So why are there days I am glad that I don’t know how to raise support?

Number 1. This is the main reason. I learned that God is faithful. Sure, that sounds like a saccharine-like aphorism. I can hardly say that God promises to have money fall from heaven to fund people who are too stubborn or lazy to build partnerships with supporters. I can, however, say that we were able live on less, and have less regular support than I thought.

I just can’t think that people who practice high-pressure sales tactics truly see their God as one who supplies their needs. I teach missions, and I find still find it humorous that running around to churches, family, friends, and “deep pockets” is labeled “Faith Missions” because its participants are allegedly “living by faith.” It is certainly not wrong, it may even be good… but there is nothing about faith in it.

I am not here preaching a Corrie Ten Boom dogma against support-raising. One year she felt that God was telling her not to actively raise support. That is fine. But then she started going around and moralizing and absolutizing that decision— that no Christian minister should do support-raising. I don’t see that. If I truly feel that God called me to close my business on Sunday, that hardly means that God has told all Christian businessmen to close theirs on Sunday as well. There simply should be no connection.

Number 2. It helps our relationships. It is hard to have healthy relationships with potential partners when it is known that every meeting is a request for money. I have dealt with people who were professionally needy. They had mastered the ability to appear pitiable. I don’t see that as a godly strategy, and we often felt the need to “duck” these individuals when possible.

Early on, I recall visiting a church we had left back in the US. The senior pastor (who had some problems) was gone and the associate pastor (one we had greater respect for) was now leading a church recovering from crippling financial problems and community shame. The pastor was very much on edge during our visit, but tried to be friendly. It became clear to me (and I still think I got this pretty much correct) that he was waiting uncomfortably for us to go into our support spiel. I knew the church had no money and that there were political issues why we could not be financially supported as well. Looking back I wish I had said something to the effect:

“We are not here to raise money. But your church had an important role in our spiritual and ministerial development. So we justed wanted to come by and talk with you for awhile. Would that be okay?”

I think that would have removed some of the edge.

That being said, I have been known to go too far. I have had people ask how they can help us financially, and I would say, “It’s okay… we are doing fine.” A friend of mine, overhearing me on one occasion spoke to me later and said, “If God lays on someone’s heart the desire to help you… don’t tell them you don’t need or welcome their help.” Guilty as charged. There is a balance. Still… when money is not the “elephant in the room that everyone is pretending not to see,” other forms of partnership and encouragement can be explored more positively in many cases.

Number Three. It helps creativity. The classic uninspired solution to a problem is “Throw money at it.” But when one’s money is dear, and yet one’s calling is still broad, one must find more creative ways to solve things. We have a counseling center in the Philippines. That center takes up about 40 square meters of office space. We don’t have to pay any rental. This was worked out by the generosity of another organization… one that does not support us with money, but with free use of resources. We also help them through a formal partnership.

That being said, free stuff is not always valued. We do charge for some trainings so that people will value the trainings. It also allows some of our volunteers to get tangible help with their generosity of skill and time. But our volunteers commonly want to help the people who need help the most. Most of our primary target cannot pay for services, so offering them for free, funded by trainings that are paid for by people who can pay.

Creativity takes time. From my engineering days, we were told in the triad of QUICK, CHEAP, and GOOD, we could design for any two. In Christian ministry… good is a must. So then one can choose for it to be quick… but that costs more money. Or it can be cheap… but it takes time. If one is spending less time on funding, one has more time to be creative. The alternative is a bit of a spiral.

I need money, so I spend time to raise money

I now have money, but I don’t have time

Because I don’t have time, I have to compensate by spending more money.

Because I have to spend more money, I need to use more time to raise money.

I hope you can see the pattern.

Number Four. It supports mutuality. I still say that mutuality is one of the clearest Christian virtues that Christians commonly ignore. The Bible is rather ambivalent on unilateral relationships, but quite strongly supports mutual relationships, especially in the church. Avoiding the patron-benefactor (or master-slave) relationship allows us to often have a more mutual relationship where we help another when the other needs help, and the other helps us when we need help.

Independence is not really a Christian virtue, and neither is Dependence. More Christian is Interdependence. We rely on each other as all of us rely on God.

Number Five. It allows me not to focus on my cynicism. Most of the best fund-raisers are not the best missionaries. This truth could make me bitter and cynical. I can be cynical of people in ministry who seem to have mixed motivations in ministry. I can also be cyncial of supporters or supporting churches who often have no greater discernment or strategy in their support than falling victim to the tricks of good salesmanship.

The above paragraph may sound cynical… and I suppose I am. But it does not dominate my thinking. That is because we are not competing with each other. I am not trying to get what they are going after. The main challenge I have is to discern which people will partner with us mutually, and which one’s seek to join more parasitically.

And yes, even THAT previous paragraph still sounds a bit cynical. I apologize. I understand that cyncism is not really a Christian virtue… but neither is gullibility. Grace is given but Trust is earned. I am happy to have met many fine people in ministry in whom it is an honor to work with. I hope you have found the same. I have found others that I have concerns about… but I generally have found that I don’t need to stress about them. I simply need to maintain healthy boundaries.

