David Platt had a live stream question and answer session earlier this week. Here are some subjects covered. I appreciate his efforts to be available and to communicate with Southern Baptists. The link is to the Baptist Press article reporting on it.
— “Has any thought been given to changing the funding model of IMB missionaries?”
Platt said he hopes some IMB missionaries will be “totally self-funded,” travelling overseas as students in international universities, business professionals employed by corporations and retirees funded by their own savings and U.S. government programs. He also raised the possibility of fully-funded IMB church planters expanding to a mobilization model where business professionals on their church planting teams “begin to pull together” and “actually begin to support the fulltime church planter much like we support a pastor here.“
Another possibility is for churches to utilize the IMB’s existing GC2 (Great Commission Global Connect) and SBC Direct programs to fund specific missionaries outside traditional cooperative funding channels.
“I know as soon as I mention that,” Platt said, “there are a lot of questions that come up just along the lines of: What does that do when it comes to Cooperative Program or Lottie Moon or your giving? We have closely monitored that. The churches that are sending people through those pathways have actually increased their giving to the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon as they’ve sent more missionaries.
The GC2 program has been around for a few years. What was said at its beginning was:
Through GC2, IMB will partner with a Southern Baptist church that is focused on engaging a people group or population segment in an indigenous church planting strategy, and as a part of that strategy sends and supports missionaries from its own fellowship for two to three years.
IMB will walk alongside the church, providing field strategy development, personnel selection criteria and process, training, administrative support, and supervision of the church-sent missionary as a part of an IMB-directed team.
SBC Direct is not something easily assessed. I hear the terms often but can’t find online explanations. Maybe I’m just inept and some savvy individual can bail me out on this.
The reason that this is an interesting and relevant subject is that if we are resetting IMB operations and approaches and are utilizing more non-traditional funding mechanisms, the question is raised about how this impacts the two giant funding engines for our international mission work – the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon. If churches can take their own mission money and arrange with IMB to fund specific missions and personnel, will the churches shift their CP and LM gifts to do so?
Not a lot is said about this but Platt is keenly attuned to the issue. For now he says that the money flows are “closely monitored” and that LM and CP have increased in churches involved in those programs.
I’d like to see figures on it.
Interesting days ahead. I appreciate Platt’s attempts to stay connected with the hoi polloi.
When church members feel a disconnect between their missions giving and where it is used, they give less. Having an immediately accessible missionary being supported directly from their giving would naturally increase their giving. So many churches have dropped the ball in missions education, favoring Awanas over GA and RA. The younger generations are simply not understanding or having compassion for the amount of lost people around the world. How much of this is related to our missions education? I don’t know about your association, but in mine the average giving to LM per worship attendee last year was $25. That is not giving sacrificially. Especially considering how much the average family spends on Christmas presents. I think LM and CP are the best channels for missions giving for small churches who could never manage to afford supporting a missionary.
Your last sentence is my conclusion as well.
The non-trad funding programs have the common theme of more direct connection to the churches. I never had a problem finding stateside imb people to come to my churches but the church has to take the initiative.
The missions paradigm is shifting and the CP is having a hard time shifting with it. Why wait to have a missionary on furlough come and speak when you can have one Skype in from the filed- along with nationals who are becoming followers of Jesus? Further, why would the IMB not be facilitating such an exchange?
Another factor, many younger evangelicals are seeing and understanding the value of indigenous workers over stateside “experts.” This is the result of overseas trips to do mission work, the increasing multi-culturalism in the US where nationals talk about the issues with US missionaries not wanting to cede control to nationals in their home countries (not just IMB, but missionaries in general), and a greater understanding by the people in the pew of the importance of making the Gospel connect to a culture. This is one of the reasons why I see value in Platt’s plan to use businesspeople, short termers, and church partnerships. Training people who live in these cultures is far superior to “experts” telling the nationals what to do.
Finally, and probably most importantly, is the shifting nature of work in the US among Millennials. I hire them regularly in my work. They like change. They like to change jobs, companies, locations. That does not lead to long term missionaries on the field- at least not in the same place. Further, with crowdsourcing, they can raise their own funds without relying on any organization for sole funding, or being bound by “rules” or “agreements” that they don’t completely agree with. (I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it’s a reality.)
Platt seems to grasp all of these realities and is trying to position the IMB to capitalize on them, or at least weather them.
Awana is an outstanding organization and includes missions education as a key part of its program. I don’t believe that churches that choose Awana have dropped the ball at all.
I largely agree, Todd. Awana is an awesome program.
Our church uses Awana and you are correct there is a strong missions emphasis. However, it is very possible to to “drop the ball” on the cooperative program and SBC missions emphasis without extra effort. This is shortcoming that that I am currently working on at our church.
Awana is a creditable children’s program and I started and used it in my last church for a number of years. It is inferior as an SBC missions education tool even if an SBC church makes an effort to overlay SBC missions education on it. Awana’s mission education has nothing to do with SBC missions and they push their own mssys at the training events.
On balance, I think I would avoid it today and go with similar, improved SBC products. My successor ditched it, a good move partly because its effectiveness had run its course.
Yes, it’s not designed to be a primary missions tool — Awana’s emphasis is Scripture memory and evangelism.
I will be bringing a motion to the floor of the Convention this year requesting, given its popularity among SBC churches, that Lifeway and our missions agencies explore a direct partnership with Awana.
I think that was explored in the past, but I think AWANA was the hangup there. We wanted to tweak the program for SBC churches and they wanted it it stay as it was.
Awana is great – but rigid. I don’t remember a partnership being explored – but what Miller says sounds credible if one were. They don’t like customizing thier product.
Now if they thought they would lose SBC churches without such a partnership – I think they would come around very quickly considering Southern Baptist churches or among their largest constituency.
But I just do not see vast numbers of Southern Baptist churches who use Awana ditching it and moving to “team kid” or back to RA’s and GA’s.
Awana’s position in that regard has changed. They are much more flexible these days. In fact, it appears they have done a 180 in this regard and are even encouraging churches to adapt the program to their particular context.
Cool. We used to use the program, but devised a new one of our own – kind of a hybrid of several different ones.
Yes Dave…I cannot remember the year, but definitely remember the discussion
We are also praying about adding Mission Friends / KOM to our weekly line up.
Interesting information about GC2 and SBC Direct. Does anyone know what the difference is between the two programs? Do y’all see that as the future of IMB Missions or as an increased emphasis of the IMB?
I am wondering the same thing rose, Rose. Like in the original post, I can’t find anything online about SBC Direct. The BP article mentions it in passing, but I can’t find anything on it anywhere else.