And so also for giving to the poor in Romans 15, 25, and 26. At present, however, I'm going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. I believe there are two primary reasons that having the churches instead of individuals be the primary channel for giving to missions is the biblical model. One, to avoid the temptation on the part of churches, missionaries, or benevolence organizations to give inordinate attention to wealthy individuals and become respecters of persons, as James warns against. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, And if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there, or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? The second way is it helps to prevent the temptation to pride in the individual when he or she is noticed and courted and praised as a very large supporter of a given effort. which is an extremely dangerous snare for all of us. We are all prone to become confused by worldly favor and wealth until the Lord reorients our spiritual priorities, as he says in Revelation 3.17. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Because of these reasons, I believe that even though individuals provide the funds through the church, the local church should be the primary funnel for providing financial support to missionaries, not individuals themselves. Number seven on our outline, Now we want to look at how the financial faithfulness and stewardship of the individuals in the congregation gets translated into financial priorities for the local church, and ultimately into how the local church holds the ropes financially for its missionaries. So we made the case, individuals have an obligation to financially support the church. Now we're gonna say, When they're doing that, how does the church then prioritize the funds and use them, ultimately, how they use it to hold the ropes financially for its missionaries? Because church finances don't get much attention. It is helpful if we spend some time on how a church manages their finances and even who they select to manage them. Now, this is covered in a separate teaching, but I'm going to try to summarize it here because I think it's important to see how it all links together. The reason I'll be going into such detail is it's not a whole lot of detail. is that the financial model that is used for the local church is the same model that a missionary should use in setting up the finances of their newly planted church. This may at first seem incongruous. What can the financial model for a reformed Baptist church in the US have in common with a newly formed church on the outskirts of Calcutta? But as we go through, I believe it will become clear that the work of prioritizing the finances and the discipline to maintain the focus on the work of the ministry are the same regardless of where the church is located. Now, real quick, separating the oversight of financial matters from the ministerial part of the church is a desirable situation. but within smaller churches or church plants, it can sometimes fall to the pastor or part-time pastor or the missionary to keep watch over the funds the congregation has placed in his trust. One problem with this approach is that over time, it can reinforce a view that has been prevalent in some churches for years. That is that the pastor is the CEO of the church And this secular model does not measure up when compared to the instructions in the New Testament for pastors and elders to devote themselves to prayer, preaching, and evangelism. So while this arrangement may be unavoidable initially, over time it will very inevitably distract the pastor or missionary from his calling by taking his time to pay the bills and manage the accounts and figure out all this stuff. It may be difficult to find someone in a small congregation qualified to take over the work, but it should be a high priority since it will benefit both the pastor and the congregation. Regarding qualifications for handling the financial matters, it is important that the church be diligent in their assessment of that person that will represent the church financially to the outside world, just as the church is diligent in testing and assessing elders and missionaries. The Bible provides several example of men in the inner circle of the work of the church and omissions that end up leaving the faith for money and the allurements of the world. Judas, how's that for an example, and Demas, both in the New Testament, and even Gehazi, the assistant of Elisha in the Old Testament, all fell into the same temptation. It's not hard to see that the treasurer or the One that manages the money will be particularly susceptible to these temptations. Handling the money and dealing with those in the world who wield financial power can be a powerful distraction and a difficult test of character. Now, having established the need for a faithful treasurer, we need to look at how to establish financial priorities for the church. And it is extremely important to understand that the following discussion is for financial priorities only and doesn't seek to intrude into the determination of ministry priorities. Now, that may seem like a strange separation to make, but financial prioritization will ultimately establish the stable foundation that will enable the work of the ministry, as I'll show in just a bit. First, we must realize there are a lot of things that church could do with its money. I mean, think about it. You can pay the rent. You can go on mission trips. You can give benevolence. You can attend worship conferences. You can send money to seminaries. You can develop an online ministry. You can pay the pastor. You can develop Bible study programs. You can send money to missionaries. You can do evangelistic outreach, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that's a long list. but most smaller churches have limited financial resources, and those resources tend to fluctuate. So what are the things a church must do and what order are the other things to be prioritized when fluctuations occur? And I'm doing this because this gets us to the point of being stable enough to then support missionaries. If you're in a small church and you don't have the priorities and your finances are up and down, how in the world are we going to support a missionary? Four-step process is recommended for each local independent church to establish themselves