All the money for missions is controlled by a very small group of men in churches of Christ.
These are all good, well-intentioned men—elders, deacons, mission committee members—but if churches of Christ have 200-300 congregations that oversee virtually all American missionaries , which typically includes managing the funds that are contributed by individuals and smaller congregations, then my best estimate is that a couple of thousand men control all of the mission work of churches of Christ.
Is this good?
Typically, most congregations have a small mission committee that receives requests, selects which works to support, determines the amount that they want to request, and passes that request on to the elders—an even smaller group, further removed from the request—who make the final decision. Some churches do use variations on this standard approach.
I know of one large, outstanding congregation which has a long history of generous support for missions, a great track record in every way, where the entire mission program and the dispersal of all the mission funds is completely the decision of one brother. Another one of our exemplary, mission-minded congregations has a model where small sub-committees funnel all financial requests for missions up to a small group of deacons. In practice, if the chairman of this oversight committee is personally unconvinced of the merits of a request, the likelihood of it being funded is very low. I know of another good congregation where the preaching minister must sign-off on all mission funding.
As I have repeatedly said, God uses us in our frailty and in our ignorance. Much good work has been done, so please don’t misunderstand me when I suggest that there must be a better way!
Here are what I see as the basic weaknesses of our standard model for supporting missionaries:
1) Mission work becomes the responsibility of a small number of people rather than of the whole body of Christ.
2) Mission information rarely gets out of committee, so congregations are ill-informed and uninspired about their missionaries.
3) With decisive power in the hands of a few, any change in personnel creates the potential for radical restructuring of that church’s mission strategy. Every new mission committee chairman brings a new agenda. New preachers and new elders often create the same instability.
4) Centralized money creates centralized power! And power corrupts! Mission committees are notorious for establishing small fiefdoms. Because missions is central to the agenda of most congregations, those who control the funds for missions—elders, preacher, or committees—control that agenda! Unfortunately, the more experienced they become and bigger the budget, the more indispensable they consider themselves and their own personal missions agenda—sometimes even to the detriment of the overall health of the congregation.
5) Decisions about financial support are easier than decisions about spiritual needs, so the financial decisions direct our strategies for world missions.
6) Financial decisions can be very far removed from relationships with those we are supporting. Nothing good can come from the missionary becoming primarily an employee of the church.
I talked with a missionary once who reported his own conversation with a local preacher who, completely frustrated in a great church using a standard model, said he would just like to blow up the mission committee at his congregation! Now why do you think he said that??
Twice during the Pepperdine Bible Lectures this year, I sat with great non-American missionaries who said that they were desperately trying to figure out how to survive if they gave up their American support. Although both have been supported by some of our largest churches for many years, their experiences with our congregational power structure for funding missions had been bitter! They talked of how often they were confronted and confounded with personal agendas, pettiness, over-control, micro-management—all power-mongering. It broke my heart to hear them talk, but I could not offer any rebuttal.
My conclusion is that we need a model that separates power and money! That is where we will go with the next few posts, so stay with me!
Mark's Blog 
[…] Part 9 Mark raises the question: “Blowing up missions committees?” Here are what I see as the […]
There are many other changes going on besides trying to change missions and how we do it! You talk about elders, but many larger churces now have a shepard concept and these guys don’t make decisions about who to hire. This is just one example. Spirit driven lives is another big issure. I think more needs to be done about leting God make the decisions. It is, after all, His work and eventually He will decide.
Changing the CofC process of missions would be difficult and need organization. Since we don’t have organization, who would we trust? Maybe going more to the PBT (Pioneer Bible Translators) concept would be good. They are planting churces in varied fields as well as translating. We would have to overcome our fear of a central organizaton.
Mark – I feel your frustration. I think most all CofC’s would welcome a “here’s how you support international missions” step by step guide. So far we have little out there folks can use as the “go to” guide how to do this.
First a mission’s team is more effective than asking and eldership to oversee International Missions (IM). Elder’s will be so stretched by competing agendas that they’ll never pay attention to it.
Elder’s will, 9 times out of 10, pass oversight to a deacon. Then it’s buried and never brought before the congregation.
There’s no practical way a whole congregation can oversee IM’s…that’s where a Mission Team comes in.
Here’s what we do: 1) The MT is schooled on cutting edge mission philosophy and thinking. 2) The MT gets all financial expenditures approved by the elders. 3) the MT hosts at least a once a year “World Mission Emphasis” Sunday. 4) The MT is in charge of making sure gifts and blessing efforts are regularly sent/given to our mission folks. 5) The MT also sets a narrow “World Mission Vision” that helps guide what works this church will or will not contribute to.
At Lakewood our Vision is to contribute to 3rd World church planting works led by indigenous leaders. That’s a narrow scope…but we don’t contribute to 1st world works, or 3rd world works led by Americans…that sort of thing. That vision was hammered out by the leadership and membership. We cut two other 1st world works out because the 3rd world work we’re focusing on is expanding so rapidly.
Also…it might be that church size mandates the amount of appropriate attention they can give to what number of works. We find that a church of 300 is hard pressed to give appropriate attention to more than 1 work. We also feature many special fund raising events for incremental items such as bicycles for church planters, school fees for individual students…that sort of thing.
Churches would benefit from a “here’s how you do it” manual with step by step info on how to support world missions.
Thanks for your thoughts
Reg
Thank you, Reg. You are going to see that your model is moving in the same direction that I am thinking as well. Thank you for sharing it with me.