Bad Priorities Can Kill - Christianity Today

In Kazakhstan, a hospital will not be built. This means that people whose names we cannot pronounce will die. Elsewhere, a land mine left in place will shatter a child’s leg. These are just some of the unintended but inevitable consequences of the recent decision of the United Methodist Church’s Board of Global Ministries to slash its fiscal 2001 spending by $11 million.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), meanwhile, is considering mission cuts of $2.5 million. On the table are proposed reductions in administration, capital projects, and ministries.

Ralph Winter, founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission, says too many people see the mission budget as “one of the first ‘electives’ to be cut” in hard times. Sylvia Ronsvalle of empty tomb, inc., decries a lack of leadership. “Denominations have not been calling people to do anything beyond institutional maintenance,” Ronsvalle says.

Distrustful conservatives in the mainline churches increasingly provide money only for specified ministries. Some have even started new agencies, such as the Mission Society for United Methodists. In 1918, mainline churches provided 82 percent of the Western missionary force. By 1966, when theological liberalism and sociopolitical definitions of mission had begun to crowd out traditional missions emphases on evangelism and church planting, mainline churches supplied only 6 percent.

Giving of all kinds by Protestant church members to their churches continues to sink, according to empty tomb. Giving fell from 3.1 percent of after-tax income in 1968 to 2.58 percent in 1999 (the latest year for which statistics are available). Evangelicals, however, have fared even worse, recording a decline from 6.15 percent in 1968 to 4 percent in 1998. The proportion dedicated to benevolences—ministries outside the local church, including overseas missions—among all Protestants fell from .66 percent in 1968 to .40 percent in 1999.

Yet there are signs of hope. The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention reports that its year 2000 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering raised a record $113 million for overseas missions—just short of its $115 million goal. The aim for 2001 was $120 million.

Midway Baptist Church in Cookeville, Tennessee, had a hard time scraping up $350 for Lottie Moon in 1995. Last year, however, it raised more than $10,600. Pastor Jim Malone and his wife, Linda, sparked the surge after a short-term ministry trip to Brazil four years ago. Now the Malones are heading to Brazil as full-time missionaries. “The people’s response to missions is more hands-on because they’ve seen it firsthand,” Jim Malone told Baptist Press.

“In churches where missions is a program, it is the first thing cut in hard times,” says Tom Telford of United World Mission. “In churches where missions is a passion, it is the last.”

With 20 percent of its budget going to missions, Knox Presbyterian Church in Naperville, Illinois, has seen a significant number of members lose jobs in the downturn. Yet senior copastor Clint Roberts says giving at the PCUSA congregation has not dropped, as members “stand in the gap” for one another. “We’re called to serve the whole world, even at the cost of our own life institutionally,” Roberts says. “We would like to do more.”

Some argue that the day of the Western missionary is over; indigenous ministries should take over. Actually, there is more than enough work to go around. With 1.5 billion people who have never heard the gospel and millions dying from preventable diseases, we in the West must do more—even if, in some countries, it means helping indigenous churches do their work. Ultimately, it is a question not of finances but of the will. As our Lord said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Related Elsewhere

Related Christianity Today news articles include:

Presbyterians Will Likely Cut Mission SpendingExecutive director says “belt-tightening” was inevitable before church and economic uncertainty. (Dec. 28, 2001)