on a stable foundation. And I'm being specific again, because it is the same foundation for a missionary to use when establishing the financial priorities for any church they end up planning. Now, like I said, there's a separate teaching on this. I'm just gonna summarize. It isn't feasible to go through each of these steps in detail, but I will briefly mention the steps and then spend some time on the resulting priorities. So the first step is to establish your church's guiding principles. You need to say, what are we going to do and not do as far as our finances? So here's some examples. We are stewards of the Lord's resources and will have to answer to Him for their use. That's a guiding principle for a church to have regarding their finances. Second guiding principle, we will pay all our bills on time. Another guiding principle, we won't contribute to missionaries, associations, or ministries that are not in line with our doctrinal beliefs. Another example, we won't contribute to any political candidates or campaigns. So these are examples that each church needs to establish for their own. Second step is I recommend that the church established for biblical financial priorities. And these I'm gonna talk about below. The use of these prioritized categories will facilitate decisions regarding the use of the limited funds the Lord has provided and will enable the work of the ministry so the church is a faithful financial witness in a very corrupt and cynical watching world. Okay, these financial priorities are number one financial priority, not ministry priority, financial priority. Provide for the pastor. Second financial priority, end the flock. Third financial priority, defend the faith. Fourth, financial priority, spread the faith. All right, we're gonna go through those in a minute. The third step then, after we've established our guiding principles and all agreed that these are the four priorities we need, the third step for a church is to apply all these expenses, what we said we could spend money on, to these priorities and establish budget amounts for them. It's important to place all of the actual and possible expenses that were listed at the beginning within the appropriate priority in a budget format. It's recommended not to add additional priorities, but to fit all the expenses that a church will face under these four priorities. Now, that may seem difficult, but we've been able to do it for seven years now, and it's worked very well to stabilize our finances. The fourth step then, after we put the guiding principles and the priorities and put our expenses into the priorities, We need to present the guiding principles, priorities, and the budget to the congregation. It will be important to clarify for them the difference between ministerial priorities and budget priorities and financial priorities. Then the budget should be shared so the congregation can provide their affirmation to the financial priorities. Now, like I mentioned, I'm going to go through these priorities. These four steps are critical for a church to become stable enough, not only to meet current obligations, but to train, equip, send, and support missionaries. But notice that the number one financial priority is to provide for the pastor. How does that get us supporting missionaries? The rationale for this is critical to understand, and we're going to spend some time on it. Just as an army cannot function without a leader, and just as a soldier does not serve at his own expense, the local church must prioritize their financial resources so that they can support a called, ordained, focused, qualified pastor that can lead and instruct the flock. ensuring that the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints is kept pure and undefiled, which is the only effective weapon the flock can use in the spread of the gospel. Again, there's more teaching about why and how to support the pastor. But I'm just going to walk you through the logic. These things hold together like a chain, much like the logic for missions Paul uses in Romans 10. How can they turn to call on him if they haven't believed? And how can they believe without hearing? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? In the case of the local church, the chain would be built like this. How can a congregation reach the lost if their message is not true and pure? And how can the message be true and pure unless it is constantly refined and defended from attack? And how can the congregation know the true message unless they're taught? And how can they be taught unless they have a trained and focused pastor? And how can they have a pastor unless they support him? Unless the chain is solid from the very beginning, With the pastor, the message in the end may not be recognizable, and spreading a false gospel is worse than foolish, hence the need for establishing these principles. This applies equally to and should be the goal of a church plant as well. aside. Yes, Paul worked to support himself when necessary, but his role as a traveling evangelist, apostle, church planner, was very different from that of a pastor of an established quote, permanent local church that has the full life cycle of their congregation from cradle to grave under their care. And Paul was careful to teach the congregations that the men who pastored these churches deserved their wages and even double honor, even as he recognized that he, as an apostle, was displayed at the end of the parade and dishonored. In chapter 26, paragraph 10 of our confession, it says that the local congregation should endeavor by all biblical means to ensure they are adequately compensating their pastor. Different views of the role of the pastor have caused some congregations to treat the pastor as a part-time resource that facilitates the Sunday morning worship service instead of understanding that he is the called herald of the Lord, accountable for the oversight of the souls in the congregation, and through them the spread of the good news in the surrounding area. Determining what constitutes adequate compensation requires an in-depth understanding of the pastor's actual situation, including his age, health, size of his family, etc. Because God doesn't provide off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all, mass-produced pastors and missionaries It is important that each congregation value their pastor in