Financial Sustainability and the Future of Mission

Introduction

In recent years, much energy has been spent on missionary training among Majority World church economic migrants in various parts of the world.¹ Afterall, the gospel carried by economic migration appears to be a normative way in which intercultural mission occurs. However, there are gaps in the hypothesis. By virtue of scant opportunity, economic migration is unlikely to offer much mission hope to the unreached and unengaged within bottom Human Development Index (HDI) countries.² Moreover, there have been few intentional Majority World mission movements into these locations. The article ‘World Christianity and Mission 2021: Questions about the Future’ sums up the problem well, ‘Many factors, […] such as church tradition […] and financial resources impact the ability […] to send missionaries from their own country. In addition, many missionaries in the Global South serve as national workers in their own countries.’³ 

Majority World mission ‘hubs’⁴ are attempting to fill in the gap. Embracing strategic mission sending, they mimic (to some extent) the Western mission agency model. Starting with calling, they emphasize recruitment, training, sending, and supporting strategically located missionaries. Unsurprisingly, financial resourcing represents the biggest challenge for these initiatives. 

At first glance the problem of funding Majority World mission looks easy to solve—simply reroute the financial irrigation systems of mission. Instead send money from Western agencies to hubs. However, financial regulations, reporting and charity due diligence, as well as normative Western missionary funding strategies, make this rerouting ineffective. Additionally, polycentric ventures, aimed at establishing Western agency ‘in country offices’ have struggled to truly internationalize governance, rule setting, and resource control. Therefore, what alternative funding models exist for authentic, intentional Majority World mission hubs?

Adopt an Organic Approach

Technology, it appears, provides access to resources and networks and has negated the need for agency or hub. Church to church, or person to person missionary self-funding models are gaining traction. Using cash transfer apps to fund mission workers is commonplace. Diaspora communities have used cash sending apps to influence change for a generation.⁵ The World Bank estimated that in 2022, £513 billion was sent to middle and low-income countries as remittances by the diaspora.⁶ While it is impossible to say what proportion of this total was invested in indigenous missions, it nonetheless represents serious economic spending power within the diaspora.⁷ 

Accessing funds and communicating compelling messages of gospel hope have never been easier for Majority World mission workers. WhatsApp prayer updates in real time. Mobile money donations on request. There are a plethora of Christian crowdfunding sites⁸ such as Fundly or Give Send Go.⁹ Even the emergence of the Metaverse, allows visa free, flight free, and unlimited access to the nations via your own missionary avatar, at no exceptional cost. Technology and the global access it provides, has largely removed the barriers to Majority World mission support. However, if the role of the hub or agency is merely to mobilize support then they are self-evidently redundant. 

Hub Purpose?

Obviously, the random movement of people bolstered by access to funding flows does not equate to world evangelization. Mission intentionality matters. Cohesive and organized agency with the capacity to implement matters. However, the biggest argument for hubs is that many Majority World mission workers face unconscionable risks. In fragile contexts, the specialist hub (like the Western agency) offers an enduring value. It is as heartbreaking as it is pernicious, to hear the reductionism that suggests that Majority World missionaries are ‘more willing to pay the price’ (therefore professional support is no longer required). Western agencies, should not hold the monopoly on appropriate training, crisis management back up, prayer support networks, insurance, salaries, a fair pension, and skilled management. 

However, such principled positions are expensive. To provide some context, the Ghanaian Evangelical Missions Association (GEMA) conference in 2023 saw 30 young people come forward to be commissioned into mission. The former CEO of GEMA¹⁰ summed up their predicament, ‘The fields are ripe for harvest, but the workers are many!’ So, ‘how do we get visas, insurance, flights, and support for them to enter the harvest field?’ GEMA’s strategic focus mission field includes the Sahel and North Africa. GEMA feel the burden of care for their own emerging generation of missionaries acutely. With an astonishing vision to send 30,000 Ghanaian missionaries, the challenge is to find USD 300,000,000 per year for the next 50 years to adequately support their workers.¹¹ I do not deny the widow’s mite, or God’s miraculous provision, but in practical terms at least, the economics do not presently stack up (for Africa at least). 

