SYZYGY MISSIONS SUPPORT NETWORK

Raising financial support is something that most of us working in the missions sector have to do, and yet few of us find it easy.  It is always a challenging issue.  It’s something we all need, and everyone knows we need, and yet it’s something we can find it difficult to talk about.  Options range between not talking about it at all, via aggressive fundraising, to self-supporting.  There isn’t necessarily a best option, or a right one, but the answer may depend on your theology or the attitude of the organisation you’re serving with.

There are three principal approaches to bringing in funds from outside (other than generating them yourself).  The George Müller approach involves telling nobody what is required, simply relying on God to provide, since he already knows your needs.  Müller built a massive orphanage complex in Bristol housing 2000 orphans using this approach, but it’s not for everyone.  Hudson Taylor, who was inspired by Müller, set a precedent for his organisation of answering questions about the needs, but stopping short of asking directly for money.  D L Moody was quite happy making a direct appeal to people for funding, and raised large amounts by this method, which remains popular in the USA and in US-influenced organisations.

It is important to realise that all of these methods are based on our trust in God, even the latter, which though requiring our active participation in the process, still recognises that the funds come from God motivating other people to give.  I personally have trusted God for my income for over 10 years (sometimes through paid employment which God provides) and I have never lacked for anything I needed.  Perhaps if we find our funds don’t stretch far enough, we should start by reassessing what our needs really are.

In Matthew 17:24-27 we find that Peter had a problem.  He needed to pay tax but he didn’t have the money.  So he goes to discuss the matter with Jesus.  But Jesus already knew what the problem was, even before Peter said anything.  He told Peter to go fishing.  Peter could do that.  He was used to it.  So he went and did what he was told to do.  He didn’t worry about the problem.  He just got on with the job.  As he did so, Jesus provided the money.

The significant points of this story are, for me:

1. Jesus knows what the problem is
2. Jesus might want us to learn a lesson in the process, but he provides what we need
3. We participate in the solution (whether you interpret that as by prayer, or by working)
4. We get on with our work

These are incredibly difficult times for mission workers financially.  Churches are cutting back on support, individuals are reducing giving as they feel financially squeezed, the pound has lost a lot of its value and inflation in many host countries is high.  I know many of us whose income has fallen by almost 50% in real terms in the last few years.  The outlook is gloomy, from this perspective.

Yet one has to wonder how small our God is if he cannot overcome a financial crisis.  Even in these challenging circumstances there are many stories of God miraculously providing.  As we and our supporters make sacrifices, God is able to use us.  As I discovered with my recent mission trip to Brazil, God provided every penny I needed, and more, so that I could generously bless the children I went to work with.  All thanks to the generosity of my supporters, and the generous God who motivates them.

So when we approach the challenge of fundraising, let us start by stirring up our trust in the generous God who loves us, called us, equipped us, and will provide for all our needs, and (as we learn in Philippians 4) all the needs of those who give sacrificially to support us.

A fuller discussion of fundraising methods is found as part of our online guides to doing missions well: click here.

Effective prayer?

I was struck recently by a video I saw of some Christians in Denmark who roam the streets looking for sick people to pray for.  Their approach was unassuming, they didn’t make a big issue of it, but lots of people were being healed.  There were lots of shots of people throwing away crutches and walking unaided without pain.  There was no prior explanation of who Jesus is, how he saves, how he heals.  They just asked if they could pray.

What struck me most however were their very simple prayers.  They didn’t shout, command healing, rebuke Satan, or use any of the other spectacular techniques that we have come across.  They prayed a simple prayer: Jesus, we thank you that you can heal.  We ask you to heal this person now and take away all the pain.  Thank you.

This of course, is not a new approach.  Jesus told his disciples not to pray like pagans, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words (Matthew 6:7).  He taught them that God will answer quickly (Luke 18:6-8) because he is a good father who knows how to look after his children (Matthew 7:7-11).  Hudson Taylor remarked that he never forgot that his children needed food to be put on the table for them, and he had no reason to assume that God was any different than him.

Effective prayer?

Max Lucado observed, in a sermon called The Power of the Timid Prayer, that when Jesus found his disciples unable to cast out a demon, he subsequently taught them that only prayer could cast the demon out  (Mark 9:29).  Yet the only prayer recorded in this passage is the one of the boy’s father – if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us. Did he have great faith?  No, he even asked Jesus to help him believe.  Was he eloquent?  No, his prayer was a pitiful plea.  All he had in his favour was that he had asked the right person.

Have pity, he pleaded.  The underlying Greek word is much stronger than pity or compassion, closer to ‘gutted’ in modern English.  It is used selectively in the Gospels: only of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), the father of the lost son (Luke 15:20), and of Jesus on the numerous occasions when he had compassion on the lost, the poor, the sick and oppressed.  It tells us a lot about Jesus.  As the creed says, his nature is always to have mercy.

Effective prayer depends not on our faith or our eloquence, but on the mighty and compassionate God who has pity on us.

Join the Syzygy prayer network to pray for mission workers worldwide, or visit the World Prayer Map for up-to-date prayer information on specific countries.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been part of two seminars on risk.  One considered the need for charities to comply with legislation protecting children and vulnerable adults, observe employment legislation, and take out insurance against risks that can’t be entirely managed away.  The other concerned how much risk our organisations are prepared to take when sending people abroad, particularly into potentially hazardous situations.  How much does the litigious culture we live in force us to avoid some legitimate risk, refrain from sending teams to unstable places where they can make a huge difference,  and pull our staff out of dangerous situations at the very time the local people need us most?  Apparently some of the first people on the flights out of Haiti after the earthquake were mission workers.  How tragic.

Evaluating risk is something we all do on a regular basis.  We’re so accustomed to it that we don’t even think of it as such, but each time we cross the road we evaluate the risk of not walking fast enough to get all the way across before that bus hits us.  When we choose a school for our children, we’re evaluating the risk of damage to their education or personality if we get it wrong.  When we take out a pension plan our advisers ask us what our risk profile is, so that they know how to invest our funds. Most of the time, we plan for safe options.  We talk about job security, or financial independence, but what we mean is ‘safe’.  Perhaps there’s not enough risk in our lives.  One of the reasons that apparently dangerous activities like bungee jumping, tombstoning or riding on roller coasters are so popular may be because people don’t get enough adrenalin in their lives without artificially seeking it out.

Perhaps we should actually be looking to live more adventurously.  We were asked at one of the seminars ‘Does God take risks?’  The answers varied, but it was clear that over the millennia his people have done.  From Abraham setting out from the security of Ur for an as-yet-indeterminate country which he would never call home, via Paul regularly suffering beatings, stonings and shipwrecks when he could have had a pleasant life as a Jewish rabbi, to the many missionary saints and martyrs of more recent centuries, God’s people have not been known for being risk-averse.  As Hudson Taylor observed, If there is no element of risk in our endeavours for God, there is no need for faith.

When I was first planning to go and serve God in a particularly undeveloped, post-conflict country in Africa, my best friend asked me what I thought the risks were.  Before I answered him, I thought about the potential damage to my career prospects and my finances.  I wondered about the impact on my hopes to have a family.  I considered the possibility of serious health problems – or even death  – due to landmines, gunfire, malaria or car accident.  In the end I concluded that there was no risk at all… because a risk only exists where what you stand to lose is of value to you.  As that missionary martyr Jim Eliot wrote: He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.