the specific ways that meet his and his family's specific needs. The pastor should be viewed as a good gift from the Lord and compensated as such, since his role is the first link in the chain we talked about. With the rationale for the number one priority of providing for the pastor understood, it should be noted that the ranking of the four priorities does not necessarily indicate the size of the budget within that priority. It may be that priority number three, defend the faith, is larger than priority number two, tend the flock, during a given season when the rent is particularly low in that time, And the pastor is providing a lot of training in the Faithful Men series. So that's Priority 2 and 3. It may be that Priority 4, Spread the Faith, becomes larger than Priority 2 and 3 for a season if we have missionaries that we're sending out. The financial priority indicates where the treasurer must ensure the finances are stable first in order to add expenses and build commitments in the other priorities. For smaller churches and newly planted churches, again, we're applying this to missions as well, The percentage of the budget devoted to the pastor's salary will be large compared with the other priorities, above 75% in some cases. But this is not a sign that the church is unconcerned about reaching the lost, but follows inevitably from the prioritization and the chain of logic previously discussed. The investment in the pastor yields a congregation that is saturated with the historical, biblical good news that they then lovingly spread to the rest of the world. If the Lord blesses the congregation with new members and giving increases, the percentage devoted to the pastor's salary will decrease, and funds will then be available for other purposes. Now, some may say this approach is too cumbersome or that it places too much trust and money and not enough faith in the Lord to provide for his church. Well, as for placing too much trust and money, this process views the financial resources of the local church as the exact amount the Lord has provided to that church to do the work he is charging them to do. And for the church not to use diligence in prioritizing how to spend it to achieve his purposes puts the church leadership at risk of being pronounced unfaithful managers. So now, how does holding the ropes for missionaries fit into this? When a church has their priorities identified and their budgets established, they are in a stable position to begin the process, I say begin the process of identifying and training qualified men for missions. This work, the training and identifying, is part of priority three, as we saw, but the church must be aware of the drain on the time and energy of the pastor and other church leaders, deacons and treasurers, as they begin the practical work of planning the attack on enemy-held land, which takes them into priority number four as well. Now, I hope you can see that. It's only now that we've been able to prioritize our finances in this way for about seven years, we are at a point now to start thinking, OK, how do we do this? Before, it was, how do we survive? How do we pay the bills? How do we avoid not going into debt? How do we do all these things? But after prioritizing and understanding what needs to happen first, We are now at this point of saying, well, we need to train the mission. We need to identify and train them. We need to start planning for how to support them financially. So I don't want you to think that this is somehow just unnecessary detail. It's actual building the foundation that enables the work of missions. Now, I also hope it doesn't sound too out of touch with that romance of the missions enterprise that Jerry mentioned, but once a missionary and a target location is identified with the help of the church leadership, The mundane practical realities to ensure a successful mission behind enemy lines needs to be done, which includes, and these are dull and boring. Okay, please don't check out. Establishing a new line item and amount in the church budget. and helping the missionary think through and develop their own budget and timeline for all different parts of the work, including setting milestones for gathering commitments, or the funds themselves, or gathering the money from one-time funding. the commitments for ongoing funding from outside the church, working on language acquisition prior to departure to minimize confusion and isolation when first arriving on location, determining visa requirements, all these things that are in front of a missionary, a local church will then be in a position to help facilitate and support, but it's gonna become a drain. It doesn't just happen free. It's going to become a drain on the pastor. Training has been our pastor's passion, as you know, but there's also this enabling process as well. Now, much of the work falls on the missionary, but the church should be prepared to step in with planning and budgeting expertise, since these may not be the skills the missionary has. This also strengthens the rope that will be held by the church to use the metaphor that we started out with. as there is commitment and participation on the part of the church, not just an acknowledgment that the missionary is going out, becomes a joint effort to make this invasion into enemy territory a success. It's no exaggeration to say that throughout history, the armies that had the best support, logistics and planning behind them, were able to meet the battle with greater confidence and sustain the assault with greater steadfastness than those that depended only on what they brought with them. The ropes the church will be holding will be much stronger if they are intertwined and tested before the actual battle begins. The church should also be prepared to assist the missionary once he's been qualified to announce and promote himself and his mission to like-minded churches. Jerry's gonna talk about this more, I'm sure. I'll briefly say this will probably take a good bit of time, but if the sending church cannot fund the entire mission, it will be necessary for the missionary to try to obtain additional funding. The church can help with this in several ways through helping the missionary write and send newsletters, inviting the missionary to speak at association meetings, making the missionary available for pulpit supply with like-minded churches. But