When the Church Blows It

You already heard from me once this week about a tragedy.

Unfortunately, I have another to share of a different type.

This one doesn’t involve the cold-blooded murder of two flesh-and-blood people.

It involves the cold-hearted indifference of multitudes of the spiritually apathetic.

The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention is bringing home hundreds of missionaries in the face of a financial crisis.

I haven’t examined the IMB’s bottom line or their deficits, their expenditures or their income. Is it possible there have been some recent missteps on the business side of things? I’m sure it is. But I suspect it’s not enough to matter.

I’m not a Southern Baptist, and never have been. But this running-out-of-funds-and-sending-home-missionaries thing affects me. And it if you are a Christ-follower, it ought to affect you, too.

It should smite your spirit and grieve your heart that those who are willing to give their lives, give up comfortable, give up familiar, give up family, give up friends, give up hometowns, give up worldly success, and give up a host of other things we don’t even know about, are not able to stay where God has called them to minister and to share the gospel because YOU AND I are not willing to give up a few bucks for the cause of Christ.

And yes, I really mean a few bucks.

Simple math tells me that if the IMB’s budget is $300 million, and there are 15 million Southern Baptists, each Southern Baptist needs only to give a measly twenty bucks to make the budget work.

Twenty bucks over the course of an entire year.

But maybe that’s too much to ask. Personally, I don’t think one-hundred-percent participation, which (let’s not mince words here) really means one-hundred-percent obedience, is above and beyond what we should rightly expect of people who claim the name and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

However, a basic understanding of human nature tells me that one-hundred-percent isn’t likely to happen.

If we assume half choose to disobey, one out of two need only drum up forty bucks.

And what if four out of five choose to disobey? One out of five could cough up a hundred.

Let’s say a whopping 90% chooses to disobey the Lord they claim. Well, the budget could still work if the remaining one out of ten give two hundred.

Are any of those scenarios too much to ask in an entire year?

The hundreds of missionaries coming home would say yes, apparently it is too much to ask.

PLEASE, someone tell me how this can happen. For the vast majority of Americans – I’m talking 99.9999% – twenty dollars per year doesn’t even begin to approach the realm of sacrificial giving. Don’t tell me that if you’re reading this blog post in North America, you cannot afford two dollars per month for world missions. I will not believe it.

This is a travesty. It’s a sharp rebuke to Christ’s Church, and it’s a blight on His holy name.

And not just for Southern Baptists. This is a single, specific example of a widespread problem in the North American Church.

There are only two reasons I can fathom that explain why Christ-followers aren’t giving to world missions.

One is that we don’t know we’re supposed to, or perhaps that we aren’t convinced of it.

If you fall into that category, here are some key biblical principles which lead to that conclusion:

• God has been on mission very purposefully since the beginning of time. He wants to draw all souls to Himself. (Luke 19:10; Acts 17:26-27; John 4:23; 2 Peter 3:9)
• God has invited and mandated His people to join Him in this mission, instructing them to go and make disciples of all nations. (Matthew 28:18-20)
• God further specifies that some are called to go while the rest are called to send, and all of these are “fellow workers with the truth.” (3 John 7-8; Acts 13:2-3)

You can find more information about the biblical mandate for missions here. And please don’t think “blissful ignorance” absolves you of responsibility before God. Seek His heart on this. Dig into His Word. Find out what He wants.

But really, I suspect there are very few Christ-followers who aren’t aware of God’s mandate for world missions.

For far more of us, the problem is not that we don’t have the money or that we don’t know how we’re supposed to spend it.

The problem is that we choose to spend it on other things.

I’ve said before that we make time for what’s important, and the same is true for our budgets.

We make room in our budgets for what’s important.

Here’s what Jesus had to say about it:

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24)

Did you hear that?

You cannot serve God and money!

Here’s what that means for you and me and every Christ-follower, Southern Baptist or not:

If you’re not serving God with your money, your money IS your god. 

Church, wake up! We’re worshiping an idol as surely as the Israelites worshiped a golden calf (Exodus 32). Just like them, our God rescued us. He brought us ought of slavery to sin and Satan and hell, and brought us to Himself.

And how do we thank Him? Do we join Him in His mission, accepting His gracious invitation to come alongside Him and work on His behalf?

No. We turn our backs on Him and bow down to an idol as though IT is our salvation. As though IT is responsible for our freedom. As though IT is our security and our source of happiness.

Oh, dear friends, this is our wake-up call!

Our time is short. Our Master is soon returning. (Luke 12:22-48)

And right now I can’t help but wonder…

who will be faithful among us?

Get started

If your local church is not involved in world missions support but you desire to obey God’s biblical mandate for world missions, you can prayerfully consider giving to these organizations.

New Tribes Mission

International Mission Board

Pioneers

Frontiers

Africa Inland Mission

Global Frontier Missions

Wycliffe Bible Translators

Compassion International