Money/support for missionaries, pastors, others

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[askingquestionsaboutGCI]

I'm kind of hijacking and moving the thread on supporting Tom Short and his minions.  I'd like to get everyone's opinions on another donation-related issue that's bothered me for the last two years -- the constant letters I'm receiving from teens and young adults who are going on long- or short-term missions programs.  

I started receiving these types of letters probably around 6 years ago, and at that time it was maybe one or two a year.  This year, I've tried to keep count, and my most recent number was 27 letters asking for support!! Even if I only gave $10 or $15 to each, that quickly can become a sizeable chunk of change.  However, my biggest concern is: are these "mission trips" really of spiritual value, or are they "slave labor", or worse, "spiritual" vacations and sightseeing trips that they're asking me (and others) to pay for?  

I'm starting to feel like Scrooge here, so I'd like other people's honest thoughts and opinions on this.

[wastedyearsthere]

It depends on the missions trip.  I have a daughter who has gone on 2 of these trips.  One called itself "missions" but truly was a sighseeing trip with a little bit of evangelism thrown in.  The other was truly a missions trip -- they were building houses for poor 3rd world country villagers and helping in orphanages and setting up medical clnics.  I don't have a problem supporting helping the poor in other countries and spreading the gospel there.

I would encourage you to find out exactly what the kids are doing on the missions trips.  The one through our new church are truly missions trips.

[boboso]

This is precisely why God gave us minds to make critical judgments on what you should support/not support. I totally agree, not all "mission" trips should be supported. I would say most I've seen are really just sight-seeing expensive "camps" for kids to get out of the parent's hair for a while.

Unless you know the people directly and can see the conviction and the obvious (unforced) spiritual fruit in their lives, I would say to hold off. Or, unless this is a widow or orphan or someone (or family) you know is clearly in need, I would say, hold off.

Actually, this was one of the bigger sticking points that we had in our GCx experience. The "leadership" discussed among themselves how much we were "tithing" to their pseudo-cult and how it was a consensus "concern". Of course, we knew there was craziness from the beginning and knew the money would go straight to the machine, so I decided to withhold it and give money to some that we knew were having hard times in that same church.

They never knew where the money went and I didn't care to tell them. It's none of their business and they should have been helping those same folks a long time ago. It was disturbing that our finances were a topic of discussion --

There is no shortage of people looking to take your money at any time and sadly, the institutional churches we have today are no different. If the Lord has placed someone in your life you know you are compelled to give to, give on brother. It's all temporary anyway.

[wastedyearsthere]

I remember the time at GCC when the leaders proposed the idea of looking through our checkbooks to make sure we were tithing!!

Needless to say -- there was such an outcry this never happened -- but just the proposal of this idea is appalling!

[EverAStudent]

As someone already stated, giving is of your own volition and your own conclusions as to who is appropriate to support.  In general, we should support missions.  "Mission trips" might be more substantive (a young lady in our church just returned from Argentina where she personally built a two room house with her team for a church family who had none) or they may be more sight-seeing (my daughter went to Italy with Campus Crusade for 6 weeks and did almost nothing but sight-seeing--what a waste).  

My personal criteria include asking:  
 - is the trip connected with a real church in the target country?
 - is the trip organized by a para-church (I will not support this anymore)?
 - is the request for support accompanied by an itinerary that details the work to be done, is the work substantive?
 - if evangelism is on the itinerary, does the candidate speak the local language (if not, why are they going?)?

[askingquestionsaboutGCI]

I agree with the above, but it can often be very difficult to research and get the true info on each of these "missions trips".  This year, I've had kids going to Peru to help build a church; a gal going to organize a GYMNASTICS team for a Christian school in Holland (??); folks going to Honduras to help build a school; kids who want to do outdoor singing and evangelizing in parks in London; a short term "mission trip" (unspecified) to New Orleans; someone who wants to teach English as a second language in China (using the Bible in China??  he may be suicidal!!), and the list goes on.....