probably the most helpful thing will be for the sending church to provide other churches with information about funding needs, timing, where to send contributions, deadlines, special needs, et cetera. This is invaluable and enables other churches to understand the need and to determine how much, if any, they can contribute toward it. The sending church will be responsible for accumulating the one-time gifts or the ongoing commitments and developing an accounting and reporting process that is beneficial to the missionaries and to the supporters. Now, I mean, all that It is dull and boring work. Come on. I'm not trying to make it exciting, but it's absolutely necessary for the success of the mission behind Enemy Lines. In addition to the spiritual battle involved in sending missionaries behind Enemy Lines, The financial difficulties facing a church that wants to send and support missionaries are similar to those individual believers face in being good stewards of their personal finances. And because of that, it's necessary for the church to do two things. First, you're gonna say, duh, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Avoid making commitments for more than we are realistically able to support, given the internal and external commitments received for the missionary, as mentioned above. And along with that, the church needs the discipline not to allow the mission to move forward until the commitment levels are at an agreed-upon minimum for the missionary to live on. Moving too fast without funding, the equivalent to an army outrunning their supply chain, is a recipe for disaster. There is so much disruption on the front end moving across the world or even across town that it's unthinkable to have to do it in reverse if the funding doesn't show up. Second thing a church needs to do is to maintain control of the church spending patterns in order to fulfill their ongoing commitment to the missionary. Though the support of the missionary is part of priority number four, It will become part of the overall base amount that the church must budget for each year. In the case that could be made, that it needs to become another priority number one, along with the pastor's salary. In other words, it becomes a must do, not a can do, every year of the commitment. The temptation for the church and there are a couple, is to view the funding as a fixed amount every year that doesn't adjust with inflation or the economic conditions on location or the missionary's family situation, et cetera, et cetera. But just as the pastor's personal situation and the general economic situation is taken into account each year when determining his salary, the same must be done for the missionary until the mission becomes self-supporting. A further temptation for the church is to push the missionary to accelerate the transition to self-funding so that the church can bring on another missionary. Though it may seem like a subjective decision on the part of the missionary as to whether they think they're at the point or not, A close relationship over the years between the church and the missionary, spiritually, doctrinally, and financially, will keep those discussions from becoming difficult and adversarial. Another temptation is for the church to begin to think that they have this mission stuff figured out and should be sending and supporting more and more missionaries like the big important ministries and denominations do. I personally believe that if we are able to send and support two men and their families from our church over the next 10 years and get them to the point of self-sufficiency, we will have been faithful with what we have been given. Obviously, the Lord can bless us with numerical and financial growth, but even then, the amount of time it takes to train, qualify, equip, means that we won't be churning out missionaries on an assembly line like some agencies claim to be able to do. All right, number eight on our overall outline. Next, we'll briefly touch on how does an association of churches hold the ropes financially? This also goes all the way back to the individual church members taking their role as stewards of the Lord's resources seriously. Only then can they give consistently and generously to their church, and it's only when a local church takes the above steps and commits to the financial discipline the steps impose, that it can be financially stable enough to commit to holding the ropes for whichever missionaries the pastors and elders have identified. Even when all this is done, it may not be feasible for a small church to fully fund a missionary. So what about receiving help from other like-minded churches if we have a missionary we want to send? Or what about us helping other like-minded churches if we don't have missionaries to send, but they do? This touches on the potential benefits of support by an association of churches. And I say potential Because support by an association can become like the offloaded separate enterprise we saw in the modern missions model earlier, with an unclear responsibility structure for training, qualifying, enabling, sending, encouraging, and holding accountable. Even with the best of men and the best of intentions, the saying is true, if everyone is responsible, then no one's responsible. So how do we avoid the trap of the modern emissions model? To answer that, I'm happy to repeat myself here. The church that is sending the missionary should be the primary holder of the ropes, the primary channel for providing financial support to their missionary, and it should not come via wealthy individuals, and it should not come through a separate missions committee bureaucracy formed with the best of intentions by an association of churches. I realize there may be legal and or international work visa reasons that may necessitate a third party for delivering the support funds. I'm not an expert on this. And it's my understanding that there are resources that do specialize in this, so we should be wise and access their expertise if necessary. But the principle is still the same. The sending church is the provider of the support for the missionary, even if other churches are providing some of the funds and the support has to go through an intermediary for legal reasons. The reason for this, as we've seen, is that the missionary is answerable to the sending church and not to dozens of other