How-to Tuesday - Missionary/Sponsoring Church Connection

Once the sponsoring church and the missionary are prayed up, the missionary has announced his call to the mission field, and the sponsoring church has expressed a burden to be a part of the work, steps will need to be taken for the sponsoring church to send out the missionary. Certain things need to be settled before the missionary is sent out by the sponsoring church. Few things are worse than having a rift develop between the sponsor and the missionary once the missionary is on the field.

1. The sponsoring church and missionary need to be settled on doctrinal soundness. That is, the sponsoring church should be satisfied that the missionary is doctrinally sound, and the missionary needs to be satisfied that the sponsoring church is doctrinally sound. This goes above "yeah, I agree with the ABA doctrinal statement." This means that sponsoring church and missionary are on the same page concerning ecclesiology, which Bible translations are acceptible, scriptural mission practices and so on.

2. There needs to be a missionary agreement, and one in writing is best. The agreement needs to line out the responsibility the sponsoring church has toward the missionary, and the responsibility the missionary has toward the sponsoring church. The agreement will need to spell out the procedure for funds raised (send them to the sponsor, or the missionary?), and what those funds should be used for (salary and financial resources for the missionary, funds for the mission, etc?) Furthermore, if the sponsoring church expects to have a say in facility purchases and rental, that needs to be spelled out in the agreement, as well as whether that missionary can switch cities without first getting approval from the sponsor.

I recommend an agreement that gives the missionary as much latitude to work as possible without sponsor approval. In other words, the missionary ought to be able to do the work without waiting on a successful business meeting from the sponsor. On the other hand, the missionary needs to give detailed reports to his sponsor on a regular basis (I recommend monthly). A blog to track updates helps. My recommendation for the sponsor's role is not to manage how the work is carried out, but rather to make sure that the missionary is carrying out the work in a SCRIPTURAL manner.

Once an agreement is reached that satisfies both the missionary, and the sponsoring church, it is time for the church to vote to send the missionary to the mission field. In most cases, this should be a joyous time, though it may be marked with some sadness if the missionary has long-standing ties to the sponsoring church.

Next week, we'll discuss administrational structure for missions. I'll give my recommendation, but it is up to the sponsor and the missionary to determine what works best in their scenario.