Fighting the War on a Budget

Robert McNamara may have earned the position as the most controversial secretary of defense in U.S. history. His decisions to consolidate U.S. military bases angered congressmen and the citizens of those districts, the opposition to the war in Vietnam demonized him, and he has been widely criticized for his involvement in the acquisition of the F-4 Phantoms for the U.S. Air Force. The jets were made without machine guns, because McNamara believed the pilot could fire a missile on the enemy from 75 miles away. That would have worked, if the Sparrow didn't have an 89% failure rate in Vietnam. (The tropical conditions hindered the missile).

There are many things you can criticize about McNamara, but in some ways he was a man ahead of his time. He wanted to develop combat aircraft that could both serve as bombers and air-to-air combat jets. Though that development failed during his tenure, the military later achieved that goal with the F/A-18s and the F-16s.

McNamara made many mistakes, but his decisions were driven by a core belief that the U.S. could not afford to be wasteful when spending money on defense. He believed that the U.S. could afford whatever was necessary for national defense, but that it shouldn't just write the defense department a blank check. McNamara understood that the U.S. could bankrupt itself on defense spending, a lesson that the former Soviet Union learned the hard way in the late 1980s.

Few things will cause hurt feelings and lost fellowship quicker than financial issues. Looking at the associational mission funds of the American Baptist Association and the Missionary Baptist Association of Texas, I can tell you that financial issues are in our future. That is, unless the level of support these funds receive from the churches is greatly increased. Looking across our association at the state of our churches (not being critical, but many churches are struggling right now), the idea that more support is coming is not very realistic. Therefore, missionaries, the messengers that vote to support missionaries, their sponsoring and supporting churches will all have to make tough decisions in the years ahead.

At Mission: Brownwood, we have tried to be as cost-efficient as possible. Our biggest expenditures have been on my salary, building refurbishment and massive outreach campaigns. As time progresses, the new work will undertake more of those expenses on its own, but the work is only growing so fast despite our best efforts. None-the-less, when I look at the financial state of the MBA of Texas mission fund, I face the reality that there are not going to be many years of full salary for myself left. In fact, if something doesn't happen, the fund could be broke by 2012. At the same time, out direct support from sister churches has dropped off in the past couple of years. Two years ago, we averaged $1,800/month in direct support. In May of this year, we took in $1,200 from sister churches.

The fact of the matter is that missionaries are going to have to begin to make tough choices, because the well can run dry. We need to have a plan in place to keep our works going should that day ever come. Gone are the days when a missionary could go on salary and know that he was going to be able to draw that salary until his work organized (usually after the completion of an expensive brand new building). We're going to have to learn to purchase older church structures from protestant groups who have folded. We're going to have to learn to work out of school buildings, civic centers, and apartment community rooms. We are also going to have to learn to organize before land is purchased, buildings are built, and possibly before the pastor can draw a full-time salary from the church. We are going to have to streamline our expenses and learn to do more with less.

At the same time, it wouldn't hurt to see more support going to our associational mission programs. Over the past few years, especially when the fund balance was high (in both the Texas and national associations) men began to stand up and promote the idea of withdrawing support from these funds and directing support elsewhere. Some wanted to expend the reserves to purchase land in large cities. Others wanted to just expend it altogether. Others began to rail against our associational mission programs and call them waste of money. The discourse took its toll, and support began to erode. Now we are in a time when that support is needed, but getting the support back is always much more difficult than losing it.

There was a time when Missionary Baptists were proud of their mission programs. There was a time when having a healthy balance in the fund was a good thing, and the prayer was that more men would engage in true mission work so we could see that fund put to use. There was a time when men liked to see missionaries well-supported. Today, it seems that has all changed.

Satan is on the attack. Seminary enrollment is down, support for our associational mission programs, seminaries, mission development funds and mission efforts in general is down. Discourse on how to get new works started has been replaced with finger-pointing and back-biting. All the while, missionaries struggle on the field and supporting churches struggle back home. Let's all get back on the same page, and remember that our purpose here is to make disciples, baptize them, indoctrinate them and organize them into New Testament churches.

My pledge to you, as a missionary, is that I will do my best to streamline expenses and minimize my need. All I ask from you is that you engage in our associational mission work and help promote the Gospel in Texas, the USA, and around the world.