churches or to individual givers. Those churches don't know him like we do. They don't have their fingerprints on him like we do. The way this principle actually gets implemented and the actual flow of the funding may look different in different countries or even within the same country, but the principle remains unchanged for all the reasons we've been through this evening. We're at number nine on our outline now. Finally, what does holding the ropes financially look like to a missionary? Well, the fact that it was William Carey, the father of modern missions, that asked those that were sending him to hold the robes, as much zeal as he had to go, he still had to ask this of them. It shows that the stress and the pressure felt by a missionary leaving their home and country is real and comes from knowing the nature of the task being undertaken. It acknowledges the dependence upon God and on his people for their support in all facets of the mission, including the money necessary to support themselves and their families. This transparent dependency, notice the word transparent dependency, and awareness that all their finances are in full view of everyone that wants to help support them, requires a humility and at the same time a thick skin that only another pastor or missionary can sympathize with. It is a difficult exercise for a missionary to, first of all, try to understand what it will take for their family to live in a new location, and then to determine whether they're being a better steward in the short term by asking for less money to the potential detriment of themselves, their family, and the mission, or whether they are being a better steward in the long term by asking for more money which will enable them to maintain their health, energy, hospitality, and studies, which is really what the mission is about. And how do they go about getting all the information necessary and then making that decision? and is it their decision to make? Who gets to weigh in on these questions? The answers to which everyone will ultimately see as the mission support goal is sent out to the churches or displayed in the sending church. These all need to be determined between the sending church and the missionaries. From the missionaries point of view, the financial part of the work can become a drain on their time, energy, attitude, and especially in the beginning, even bringing doubts about the reality of their call to the mission field. Finance is rarely a big part of their skill set, and therefore the sending church should, as mentioned before, do all it can to provide assistance in this work of designing, intertwining, and testing the financial rope that they will hold for years and years, potentially across oceans and continents. The missionary expects this rope to be sturdy and those friends that are holding it at the other end to remain true and steadfast. The missionary expects that their church will not desert them, and they will help to support them if unplanned needs and necessities arise. And when these things do occur, sickness, expanding family, death in the family. They don't expect their friends holding the ropes to take care of every expense, but they know they can make them aware of their needs as friends and be confident the Lord will provide. There are temptations and doubts peculiar to a missionary with regard to finances. We've already mentioned some, but here are several others. Doubts that the church understands their financial needs. Doubts about the ongoing consistency of their support. The temptation of having a wealthy supporter and treating them deferentially. Dependence on the financial support instead of the Lord. Each of these can become a stumbling block for the missionary and must be guarded against. A strong relationship with the sending church can mitigate some of this, but the realization that more money doesn't solve any of these means the root cause is not financial. That is the value of a close spiritual bond and accountability with the sending church, which brings us back to our proposed model. The local church is the primary sender, supporter, and holder of the ropes for the missionary, meaning spiritually and financially. The flaw in all the other models is that they tried to do one without the other. The mission will not succeed without both parts linked together. All right, number 10, our conclusion. I have purposely not included specific recommendations about amounts and numbers and formulas and timing and structures because I believe each individual church will need to evaluate the specific opportunities that God is placing before them with the wisdom he will provide them at that time. My purpose was to present a bit of missions history, a glimpse of modern missions, And that background for recommending the model of the local church as the primary sending and supporting entity for their missionaries and to suggest some practical fundamental financial guidelines that should be considered and implemented if necessary to enable the church to fulfill that role. I realized that this proposal of the local church being the primary sender and supporter is not easy. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna read you the rest of J. Gresham Machen's statement that I mentioned in the beginning. He said, wait, you gotta have missions funded by these boards, but is it absurd to give to these boards? Here's the rest of his statement. Quote, it might be suggested that each congregation should determine its own confession of faith, the message, and its own program of work, the method. But the suggestion is impractical. It is impossible where missions agencies are concerned. In support of such agencies, many congregations must unite," end quote. So be aware. Even the wise, and I'm saying Machen was a very wise man, don't see this as easily done. That is why I said earlier presented with fear and trembling, but my desire is that the Lord. will enable you to think on these things in the coming days and weeks. And I trust that he will bring these things to your mind when he raises up missionaries in our churches. So I hope this hasn't disappointed you. I haven't come out with a prescribed way of doing it. I've come out with the foundational principles and the thoughts of what does it look like, what are the temptations, what are the difficulties in doing it. So thank you very much for your attention.