“How do you get paid?” “Do you have to raise support?” These are questions many people ask us as they consider a career as missionaries. The thought of “asking for money” terrifies them — yet those same people would find nobility in asking others to help someone whose house has burned down or whose family has incurred great medical expenses. Just look at the fundraising sites to see what I mean.
It is important to look at what a missionary considers to be the mission. Career missionaries establishing thriving churches among unreached language groups are inviting action for the physical and eternal lives of perishing people who have no access to hope. Yes, without coercion or manipulation, we ask people to give their resources and even their very lives to help us do this work.
“I don’t believe that you can ever sacrifice for the Lord and come out on the short end, because God still has a bigger scoop shovel than you have; you scoop out and He’ll scoop in.” — Ken Johnston, NTM
A person who wanted to be a career missionary once told me, “If I serve with [another very good mission] then I will not have to raise support.” On the surface that sounds like a great idea — but it also means that a lot of people who know him personally will not have the blessing of directly participating in what God will do through him, nor will he depend so completely upon God to provide. There are many models for funding ministry, and like the situations presented in Romans 14, there are different views on walking by faith concerning it. Each of us is accountable directly to God for how we respond to what we know and believe.
Ethnos360 missionaries are individually responsible for trusting God and engaging people about their ministry. They are free to tell people about personal and ministry needs, but must be careful to honor God’s moving through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of donors rather than reverting to pressured appeals. Donations designated for a particular ministry fund that missionary’s personal, business, and ministry expenses — so these missionaries walk by faith, trusting God to provide and living within the means He supplies.
What I have learned about support
- 01
Start with nothing
I left Borneo at age 19 with a suitcase half full of books I would never use and clothes I could not wear where I was going. I wanted to be a missionary bush pilot serving remote tribes who had no other hope of hearing about Jesus. Where should I train? Where would I get the funds? Each step since then has been a walk of faith: knowing the direction and purpose, but trusting God for the steps and the means. Over the first eleven years God brought a wide variety of people into my life who were willing to exercise extraordinary faith in God’s work in me.
- 02
Include other people
If you are doing something God calls good, at personal cost, for the temporal and eternal well-being of other people — do you want to keep that to yourself? God uses your need, and the seeming impossibility of your endeavor, to draw you into closer fellowship with Him, and to draw other people into what He is doing: for their good, for His glory, and for the eternal salvation of the people served. (2 Corinthians 4:15)
- 03
Trust God for everything
As “faith missionaries” we still don’t know from month to month how the bills will be paid. Sometimes it is genuinely difficult to believe God will provide. Yet I can look back at decades of ministry and training to see God’s amazing provision and His stunning work in the lives of people He enabled us to serve. It’s not about the size of our faith; it’s about the object of our trust.
- 04
Recognize grace
Ultimately it boils down to grace, values, and choices. We all give to each other out of recognition of God’s grace toward ourselves — grace: unmerited favor. We want to minister that grace to the missionaries we support, to the people who send us, and to the people we serve.
- 05
Present opportunities
God most often uses ordinary people who see a need and, by grace alone, provide for other parts of the Body of Christ to accomplish His purposes. Not only does God want to build our trust in Him — He wants to build the faith of the people around us, by providing opportunities for others to express their faith through their actions, resources, and life choices.
Go deeper
- The God Ask by Steve Shadrach — the standard on the spiritual foundations of support raising.
- People Raising by William Dillon — a practical guide to developing your support team.
- Funding Your Ministry by Scott Morton.
- How Does Giving Money Help Missions? — hire someone, or do it yourself?
- Can We Trust God to Provide?
Better yet — why don’t you join us as career missionaries? You will be amazed at the ways God provides and the people He brings into your life to accomplish His purposes. It will not be easy; you will be talking to God a lot about this. But what good endeavor is easy?