I think my concern may actually be -- why the sudden explosion in the number and frequency of these trips?  I understand there may be value in SOME of these trips; but are these churches creating "spiritual busy work" to keep the kids involved in something remotely "Christian" over the summer or do they actually have a heart to expose these kids to other cultures, belief systems, what-not? Maybe we as a culture have decided that the trips to the inner city and such (the kind of stuff my youth group did when I was a teen) is not glamorous or exciting enough to catch the excitement and vision of these kids?  I dunno..... it's just perplexing to me.......

[puff of purple smoke]

My current post-GCx church has various full time missionaries it supports, that are living throughout the world and come back to the U.S. and visit the church once every year or two and ask for donations. They update us on what's been going on in the country they are being a missionary in, what the financial needs are, and people give if they want to.

I'd much rather give my money to somebody I know for certain has laid down their life to missions work, than toss money at some teenager going away to play missionary for 2 weeks who, even if they have good intentions, may or may not put the money to good use.

[Linus]

I understand what's being said here about 'missionary trips.'  There's a lot of truth to it.  I want to interject something that might lend some balance though.  I took a trip with a group to Mexico when I was nineteen that was extremely formative for me as a Christian.  It was the first time I'd seen real poverty, Christianity lived out in another culture, the first time I'd felt like an outsider/minority.  It did 'bring me out of my comfort zone' as promised and helped me understand God and his world better.  

Perhaps 'mission trip' is a bad name for what we're doing, but I think that these trips are often very helpful for people.   If you give to a high-schooler or maybe even a college student who's going somewhere for less than several months, I think you should give mostly for the benefit it will bring to that young Christian.

[EverAStudent]

It did 'bring me out of my comfort zone' as promised and helped me understand God and his world better.

Yes, I see value in a global cultural awareness trip.  But, I would probably advise that kids intending to take such trips raise their funds by working with their own hands (car washes, flipping burgers, mowing lawns, etc.).  Raising funds for "cultural wareness trips" by couching the whole thing as if they were missionaries and "need finanicial support for the continuance of the spread of the gospel" seems a bit on the fine edge between marketing and deception, if not downright lazy.

What askingquestionsaboutgci said strikes close to home for me.  Coming from a poor family, the idea of going overseas as a teen (on my nickle or someone else's) was absurd.  My after-school work helped provide food income for the family.  But when a flood wiped out an entire section of my city, some of us put on boots bummed a ride, and went down to help clean up the mess in people's homes.  Yes, I got to see "reality" up close.  People wiped out who now had less than me.  It is life changing.  But you sure don't have to fly overseas to find it, and a pair of boots are cheaper than a plane ticket and does not require raising funds.

[Linda]

About the short term missions trip thing, here are some observations from my GC experience. We did not ever go on a trip and we did not encourage our children to do so either.

Random observations:

For starters, some teams did "real" work. Like build homes after a hurricane. That seemed worthwhile, but for many of the trips, I wondered if the people in the country really needed them or what the purpose was.

A negative I saw was the couples often went alone. This, in my opinion, was very dangerous. When you are in a third world country, away from your family, working long hours, you bond with the people you are with. This bonding starts before you leave and continues after you come home. For example, I once observed a married male who had recently been on a missions trip approach a married female who had been on the same trip. This had been a difficult trip and there was way too much familiarity between the two of them as they spoke about it. (Like he had his hand on her knee). It gave me the creeps. When you are married, team building with members of the opposite sex when your spouse isn't around is a very bad idea. Especially if it's in a different country.

I also wonder about the team building that takes place between students and leaders on these trips. Here's an example from an HSLT. One leader came up to me after a trip and said, "I just love being with your daughter and all the rest of the girls. I just feel like I am one of them." As a parent, I don't want other parents close to my age bonding as "buddies" with my children. Not good. Of course the added worry there is that we had no idea what was being taught to our children. We assumed it was "normal" (whatever that is!) Bible teaching, not teaching about commitment to a specific church and its leaders.

I agree that if people really care about missions, they can step out their front door and open their eyes. However, I suppose sometimes they are so involved with church activities that they are never anywhere near their front door so they have to schedule a trip with their church to go see people in need.

If you want to go on a missions trip, get a job. Good point!

