How Missions Is A Partnership

I some­times con­cep­tu­al­ize mis­sions as a stool sup­port­ed by three legs: pro­claimers, providers, and pray-ers (or for a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent set of labels we could use inter­ces­sion, invest­ment, and involve­ment). With­out any one of these legs, mis­sions sim­ply can­not be sus­tained.

Which leads into my point… you may have noticed that we pre­fer the term ‘part­ner’ to ‘donor’ in our con­ver­sa­tions and in our writ­ing. This pref­er­ence emerged from a study of how min­istry was fund­ed in the Bible. A crys­tal-clear con­vic­tion emerged: God con­sid­ers those who con­tribute finan­cial­ly to min­istry to have a share in that min­istry! Con­sid­er, for exam­ple, 3 John 8:

There­fore we ought to sup­port such peo­ple, so that we may become co-work­ers with the truth.

Echo­ing the same theme, Paul says the Philip­pi­ans are shar­ing in the gospel (Philip­pi­ans 1.5).

This is why we talk about build­ing a sup­port team rather than rais­ing funds. The empha­sis is on the rela­tion­ships and not on the mon­ey.

Even more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, how­ev­er, it forces us to remem­ber that those who decide to aid us finan­cial­ly are, in actu­al­i­ty, join­ing us in our min­istry: they become co-work­ers with us.

How so? Think of it this way: your mon­ey is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of your life: it is what you get in exchange for time at work. By giv­ing of that, it is as though you were tak­ing time and serv­ing on the mis­sion field!

It’s kind of amaz­ing when you think about it. We all have a part to play in the King­dom of God. Some of us work in office build­ings, some of us work in homes, and some of us work in church­es, but we all work togeth­er. All are nec­es­sary for God’s work to go for­ward.