The balance may lie with ‘light touch agencies’ holding intentional strategies (coherent movements) enabling bi-vocational funding models. One Disciple Making Movement (DMM) group in India¹² has developed this model. Most of their missionaries are labourers, farmers, and housewives but also evangelists and church planters.¹³ The movement has seen exponential growth. However, in some contexts, opposition to the gospel is especially costly.¹⁴ The movement’s greatest strength (light touch) is also its greatest weakness within insecure locations. As the movement grows, security and risk mitigation take on added importance. The light touch movement runs into necessarily heavier processes and more expensive specialist support as soon as it tries to address the complex needs of member care within highly fragile contexts. For example, crisis management, HEAT training, complex environment insurance, respite breaks, and in-depth psychological or pastoral support are responsible inputs for any movement that supports mission workers in Afghanistan or Somalia.

Rethinking Funding?

To date, very few hubs have successfully harnessed diaspora funding effectively. This may be something which changes as collaborations between Majority World church and diaspora church start to bear fruit. Additionally, local Majority World church-based funding of mission hubs have yet to be embedded within many cultures.¹⁵ This leaves a third possibility—the market. 

Business as mission (BAM) is an already well explored topic. Low-level tentmaking, using local market opportunities, often for creative access purposes, are commonplace. Majority World mission support through bi-vocational mission entrepreneurialism is gaining traction. Dean Miller, head of mission development at the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BVAG) describes their support model: ‘It was determined with our partners that the largest barrier to funding was the ability to create capital rather than simple subsistence funding. We provide capital funding, in the form of a no interest loan, that is to be used to start small businesses that then uses the profits from the business to fund the mission (in our case, church planting).’¹⁶ The loans are repaid and recycled into new ventures and mission entrepreneurs are given coaching from local experts. 

Several investors have already seen financial opportunities for collaboration in the Majority World. ‘Angel investors’¹⁷ are looking for Christians in the Majority World to take their innovations to ‘non-consumer’ markets. In other words, in places where no apparent market exists, attempt to create one. By definition, these non-consumer markets exist within the lowest HDI countries. Investment groups like Beyond Angel Network, Commonwealth Impact Investing, and Ambassadors Impact Network all provide Angel investment.¹⁸ One Angel investor I spoke to recognized that, many Majority World Christians are ready to drive social change. As an Angel investor, he operates on a 90 percent failure rate over 10 years (never getting the investment back) but the value of the one in 10 business which is successful makes the high risk worthwhile.¹⁹ 

Whereas South Asia and South-East Asia have experienced economic growth with GDP potential for meaningful market entry, much of Africa struggles with woefully low levels of GDP per capita and several barriers to economic growth. However, demographics will sooner or later generate demand that lends itself to innovative responses in these non-consumer markets. UNICEF predicts that by 2050, the African population will have grown to 2.5 billion people, with the vast majority under 35 years old.²⁰ Catering for this population will require mission minded people replete with innovations in health, education, agriculture, transportation, water management, energy, sanitation, and housing etc. Hubs can be funded by and for a new breed of bi-vocational missionary entrepreneur. 

However, whether a Majority World mission hub, a missionary entrepreneur, or a coherent movement of disciple makers, the good news is that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. After all, Jesus reminds the disciples that ‘all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.’²¹ Then, he commissions them to disciple the nations. Polycentric mission can be funded from every source in heaven and on earth. This should give Majority World mission movements the confidence to be bold in exploring mobilization approaches that are not reliant on Western agency grant funding. Instead, they can associate and embrace strategically intentional mission sending, drawing upon the mistakes and insights which Western agencies will surely be willing to share, as they increasingly pivot to become ‘along-siders’, catalysts, and network brokers. In this sense, Western agencies necessarily must reskill to effective intercultural facilitators, connecting people, skills, and resources behind Majority World strategies for mission.²² Finally, the market-based approaches which bi-vocational workers can adopt not only offer a chance of future self-sustainability, but also entry to new communities and the prospect of poverty reduction through a bold vision for non-consumer markets.

