Questions About Support Raising
August 18th, 2005
Assemblies of God missionaries are not allowed to begin their mission until they have assembled a team of churches and individuals willing to fund their ministry. This often confuses people, so below you’ll find the answer to some common questions.
Can you give me a quick explanation?
There is a consistent principle taught in the Scriptures: ministers should be paid by the people of God. In this regard, there are two broad categories of ministers: pastors, who are paid by the local congregations they serve, and missionaries, who are paid by others than the ones they are ministering to.
Chi Alpha Campus workers are missionaries. The reason for this is very simple: college students don’t have any money! In addition, the college scene in America is as pagan as any place on earth, so there are few who would be willing to pay Christian workers even if they did have the resources to do so. (For more on this, please read Do Universities Really Need Missionaries?)
For this reason, then, Chi Alpha Campus Missionaries are required to build a support team to aid them in their minstry. Part of that support is prayer, part of it is emotional/relational support, and part of it is financial support.
Is this Biblical?
Yes! For more please read the Biblical Basis for Support Raising.
Why doesn’t the church pay you?
The church is paying us. The church is not a building, the church is the people!
Right, but why doesn’t your denomination pay you a salary?
If the denomination salaries missionaries, the money has to come from somewhere–and that somewhere is the churches. Effectively, it becomes a tax on churches. Historically denominations that tax churches this way have fewer missionaries–nobody likes to pay taxes, not even churches. Raising support by contacting friends and family is a far more effective strategy.
It’s a scalable system. Every new missionary is required to generate the funds necessary for their own ministry. No matter how many missionaries we have, we can always have more because there’s no fixed allotment that all the missionaries have to compete for scraps of. Raising support also requires the minister to build a network of relationships which keeps them accountable and helps to motivate the missionary to work diligently. If you know that your friends are paying part of your salary, you’re much less inclined to goof off.
In addition, missionaries beget missionaries. Most missionaries become missionaries through contact with another missionary. Support raising forces missionaries to develop relationships that ultimately will result in the production of new missionaries.
Why do you have to raise your full budget first?
Because the Assemblies of God wants long-term success, not one-shot wonders. If missionaries reach their fields before they raise their full support, they are much more likely to fail at their task. They become consumed with their work, and they eventually reach a point where they must either quit, take a part time job, or live in unhealthy conditions. None of these things is conductive to long-term ministry. By forcing missionaries to raise their budgets in full, the A/G contributes greatly to their longevity in ministry. By contributing to longevity, they contribute to effectiveness.
Longevity aside, insufficent funding has immediate implications. Without a full budget, the ability of a missionary to minister is compromised. A missionary’s budget is not just a salary! It’s actually the full organizational budget for a ministry. Out of that budget comes a salary and work expenses: without work expenses ministry opportunities have to be passed up. Like everything else, minstry requires money.
Who oversees the finances?
I am accountable to Assemblies of God U.S. Missions. All funds are routed through them in order to provide financial oversight for the missionaries.
How do I begin supporting your ministry?
Just follow these instructions.
Entry Filed under: Stanford Chi Alpha Updates