Finally, I think it is much harder to be a "missionary" at home since it doesn't end after 10 days. Seeing the needs (physical and spiritual) around us and trying to help, fighting the culture that pulls us away from God and men that draw us to them instead of God, is something that doesn't end and often doesn't leave us feeling that we can give ourselves a little pat on the back and think that "we did something really meaningful". At least not in the sense that a "mission's trip" does.

Short term missions trip aside, if you want to be a full time missionary, tell me about what you want to do and who is sending you, keep me informed about your work, live a modest lifestyle, and I'm with you 100%. God bless you.

[steelgirl]

I had the opportunity to go on a trip years back with GCM.  I don't regret it. Despite the fact I was going through Hell in a lot of ways, I don't regret it.  It was a good experience.  I did help teach English to college students for a week in a place that God has left since many people were church going.  The place was where darkness abounded and it was in Godless Europe.  One or two people made decisions either that wk or weeks following our time there.  I am not saying where because my identity might be given away.  I hope people who know me don't figure who I am.  The work we did was very a lot of work preparing for the trip not to mention very very draining after not have much sleep and then getting sick.

On my way back home some health complications arised.

[Linda]

I did help teach English to college students for a week in a place that God has left since many people were church going.

I'm not sure I understand this sentence.

I wasn't trying to say that short term missions trips aren't helpful for the people who go on them or that they never accomplish anything. I was trying to point out that short term missions and lifetime overseas missions are two very different things.

I don't have a problem supporting lifetime missionaries. And, when we are able, we have given a little to the short termers. What I was trying to say is that I sometimes wonder about what is being accomplished on these trips when the people who go don't always speak the language. It was mentioned that these trips open up eyes to the needs of third world countries, but it seems a little over the top to ask people to give money so people can get their eyes opened.

Here are a couple of examples of the sacrifices of long term overseas missionaries:

My husband's brother Pat and his wife have been missionaries in Brazil for 34 years. They went in the days before the Internet and when phone calls were very difficult. When we met them at the airport yesterday, we were able to watch as Pat saw a grandson and granddaughter for the first time. The children were 2. That's a sacrifice.

Just this week my niece sent an e-mail asking for prayer because life hasn't been easy lately. She is working with a people group that is unfriendly to the gospel. She is single and 39 years old. She has lived in a country in Western Africa. She has had malaria. That's a sacrifice.

Some friends of ours lived in a country where missionaries were regularly kidnapped and killed. They lived in a city that is on the news a lot in the last few years. That's a sacrifice.

All these people, live sacrificially in other countries, away from their families, in danger of harm or disease, have gone to many years of language school to get there and studied hard to learn the ways of the culture before they got there, have a specific purpose in mind, and need the financial support of others to do what they do. They are not there to get their eyes opened to the needs of the world and none of them as far as I know ever went on a short term missions trip before they decided to become full time missionaries.

[AgathaL'Orange]

I still support short term missionaries, but I am really picky about it.  The first criteria is that it can't be with GC!!  Second is that it needs to be meeting a physcal need for someone in some way (For career missionaries, they can actually get in there and have relationships with people... following up on decisions etc, but with short term missionaries, this is much harder).  I think that it can be good for kids to go and build a house for someone or clean up an orphanage or mission school or whatever.  I did a few of these trips and they changed my life forever.  We built a few houses for people and gave clothes away, held VBS, did a lot of cleaning, etc.  

I supported a girl down the street who was not affiliated with a church to just go to another country with an exchange program... so I certainly have no problem supporting a young Christian kid who wants to make a difference.  Our youth pastor always had us do service projects at home too in preparation for our trips... we did local VBS, painted the houses of elderly people, that sort of thing.  Our non-GC church had a very active youth missions program and today lots of kids went on to serve the Lord full time in various ways.  


I would rather support a kid to go do some really hard work helping someone, opening their eyes to poverty and the needs that are out there then supporting an adult (every summer) to go with a bunch of college kids to Brazil where they spend an awful lot of time hanging out on the beach and living it up.  Maybe I'm just a grinch!  I'd like to be more giving in general, so we'll see if my attitude changes.

Interesting question!