How to Support a Missionary

I might have a terrible sense of timing. I’ll admit that right away.

Lots of my friends and colleagues have questioned the wisdom of my becoming a missionary of the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) of the United Methodist Church at a time in which, one year from now, the church as we know it might not exist.

Yes, there are lots of reasons why this may be a bad idea. For one, many churches (including Kessler Park!) have decided to withhold their global apportionments until General Conference 2020 — that is money that is used to fund GBGM missionaries! And what will happen to the general boards and agencies in the event of a split? Which side of the church will inherit them?

One thing I know for sure — those of us who are clergy didn’t opt for the ministry because it was a safe and secure career path! Indeed, we didn’t choose to be pastors — we were called.

The truth is that I’m going back to Africa as a missionary simply because I believe God is calling me and Leah. This isn’t my idea, but God’s.

As I previously announced, I will be teaching at Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa beginning in July 2019. I recently received my first semester course load; I will be teaching Methodist History and Introduction to Christian Ethics. I’ve also been asked to co-lead a post-graduate program called Theologies and Perspectives of Leadership. I honestly can’t think of a more important place to be — and role to play — than this appointment, even though I will greatly miss my friends in the North Texas Conference.

But I will need the assistance of United Methodists in North Texas to succeed in my new position. As you may know, there is a financial crisis in our denomination.

Let me explain how missionaries are funded in our current system. First, unlike other missionary agencies, United Methodist missionaries receive monthly salaries from GBGM. Salaries are paid from a general pool of money. At the end of each three-year term, missionaries spend three months traveling among UM churches, telling their stories, and raising money for the GBGM missionary pool.

The money in this pool comes from a number of places: partnerships with congregations and individuals, investments made by GBGM, and from the World Service Fund of the church’s general apportionments.

But the amount of money available has been shrinking. Even before the 2019 General Conference, the next quadrennium budget for GBGM had been slashed by 20%.

One way to ensure that GBGM missionaries can remain on the mission field in the future is to support missionaries like me and Leah with Covenant Relationships.

At last week’s Annual Conference, I invited North Texas congregations to consider entering into a Covenant Relationship with me during my ministry in South Africa. Covenant partners agree to send $2,500/year (or $5/member) to the GBGM missionary pool on my behalf for a period of one to three years.

It would mean a lot to me if Kessler Park UMC considered the same thing. By becoming a Covenant sponsor, you would not only be supporting United Methodist missionaries across the world, you will also guarantee a visit from me in three years when I come back to the States on furlough.

I’d love to have Kessler Park as one of my official sponsors, but even more so, I value your prayers and encouragement. Thank you for preparing me for my next phase of ministry.

Generosity Will Save Us

Before I became the senior pastor of KPUMC, the Finance Committee recognized that giving declined during the summer months, which caused an unfortunate cash crunch  somewhere around August. As a result, they started a fundraising campaign which asked individuals or families to “pay” $250 for one day in the month of July. 

The church would publish a July calendar with names of people who had “bought” a particular day of the month, and an invitation to buy the days which were still available.

After I got here, the committee agreed to tweak the idea a little, and now we celebrate Generosity July every year. We invite everyone in the church to set aside $5 per day to give to the church, above and beyond the amount people have already pledged. We still publish a calendar, but now each day of the month specifies a generosity challenge.

This has obviously helped church finances over the past couple of years. But even more importantly, it has forced us all to think about generosity every year.

A lot of us have been complaining about the general mood of the country lately. Recent current events and news bulletins have made us all crabby and cranky. We’re all a little on edge.

Unfortunately, when people are angry and distempered, we also tend to close themselves off from others. We end up clinging a little tighter to what is ours, and we get defensive and reactive.

This is precisely the time for us to practice generosity. I think that it might be the only thing that will save us in these perilous times.

For example, I wish we are all a little more generous in our judgments and conclusions of others. What if we gave more benefits of the doubt, and wished more people well?

I wish our government and society operated out of a posture of abundance and generosity rather than a posture of scarcity and austerity. And I wish our institutions and organizations adopted mission statements that had generosity as a core value and virtue.

Generous organizations and people are open-hearted, warm, and easy to get to know. We like them, and we want to be like them.

So why aren’t we generous year-round? What is it that keeps us from being generous all the time? I always ask myself this question in July, because generosity is fun! It’s a blast to give things away to, and on behalf of, others. 

Perhaps it’s because we find ourselves surrounded by a culture that teaches us the opposite. This is one of the downsides of capitalism; a capitalist economy stresses competition, teaches us that there are winners and losers. Advertising teaches us that what’s important is what we buy and acquire, not what we give away.  Even our politics is now a zero-sum game — everything is all or nothing. Compromise is a bad word, and there is hardly any generosity in governance.

The church is one place where generosity continues to be a virtue. In fact, it is one of our most important characteristics: God is generous, and God’s most generous act was the sending of Jesus Christ. Jesus was generous, and left behind disciples and apostles who were generous. Generosity was the primary ethos of the early church, after all. In the Book of Acts, we read that the first Christians ate together frequently and shared their goods freely among one another. 

Generosity July is supposed to be the prototype of all the other months of the year. It’s the time when we intentionally practice those small and random acts of giving that we ought to be doing all the time.

Because when we finally get it right, it’s generosity that will save us.

Make Your Generosity Automatic!

When you go on vacation this summer, who will pay the bills while you’re gone?

If you’re like me, you probably don’t think much about your bills, because most of them are paid automatically. They are scheduled to come out of your account on a particular day of the month, for a particular amount.

The church faces a different challenge during the summer; we still have to pay the monthly bills, but so many of you are gone throughout the summer, that our income isn’t even.

A year ago, a small team of church members and I began a course on “Year-Round Stewardship” sponsored by the Texas Methodist Foundation. Missi Mulligan, Ken Kelley, Cindy McSpadden, and I spent four long Saturday mornings in Rockwall listening to perspectives on fostering generosity in congregations.

We have slowly been integrating the lessons we learned into our approach to finances, and so far, the results have been extremely positive. We are honestly grateful for your faithfulness and commitment to the ministries and people of KPUMC.

One major piece of the training was an emphasis on automated giving. Research and experience with American congregations shows that churches with a high percentage of giving that is automatic and recurring have an easier time weathering seasonal storms.

Everyone who has ever served on the finance committee of this church knows that we typically have much less income during the summer months. We always seem to make it up by the end of the year, as December tends to be a very good giving month. But the summer can be quite stressful. Sometimes this results in a cash crunch; at times, we have asked staff to hold off on making purchases until our cash flow is positive again.

One way that this summer slump can be averted is by increasing our number of givers who make recurring, automated payments. When you do this, you won’t have to think twice about your pledge, even when you know you will be on vacation or have to miss a Sunday service. And we can know with greater certainty what to expect and what we can spend.

You will be receiving a mailing shortly with more information about how you can do this, whether by setting up a bank draft through your own financial institution, or by going online through the website and setting up monthly debits on a card.

I urge you to consider your own giving habits. If you already have set up automatic payments to the church, thank you so much! If you haven’t yet, please give it a thought; click here to go to the giving page on our website. Not only does it benefit the church, but it will make things a little easier for yourself.

No, fulfilling your pledge to our church is not the same thing as paying the electric or water bill. It’s actually far more important. So why not afford it the same care and concern that you give to the other things you pay for?