I had a great aunt who was beseiged with letters from political and religious groups seeking her money. She did not have much money. She was a widow and going senile. She was on many political and religious “sucker lists.” After she died, my dad and I spent a long afternoon shoveling (yes, shoveling) hills of letters in her back room from various organizations. It really helped me develop cynicism for many religious groups, and pretty much ALL political groups. <For those of you who think that it is the OTHER political party that does bad things, all I can say is WAKE UP!!! Whatever differences there may be in political platform do not lead to corresponding differences in character or ethical behavior.>

We don’t have much money now… so we help a bit when we can… and when we can’t we don’t. But often, when we can’t, we actually can— perhaps with time, or resources, that don’t include money. Our limited resources tends to keep away the more mercenary fund-raisers. That also helps me limit my proclivity for overt cynicism.

I think that sums up everything. At times I wish that I was better at fund-raising. But overall, God has been good, and I am glad to not be particularly skilled in this area.

If you are in ministry, I pray that you won’t become TOO good in this area either.

My wife and I have been involved in missions for over 14 years. In the early years we did not know much of anyting about raising support. We never went out on deputation. Our home church provided over 80% of our support. We did okay. I taught missions and sometimes spoke of raising support. I liked to note that in raising support it is not that important to focus on need… because everyone has needs. I made the argument that the three most important things are demonstrating:

• Trustworthiness
• Competence
• Vision

Then close to four years ago we were notified that we were about to have our support from our home church cut off. Most all of the church leadership thought we knew what was going on in the church… but of the two people whose primary job was to keep us updated, one had left the church, and the other was in the process of being overwhelmed by personal problems and so had stopped updating us or answering our questions.

At this time I began to understand the problem we had. We were rapidly transitioning from 100% support to less than 20%. I did not really know how to raise support— and even less doing so from a distance. At that same time tax law changed in the US (or at least how existing tax law was being interpreted) so it was even harder to get support as an independent missionary. We did not have the resources to estabish a 501c3 organization in the country. (Americans tend to think that tax-deductibility of religious giving is a God-given right— no idea where they got that thought.)

I looked into other options, including going back to the US to teach or pastor— meager options indeed. Strangely, we discovered that we could continue. Another church began to support us, as well as a few others on a regular or occasional basis. We found that we were able to get by. Our cost of living was higher than our support, and our residual funds began to decline, but much more slowly than we expected. In the end, we think that we are able to persevere.

But this chapter had gotten me thinking more about support raising. I paid more attention to those who succeed in this aspect of ministry and those who don’t. I got some information from a person we know who was (he has stepped out of professional ministry) part of a Christian organization that took support-raising of its membership very seriously.  This organization had its members raise support in the same place where they are doing ministry (there are conveniences to this, I can see).

This organization would give its ministers a list of contacts. The contacts were not the only ones they were supposed to contact, but were certainly supposed to start there. They were given support goals, both overall support and weekly goals, of both monthly support and one-time gifts. Each minister was supposed to list everyone he (or she) contacted by email or phone, list which ones he was able to establish face-to-face appointments with, list the ones he was able to personally challenge to support, and what type and amount of financial support he received. Every week this report had to be turned in by each minister, the spreadsheets updated and new sheets with updated goals and contacts given out. Curiously, this particular group received considerable out-of-area support that went to the organization to support the individual ministers. Perhaps the support-raising process was to train members how to do that part of the work. Still the sheer number of hours needed weekly to do this, when it seemed as if it wasn’t all that necessary, makes me wonder whether the support-raising may have had a deleterious effect on their primary ministry work.

I have noted a number of independent missionaries who were especially dedicated to support-raising. On a positive side, they tended to have MASSIVE networking skills. I am still amazed at how some people we work with from very different denominations and ministry types were well familiar with certain missionaries and even were supporting them, or encouraged to do so. Negatively, often these same missionaries did less organizing of missions  than linking themselves to the mission work that others were doing. This is quite understandable. The hours needed for networking and support-raising can certainly conflict with the time needed in the visioning, planning, implementating, and evaluating of primary mission tasks. While it may be true that in a team success is shared, but in support-raising it is quite tempting to take a small role and give the impression of being indispensible.

I have also seen missionary websites that appear to be little more than an electronic  commercial for supporting their ministry. They seem to have taken their website design from some of the more notorious Christian TV personalities. I am thinking of one site in particular of a missionary over here whose website is especially intense in this. I only slightly know the person, so I can’t judge. I am concerned that some people I respect have especially deep concerns regarding their actions, as well as their lack of actions. Frankly, I have no clue whether these issues have merit. But one does have to wonder when money shifts from being a necessary part of mission ministry, and when it becomes an obsession.

I will continue this thought in part 2 and get to the reasons I am glad that I am not good at support-raising.

If you wish, you may continue onto PART TWO.