How do you define good stewardship?
I have always been one to try to get the most for my hard earned dollar. That practice has carried over into my giving, especially to missions.
I think this can be summed up with an experience that we had recently. Ruth and I were visiting a church close to home one sunday and they had a young family who asked to give the church their mission vision.
They felt that God was calling them to go to Japan as missionaries. They were in the process of trying to raise support money for their living and traveling expenses. They were visiting churches soliciting supporters.
After church I talked with the young man and asked him some questions. The first was how much do you need to raise? His answer was , "We need a minimum of $7,000.00 per month, but $8-9,000.00 would be ideal. I was not surprised because this is the average expectation for most American misssionary families. They need rent money, and they want to live in fairly nice accomadations, most of them need domestic help, a cleaning woman and or cook. They need medical insurance, life insurance, and a retirement plan. Then they need to be saving money so they can return home occasionally to shore up their support because supporters become disenchanted along the way and they need replacements. Well, the expenses go on and on becausse they need private education for their children, language schools, some have drivers, gardeners, and of course a couple of vehicles. Hey, I am not kidding, I have met several of these poor folks suffering on the "Mission Field."
Back to this young man that I was talking to. "What do you plan to do once you get to Japan , I asked? "I need to go to language school for the first two years." "And if you are not fluent in Japanise after two years," I retorted, "Then I will have to hire an intrepreter," was his response.
Numbers were started to roll around in my mind about then. Here is what I was thinking. "The church or several churches are going to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $168,000.00 to who knows what, to send this couple to language school and then who knows if they will be able to communicate effectively.
My last question was the clincher, "What will be your ministry once you get established? "We want to develop relationships with the people," was his answer.
Needless to say I didn't sign on to be one of his supporters and I walked away warning myself not to get cynical and let the chips fall where they fall. If people want to invest in this type of ministry, they can go for it, but there are more practical ways to invest in missions where the investment is lower and the return is higher.
My approach is to let the native born Christians, who speak the language, know the culture, have reasonable expectations for housing and all other living expenses, and are already living there do the work.
In some countries, $50.00 per month will support a pastor and his family.
Ruth and I send $200.00 per month to a pastor in Kenya and that supports the church along with his family. We will be cutting that back to $100.oo per month this fall and within a year stop supporting him as he will have his church self supporting.
How many native missionaries could we support for $84,000.00 per year including building them new church buildings?
Enough said!
I have always been one to try to get the most for my hard earned dollar. That practice has carried over into my giving, especially to missions.
I think this can be summed up with an experience that we had recently. Ruth and I were visiting a church close to home one sunday and they had a young family who asked to give the church their mission vision.
They felt that God was calling them to go to Japan as missionaries. They were in the process of trying to raise support money for their living and traveling expenses. They were visiting churches soliciting supporters.
After church I talked with the young man and asked him some questions. The first was how much do you need to raise? His answer was , "We need a minimum of $7,000.00 per month, but $8-9,000.00 would be ideal. I was not surprised because this is the average expectation for most American misssionary families. They need rent money, and they want to live in fairly nice accomadations, most of them need domestic help, a cleaning woman and or cook. They need medical insurance, life insurance, and a retirement plan. Then they need to be saving money so they can return home occasionally to shore up their support because supporters become disenchanted along the way and they need replacements. Well, the expenses go on and on becausse they need private education for their children, language schools, some have drivers, gardeners, and of course a couple of vehicles. Hey, I am not kidding, I have met several of these poor folks suffering on the "Mission Field."
Back to this young man that I was talking to. "What do you plan to do once you get to Japan , I asked? "I need to go to language school for the first two years." "And if you are not fluent in Japanise after two years," I retorted, "Then I will have to hire an intrepreter," was his response.
Numbers were started to roll around in my mind about then. Here is what I was thinking. "The church or several churches are going to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $168,000.00 to who knows what, to send this couple to language school and then who knows if they will be able to communicate effectively.
My last question was the clincher, "What will be your ministry once you get established? "We want to develop relationships with the people," was his answer.
Needless to say I didn't sign on to be one of his supporters and I walked away warning myself not to get cynical and let the chips fall where they fall. If people want to invest in this type of ministry, they can go for it, but there are more practical ways to invest in missions where the investment is lower and the return is higher.
My approach is to let the native born Christians, who speak the language, know the culture, have reasonable expectations for housing and all other living expenses, and are already living there do the work.
In some countries, $50.00 per month will support a pastor and his family.
Ruth and I send $200.00 per month to a pastor in Kenya and that supports the church along with his family. We will be cutting that back to $100.oo per month this fall and within a year stop supporting him as he will have his church self supporting.
How many native missionaries could we support for $84,000.00 per year including building them new church buildings?
Enough said!
posted by Jim Burton at 7:44 AM
1 Comments:
Dear brothers and sisters, my greetings every one in the organisation,my name is chinnam naidu from india.i am a pastor working from 5 years with out any financial support,we need support because we have two children and also my church members are very poor. they are also depends on me for their needs,we working in tribal area. if we get support from you, we want to plant more churches in my area.please reply me with blessings.we wait for your reply.
with greetings
pastor..chinnam naidu
india.
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