With all the problems in the world, we often question who to help and how to help them. We worry about giving and having our hard-earned money being mis-spent.
As a child I learned that the money Baptists give to missions is one of the best ways to give and be assured the assistance we give makes all the difference in the world–the difference between clean water and filthy contaminated water. Southern Baptist have been digging wells, stocking streams with fish, and teaching agriculture skills to get more bountiful crops for decades. We have annual offerings for all kinds of things. Hunger Funds, Baptist Children’s Homes, Associational ministries, State Missions, Home Missions, and Foreign Missions. I learned all these things in missions groups and Vacation Bible School. Southern Baptists have the means to reach people in disaster situations and hundreds of countries. We train Disaster Relief teams to go into storm-ravaged towns and assist people with food, clothing, water, and the Gospel message.
When reports are given at the Convention each year, the messengers are told multiple stories of where the money is going. Sadly, many of these reports are poorly attended as I understand it. Therefore, few pastors can return and pass on the information they learned to their respective churches. Our Baptist papers give reports. Who reads them? I wonder how many Southern Baptist churches today don’t bother to teach missions to children and teens. As a member in a small New England church in the late ’70’s, we taught how the Cooperative Program supported hospitals, missionaries, teachers, seminaries, seminary students, church plants. We witnessed summer missionaries come to our church and teach Backyard Bible classes in our neighborhoods. We learned of Sojourners commissioned to various places around the world in service for our Lord.
I am old. I am settled. And I am saddened. Some advocate new systems to educate our children about the Bible and the doctrines of our faith. Discipleship Training use to be the place to learn those things. So many voices seem to say the CP is no longer the viable method of reaching the world for Christ. 10,000 missionaries around the world might have a different opinion of that. Without our support they would not be offering hope to those in Japan right this minute. David Brumbelow of Gulfcoast Pastor has written an excellent post entitled “How To Give To Japan Disaster Relief” that all SB pastors ought to consider promoting. But with all the talking heads on television and the ads for giving to Star-a-thons and the Red Cross, will people listen?
“And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” Matthew 13:58
I think part of the problem with today’s “young and relative” message is the need to “feel” their faith rather than act upon the faith they are given. Faithful obedience is the back on which emotion rides. When we are faithful stewards of God’s blessings, we give to God and rest in His grace to multiply His kingdom. Jesus was known for multiplying what little others gave Him and making it go farther than anyone could imagine. However, there was a time in His home town when “He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” Matthew 13:58.
Notice it was not their lack funds, or of knowledge or feeling, but their lack of faith. I’m sure glad Jesus didn’t base His mission to go to Calvary on how He felt about hanging on a cross in the noonday sun for the billions He had not personally shook hands with and handed a cup of rice.
Do we need to hand a Bible to every person in the world? Yes. Will more be handed out if we give money to people who can mass-distribute them, or by lugging around a knapsack on our backs? Will my two-week mission trip to Peru, Uganda, or Japan make a difference in the lives of the lost? Of course, but will the thousands of dollars for expenses for my trip be more effectively used by a missionary who is already trained in the language and well-versed in the culture of those places? If the latter is true, I’m sure the reward my Savior brings in His hand will be sufficient enough to quell any ooey-gooey temporal feeling I might miss today.
May God open our hearts to understand what we give may not necessarily make us feel good about our own involvement. We may feel disconnected from the work of His servants abroad. We may never see the fruit till we meet them in Heaven. But if we are faithful to what He calls us to do, we will be like the church in Macedonia and Thessaloniki and give from our lack so others will be blessed.
Give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. Give to Lottie Moon. Give to the Cooperative Program.
Pure Water, Pure Love is one outreach program that the Woman’s Missionary Union promotes to help bring clean water to nations where disease and pollution is rampant. Just thought I’d mention it. Have a fund-drive to dig a well somewhere. You’ll be just as involved with that as if you’d be shoveling the dirt.
[This was first published at SBC Encounters by Hariette Petersen]
That whole relevance thing is tough, Hariette. I want to speak a language that the youth culture understands, but I don’t want to sacrifice truth on the altar of relevance.
