I never financially supported missionaries until I became one. I don’t know if that sounds weird or logical, but it’s true. Why would I say it’s logical? Well, it wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that my heart broke for lost people, but when it did something changed in the way I viewed missions and also the way I viewed finances as time went on. I heard a lot of tribal missionaries speak about the needs for “goers” and a greater need for senders while we were in training. Now that we are out of training I have a lot of friends that are going and we all still have that need for senders. I understand what they are doing and I know where their hearts are. The result is, I want to support all of them. We have spoken at a couple mission conferences in the past year and we have met other missionaries, and I want to support all of them also.
I believe that the act of supporting a missionary is or should be a result of a Biblical process I call “belief = obedience”. This is seen all through scripture starting with Adam naming his wife Eve and then having kids after they were booted out of the garden. Then we see it very clearly with Abel bringing a better sacrifice than Cain. Then again with Noah and Abraham and Moses and on and on. Look at this idea of “belief = obedience”. Anytime you have one without the other it gets weird, or maybe even dangerous. Christ desires to work through hearts transformed by biblical principles, not outward behaviors transformed by rules. Belief must always come first and biblical belief comes from knowing who God is.
Times have changed since the days of Billy Graham where churches were all about giving to a cause that’s sole purpose was to put the gospel out there. Now, everything is about a project. That’s not all bad but it may not be all good either. Perhaps everything is about quick completion of projects that I can see my money be a direct part of because we don’t have the same heart for the lost soul. Now this is not a blanket statement. I know a lot of people that have a burning desire to reach lost people. However, most of them are missionaries. Don’t believe me? Go to your next prayer meeting at church or small group and just listen to the prayer requests. Again they will not be bad, but count how many of them are for the salvation of lost people.
I don’t have an answer to any of this accept to re-evaluate my own life constantly and keep things biblical. I can however, summarize by sharing a story about a friend of mine. I met this friend a little less than a year ago. He didn’t know God but through our time together it became clear that he wanted to know God. He had never read the Bible before and could not understand why I wanted to move to Senegal West Africa. We spent a lot of time together one day reading through portions of the Bible chronologically. We discussed a lot of stuff and asked each other a lot of questions. By the end of our time together that day, he communicated to me that he now understood why I wanted to go to Africa and that he wanted to support us financially. This was not part of my agenda. We had not even mentioned the great commission in the context of tribal missions that day. After realizing the miracle of salvation and the urgency of lost souls, his reaction was to help however he could. That is the kind of work that God does in a person. Not rules, not pressure, but God transforming people through His word.
Do you have a concern for the lost people of this world? Do you accept it as part of your identity in Christ to be an active participant in reaching the unreached people groups of the world? Belief + Obedience = Glory to God!