Supporting mission work

 When I began serving a small, rural church as their bivocational minister I soon learned they did not have a lot of money. Their budget was very small, and they weren't meeting it. But one thing I learned surprised me: they gave 10 percent of their offering to our denomination's mission fund to support mission work around the world. I was not only surprised; I was elated. One of my firm beliefs is that God supports churches that supports missions. Even when money was tight, we tithed our offering to the denomination's mission work.

God did bless us financially, and a few years later I asked the congregation to consider increasing that support to 15 percent of our offering. We would do it one percent a year over five years so it would not be such a big jump at one time. They agreed to do that, and when I finally left that church to begin serving in a judicatory role that little church of 55 people was giving over $12,000.00 a year to mission work plus we were supporting all four of the special mission offerings our denomination had. In fact, a year after I left, the church gave $14,000.00 to mission work while building a $200,000.00 addition to the building without borrowing a dime! Before you decide that this church must have consisted of a few wealthy people let me assure you that was not the case. The majority of our congregation were retired or blue collar workers. Few had a college education. To my knowledge there was no one in the congregation that would be called wealthy.

I might add that we also supported local mission work. We gave money each quarter to the Salvation Army for their food pantry. That made more sense than us trying to offer a food pantry where we were located. As I told the congregation, I will be comfortable recommending people to the SA food pantry if we are helping support it. We also made a quarterly contribution to the local youth shelter which provided a place for troubled youth rather than sending them to jail. We saw that as an important local ministry.

If a church is going to teach tithing, it must model tithing. I can think of no better way to do that than to support those who serve in mission fields around the world and the US. While our denomination still takes mission offerings, it also requires our missionaries to raise their own support. Many churches now support individual missionaries which makes a lot of sense. When they come home on furlough they are available to speak to those churches who are supporting them. That can make an important connection between the missionary and the supporting churches.

As I close, I am going to challenge you. If the small church I served can tithe its offerings each week to their denomination's mission work, so can every church. Does yours? Are you teaching your people to tithe but not tithing what your church is receiving every week? Our missionaries deserve our support, and I would encourage you to provide it. Remember, God blesses those churches who honors missions.