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1 votes

Where's the $ Going?

Posted by dcheshier , 05 September 2012 · 1203 views

In the last few years our missions giving has remained flat but our missions involvment has increased! First the exciting news...those going out. This winter a couple from our church began their own 'medical' mission around the world to install and repair medical equipment. Another family left this spring for Loja, Ecuador doing leadership training. A young married couple is leaving this fall for a middle eastern country for the husband to serve as a pilot and another young family will leave in January for Papua New Guinea for him to teach carpentry skills to nationals and his wife to teach elementary school children. For all this we are very grateful!
We are supporting each of these but only because two other missionaries we supported have come off the field...one who is now on church staff and another who returned to his private medical practice. We also pulled our support from a local ministry to be able to take on one of these families going out. While we are thrilled to be able to give to each of these we are a bit torn by the way it is happening. It is somewhat a 'rob Peter to pay Paul'. We would love to hear any means your church is using to get more 'bang for the buck' or better 'mpg' with the missions giving.

Kris Rickert likes this

Richard Byham

Sep 10 2012 08:04 PM

Geat question. I share your concern. It is certainly exciting to see all of the international interest and response surfacing in your church. May the Lord continue to lead your people in that kind of engagement. Obviously someone in leadership is casting great vision for reaching the unreached around the world. But your experience of being challenged to support all of those individuals is not unusual. In my experience having served in various capacities in Alliance missions, it is very difficult for a single church to sustain the level of giving needed to send even one missionary couple let alone numerous people. Which brings me back to what I believe is the genious of the Alliance. That would be the Great Commission Fund (GCF) as well as the CAMA Advance Fund (CAF). What is difficult for a single church to do on its own is quite easily and effectively done as we pool that support through those two funds. In my opinion, greatest bang for the missions buck happens as monies are collected and administered through those two funds. It is basically a matter of synergy and spreading the load among many supporters that makes it possible for our more than 700 International Workers to focus on their ministries rather than fund raising, something which for the independent person takes much time and energy that could otherwise be spent in reaching the unreached... and with the advent of new ways to personalize GCF/CAF giving I sense churches and individuals finding those mechanisms increasingly attractive as a means to get the most bang out of each missions dollar sacrificially given..