jeremywallace.net

Something must change with how we do Independent Baptist Missions. The current process is a colossal failure. This has not always been the case, but as the church climate has changed, the process of getting missionaries to the field has not adapted. Currently, the average missionary makes about 150 phone calls to schedule one meeting at a church. They have to schedule about 4 meetings in order to gain one supporting church. The average monthly support by a church is only $50 per month. Let’s say that the average support a missionary family needs is $5,000 per month. If these numbers represent the average, here is what they mean:

• Each missionary family needs 100 supporting churches.
• They have to visit several hundred churches to get the needed support.
• They end up making thousands and thousands of phone calls to get enough meetings to result in enough support.

There are some other concerning points.

• It takes a missionary family close to three years to get to the foreign field.
• The process of deputation can cost over $100,000 (some estimate the cost to be $250,000).
• The number of Independent Baptist Churches is declining. Our movement is decaying away to nothing (‘why’ is a topic for another day).
• Many of the Independent Baptist Churches that are left are stagnant and instead of the missions program growing, it is declining.
• If this trend continues (and, at this point, there is no reason to think it will not) the pool of Independent Baptist churches will be even smaller and the process will take even longer.
• It would not surprise me if in 10 years the average length of deputation is over 5 years and if the average cost is $250,000 – $500,000.

This is all in an effort to get the missionary family to the place to begin their missions ministry on the field. If we are called to be good stewards of the time and resources that God has given us, and we are,we must be good stewards in the area of missions. Currently, we are not.

The process of deputation is simply too long and too costly. I have heard some say that deputation doesn’t need to be changed because it was the time when God taught them so much and grew their faith. I don’t doubt that at all. But let’s not put God in a box and say that He can’t teach people and grow their faith in a more effective and beneficial deputation process. It’s like a member in a church standing up and giving a testimony as to how God has taught them about finances and grown their faith through their bankruptcy, and then the church designing a program to usher people through bankruptcy. After all, God uses that to strengthen people’s faith and teach them about finances. Just because God uses something that does not mean that it is the most beneficial, logical, and prudent process to reach the goal.

We cannot wait for the problem to get worse; change needs to be made now. So what needs to change? Honestly, I don’t have all the answers, but it is something to which I am giving a lot of thought. Here are a few things that would help immediately.

(1) Pastors, only bring missionaries to your church if you have the ability and intent to take them on for monthly support. It is foolish to ask missionaries to drive all over the country to attend the beauty contest that we call a mission conference. Do your research up front. Meet with the missionary family up front. Determine up front if you can and want to support this family. If you can only support two families, then only bring two families to your conference. You don’t have to have a big missions conference (many missionary families) to have an effective missions conference.

(2) Pastors, focus on quality, not on quantity. If you could either support 100 missionaries at $25 per month or 25 missionaries at $100 per month, you should pick the fewer missionaries at the higher amount every time. Too many pastors are more concerned with being able to brag about how many missionaries they support rather than doing what is best for the missionary and the church. Supporting a lot of missionaries at a small amount benefits no one.

(3) Pastors, sometimes you can be too independent for your own good. Let’s be willing to work together to get missionaries to the field. Every pastor has friends who are pastors. If you have a missionary family that you would like to see get to the field, call your pastor friends. Help the missionaries schedule some meetings. Independent does not mean isolated. Our over-emphasis of being independent is truly detrimental to the work of Christ in many areas, that includes missions.

There are some other more drastic changes that may need to be considered, but let’s start with these simple adjustments. If we were willing to make these simple changes we could cut the cost of and time of deputation in half, missionaries could get to the field sooner, and ultimately there would be more souls saved. Isn’t that the goal?