Endnotes

1. The ‘Scattered to Gather’ dynamic which is already well explored by Lausanne’s Global Diaspora Network, https://lausanne.org/network/diasporas.
2. ‘ Human Development Index (HDI),’ UN Human Development Reports, accessed 8 July 2024, https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indices/HDI.
3. Gina A. Zurlo Todd M. Johnson, and Peter F. Crossing, ‘World Christianity and Mission 2021: Questions about the Future,’ International Bulletin of Mission Research, Volume 45, Issue 1, 22 December 2020,
4. For the purposes of this article, mission ‘hubs’ refer to collaborations principally in the Majority World for the purpose of recruiting, training, resourcing, and sending Majority World mission workers. As polycentrism implies multiple centres, hubs can be likened to nodes that connect networks of missionaries, skills, and resources. 
5. Dina Ionescu, ‘Engaging Diasporas as Development Partners for Home and Destination Countries: Challenges for Policymakers,’ IOM Migration Research Series, No. 26, 2006, https://www.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl486/files/our_work/ICP/IDM/MRS26.pdf.
6. ‘Migration and Development brief 37: Remittances Brave Global Headwinds,’ KNOMAD, Nov 2022, https://www.knomad.org/publication/migration-and-development-brief-37.
7. By way of context, £513 billion is roughly 350,000 percent larger than the annual budget of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and a figure greater than the GDP of several countries!
8. https://blog.fundly.com/christian-crowdfunding-platforms/.
9. In essence, these are Western funding platforms which bypass the need for agency clunkiness. However, often crowdfunding sites are subject to financial services regulations whether hosted in Europe or North America, often related to greater compliance obligations on reporting impact and accountability.
10. In November 2023 Dr Ray Mensah was the full time General Secretary of GEMA, https://gemagh.org/.
11. Based on the author’s conversations with leaders of the GEMA, we estimated that basic support, coupled with training, insurance, crisis management, access to safe water and food, will cost USD 10,000 per person, per annum (eg comparable living of USD 3,000 p.a., housing USD 1000, insurance USD 500, flights and all related travel USD 3,000, crisis management team support USD 500, agency and fundraising support USD 1,000, on-going training and language USD 1,000).
12. This DMM group is unnamed for security reasons.
13. Within this particular DMM there are few (if any) formally trained and ordained church leaders. Fellowships meet in homes and ask simple but profound questions of Scripture, invoking the assistance of the promised Paráklētos to aid their hermeneutic.
14. The same movement has expanded into several Asian countries. Sadly, the DMM group have already lost several workers in Afghanistan. Even in India, church planters’ families have been targeted with violence.
15. I am not aware of any empirical studies that confirm this assertion, but from experience, there are few mission hubs that have captured the imagination of churches in the Majority World. There are, of course, examples to the contrary but the study on ‘The economics of missionary expansion: evidence from Africa and implications for development,’ Journal of Economic Growth, 7 April 2022, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10887-022-09202-8, suggests very significant sums of money have been invested within institutions and church buildings in the Majority World church over the last half century but little to no evidence suggests any indigenous investment in intercultural mission sending hubs. 
16. Dean Miller, e-mail correspondence with author, March/April 2024.
17. An ‘Angel investor’ is akin to an early-stage venture capitalist. 
18. https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/angel-networks.
19. Based on an interview with a US-based ‘Angel investor’ who wished to remain anonymous, conducted on 26 March 2024.
20. ‘Generation 2030: Africa 2.0,’ UNICEF, Oct 2017, https://www.unicef.org/media/48686/file/Generation_2030_Africa_2.0-ENG.pdf.
21. Matthew 28:18.22.
22. Editor’s Note: See Beyond Self-Support Fundraising for Missions by Kirst Rievan in Lausanne Global Analysis, August 2023, https://lausanne.org/global-analysis/beyond-self-support-fundraising-for-missions.