Tough world for us old fogeys, isn’t it?
Well, I’m sure our forefathers thought the same thing when we were running around worship the Beatles and Elvis Presley. I think we are most relevant when we love Jesus with abandon. Kids are just like we were. They want genuine love, forgiveness, acceptance, and correction. They want boundaries and truth.
But I find that relevance is more about one’s relationship with Jesus than it is with what is hot or not in culture. We need to love them as Jesus loved. He doesn’t change. He’s always relevant. selahV
I think you are right. The issue is not always relevance, but sincerity and passion.
Is that what I said? LOL. 🙂 I think the issue is always relevance–but Christians find their relevance and purpose, not in what we do, but Whose we are. Sometimes we turn that around. When we get side-tracked with “our” relevance, we lose sight of “His”. It’s kind of like when Jesus says, “I have this one thing against you, you have lost your first love”.
Harriette,
The points you have made are good, but they may actually point to a different missions model than the one used by Southern Baptists, such as the one used by Gospel for Asia. (yes, I know no one does it better than Southern Baptists)
Bill Mac, Hi! Thanks for commenting. Which points point to Gospel for Asia that don’t directly point to the SBC missions model? Praise the Lord for anyone proclaiming the Gospel and taking it anywhere, including Asia. selahV
Hariette,
GFA does not send American missionaries (or at least, that is not their main model). GFA raises up and trains indigenous missionaries, people who are already fluent in the language, part of the culture, and able to live on the local wage scale. Also, 100% of money given for missions is used for missions. None of it is used for administration.
I know you had SBC missions in mind when you made your points and you are correct. I just wanted to point out an alternative (and in some cases perhaps better?) model that may exemplify your points even better.
Bill Mac, that is a good thing that GFA is doing. However, the Americans that go to mission fields, the missionaries, are there to build up that very thing. Pastors, teachers, leaders, men and women who are indigenous to their area and help them share the gospel message in whatever way they can. I really think if you are a Southern Baptist, you ought to be made aware of the missions that we have and what we do with that money.
And the millions that are collected in the Special Offerings of Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong is given directly to the mission efforts around the world. None of those millions goes to administration costs.
I don’t know much about the GFA but do you know how many missionaries they have? Do you know what they have collected and where it is being spent and how? just wondering. I’d love to know. hariette
Thank you, Hariette. Very well said!
Thanks, Mary Ann, whoever you are. May God richly bless you. selahV
Hariette,
Thanks for the reference to Gulf Coast Pastor. I pray many will give to SBC Disaster Relief.
You’ve made some very good points. I do not criticize mission trips; I think they’re great. But if you have a choice between sending a thousand dollars through the Cooperative Program or Lottie Moon, or spending a thousand on a plane ticket for a two week mission trip – I think the first option will usually have the most long lasting benefits.
None should ever criticize the church who, as I have heard a time or two, “Does nothing but send mission money.” Every church can do more, but that church that “sends mission money” is doing well.
David R. Brumbelow
David, I don’t want to denigrate any person who goes to help in mission areas on mission trips. Our church does all kinds of those things. But it still gives to missions through the Cooperative Program. I think what is disturbing in many SB churches today is the neglect to teach missions to our children. Mission education helps create an environment in which people can hear the call for missions. It helps instill in a child’s heart a desire to reach beyond themselves. But, most importantly…pray. Every missionary I have ever heard speak has placed prayer as their number one request of us. When God’s people pray for the needs of missionaries, they are moved to give time, money and hearts. Some of the stories that missionaries tell of miracles that occur on their birthdays because so many are praying for them on that day are amazing, bone-chilling, and incredible.
I believe when we all reach heaven we will wonder why we didn’t pray more. It helps to encourage children, teens, and adults to pray for the missionaries. To me, the main reason the SBC is the SBC is to support missions and go, tell, baptize, and teach. But that’s just how I, and old fogey, sees the mission of the SBC. Don’t know that my voice is all that relevant in the scheme of things. But I’ll keep tootin’ this horn till the Lord takes my breath away or paralyzes my fingertips. selahV