for support. He feared being perceived as a beggar. He feared rejection. Fear caused him to default to sending impersonal form letters to people. To him, this was the least intrusive means of making his need known.
When Wayne realized he wasn’t representing his own need, but rather the need of believers to be connected with God’s purpose for their lives, he was set free from all mercenary guilt. Now he is free to minister to them like a friend and a brother. He has the privilege of connecting them with their due reward for obedience.
Neglecting the Power of Discovery
Wayne’s third revolutionary insight was the power of the parable. Jesus told stories because when people discover truth in a story they don’t argue with it; it is their discovery. Wayne, like many missionaries doing partnership development, was trying to preach, trying to explain and trying to admonish people to support him. He found it was much more powerful to simply share his stories and the experiences through which he had discovered the joys, blessings and benefits of obedience to the great commission.
How could a missionary like Wayne suddenly realize he is among the last to know fundamental principals about raising support? The fact is that most missionaries are in the same boat. They are conditioned by the attitudes that portray missionaries as beggars who are a drag on church budgets.
The only way I know to break the cycle of wrong attitudes is to challenge them one missionary at a time and one believer at a time. That requires Bible-based training that builds knowledge, skills and attitudes that will result in the ability to share the vision freely and confidently.
– Jerry Long, September, 2007
* Required reading for the KCT course: Funding Your Ministry Whether Your’re Gifted or Not! By Scott Morton
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