| abstract | To respond to Christ's lasting command according to the book of Acts 1:8, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes on you; and you will be my witness in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" the American Baptist Churches – USA (ABC-USA)
has realized the need to take the word of God and the love of God to the four corners of the world. To be efficient in both its global and home missions, the
ABC-USA has created the American Baptist International Ministries, the oldest Baptist mission agency commonly known as IM. For the past two
centuries, IM has successfully carried out missionary ministries by sending hundreds of missionaries to the most vulnerable areas of the world: those
areas mired by social injustice, natural disaster, human trafficking, economic crisis, political instability, and unbelief. To secure the future of IM
finances, to survive calamities like the 2008 financial crisis and to meet church needs, IM re-strategized the way missionary ministries were funded.
IM would no longer underwrite mission related expenses; instead, IM missionaries would have to raise funds for their calling to serve in those
ministries. In other words, today, IM missionaries are self-funded. It's true that the missionary ministry is a calling just like pastoral ministry;
yet, unlike pastors, IM missionaries now must raise the funds for their ministries. The requirement of fund-raising causes some missionaries to shy
away from the missionary call, and others to drop out in the middle of the fund-raising race. Some struggle for years to raise the support, and still others
seem to raise funds without much effort. Perhaps there is a better mission funding model to which God has called the church, to sustain IM financially,
help missionaries alleviate the fund-raising burden in one hand and help donors to see mission funding itself as their ministry on the other hand.
So, in this project we gathered donors, missionaries, and IM staff to hear their stories. Stories we shared, and stories we heard from the Bible
compelled us to explore and challenge the IM's missionary fund-raising status quo, and also to suggest a model that might alleviate missionaries'
anxiety, boost individuals' and churches' mission funding supports, and make IM missionary ministries more fruitful. |
