Who Funds Your Mission?

When the borders of Albania opened in 1991, the money arrived at the same time as the good news of Jesus did.

I was a student at the University of Tirana, watching my country that once had proudly called itself the world’s only atheist state become, almost overnight, a mission field. Missionaries came with real love and real cheques. They rented good homes. They hired helpers to clean their houses and look after their children. They bought buildings, vehicles, equipment, and ministry resources at a time when most Albanian families could barely put food on their tables.

Many of them loved Albania well. I remain very grateful for them.

But, for several years, Albanian believers were rarely invited to give. Newly planted and growing evangelical churches often had no regular slot in their Sunday services for bringing offerings to God. There was little teaching on giving, stewardship, or generosity. And so, without anyone ever saying it aloud, a whole generation of Albanian Christians learned that sharing the gospel and planting new churches was something ‘rich’ Christians in America or Europe funded.

Many of our theological and practical frameworks for generosity and fundraising are still thirty years out of date.

This story is not unique to Albania.

Over the last twenty-three years, serving as a fundraising consultant and trainer for Christian ministries, I have heard versions of it in New Delhi, Cairo, Kathmandu, Prague, and elsewhere. I have also seen extraordinary generosity from local believers and enormous shifts in both mission sending and mission funding.

But I have noticed something else. Many of our theological and practical frameworks for generosity and fundraising are still thirty years out of date.

Let’s briefly pause to consider the shift. In 1900, only 17.6 percent of the world’s Christians lived in the Global South. Today, that figure is roughly 69 percent, and by 2075, it is projected to pass 80 percent.¹ Today, the African continent alone is home to some 780 million Christians.

The thing is, the centre of gravity of Christianity did not shift gradually while we were watching. It shifted while ministries and Christian philanthropists in the Global North were creating generosity Bible studies and designing funding models that assumed it never would.

Mission has followed. As Lausanne’s own analysis puts it, missionaries today are sent from everywhere to everywhere.² More than 450,000 cross-cultural missionaries are currently serving outside their own countries, with a further 14 million workers serving within them.³ Nigerian pastors are planting churches in the UK. Brazilian workers are serving in North Africa. South Korean missionaries are sharing the gospel in Central Asia. The Filipino diaspora has become the largest informal mission force in human history.

The present and the future of mission and of funding is polycentric.

And the money? Global Christian giving now exceeds one trillion US dollars a year.⁴ So the strategic issue is no longer whether the Global South has financial resources for mission. It is whether our funding and fundraising structures have caught up with where those resources now sit, and how they might be deployed.

The present and the future of mission and of funding is polycentric – this word is doing a great deal of work in mission conversations at the moment. So let me be precise about what I mean by ‘polycentric’ in the context of preaching and teaching about biblical generosity and fundraising.  

What polycentric fundraising actually means

Let me define the term properly, because it is used loosely, and it deserves better.

Polycentric fundraising is resource mobilisation that assumes many centres rather than one. It holds that every part of the global church is simultaneously a giver and a receiver of money, people, prayer, and the theology of generosity. There is no permanent philanthropic centre and no permanent periphery of needy recipients. Resources these days move in many directions, because the Global Church itself now has many centres of worship, mission, and social action.

Before going any further, I also want to state briefly what polycentric fundraising is not:

• It is not self-sufficiency. A church or ministry that severs its international relationships to prove it can stand alone has not achieved polycentric generosity. It has achieved isolation with better branding, and it is denying itself the interdependence Paul assumed when he wrote to Corinth about the collection for Jerusalem: their abundance now supplying Jerusalem’s need, so that Jerusalem’s abundance might one day supply theirs (2 Cor 8:13–14).
• It is not ‘local giving replaces foreign giving’. That framing keeps the old map and simply reverses the arrow, with the church or ministry keeping whatever it raises for itself rather than sharing it with others.
• And it is not a fundraising tactic. It is an ecclesiology with financial consequences. If you believe a new church plant in Belgrade (Serbia) is a full member of the body of Christ, then you believe it has something to give, and a funding model that treats it only as a beneficiary of foreign money is telling that congregation something false about itself every single week.

The test I use with the ministries I work with is simple. I ask the leadership team: 

If the honest answer is ‘nothing, because they never supported us,’ then the church or ministry is not yet polycentric. They are running a one-directional model with polycentric vocabulary bolted on.

None of this is theoretical. The shift I am describing has already happened, more than once, in places with far less money than most of us have. 

Here are just three examples that are worth mentioning, and you can discover more and share yours by joining the Ministry Fundraising Issue Network at: www.mfn.global

Three examples of polycentric fundraising

Korea: the generosity decision that compounded for 130 years

One of the most instructive cases of polycentric fundraising I have come across is over a century old. In 1890, the Presbyterian missionaries in Korea invited John Livingston Nevius to Seoul to share his effective church planting strategies for growing independent churches. One year later, they implemented Nevius’ method, built on three commitments: 

1. Self-government, handing the leadership of the church to Korean pastors and congregations as early as possible.   
2. Self-support, weaning young churches off mission money and challenging them to fund their own workers and buildings. 
3. Self-propagation, with Korean believers evangelising and sending missionaries to other parts of the world.⁵

Korean believers gave generously. They built their own chapels. Each congregation contributed to the salary of their own pastor. Schools received only partial subsidy. No Korean pastors were paid from foreign funds.⁶ Nevius had proposed all of this in China and had been ignored by his own mission agency; it was Koreans who took him seriously.⁷

The Kingdom fruits from these ventures were remarkable. Within a decade, Korean churches were sending missionaries to areas near Vladivostok and into Japan, every one of them supported by Korean congregations.⁸ This generosity fuelled the Korean mission movement, formally dating from 1907. Between 1988 and 2013, Korea emerged as one of the world’s leading missionary-sending nations. ⁹

Korean churches did not stop receiving because they started giving. Anyone who has watched Korean churches fund and send workers across the world, as I have on several occasions, is watching a generosity decision made in 1890 continue to compound.

Romania: waking the sleeping giant

Korea shows what a founding decision can do over a century. Romania shows the same choice being made in our own lifetime, by a church that had every reason to believe it could not afford to make one.

Under Communism, the Romanian Pentecostal Church was sealed off from the rest of the world church, and cross-cultural outreach fell out of its theology altogether. After 1989, the Pentecostal Church grew quickly. By the end of the 20^th century, it had more than 2,000 congregations, and it still did not send any missionaries. In European mission circles, the Romanian Pentecostal Church was known as the sleeping giant.

Two obstacles to being a sending church can be identified. The first obstacle was the collapse of the economy that followed the fall of Communism, which bred a conviction that the Romanian church was too poor for cross-cultural mission and too poor to support its own missionaries. And, the second obstacle was the false impression cultivated by the influx of foreign missionaries to Romania after 1989, which led Romanian Christian leaders to believe that their country was just a mission field rather than a mission force.¹⁰

This is not, by the way, a critique of how foreign mission leaders saw Romania. It is how Romanian leaders described what a well-meaning foreign missionary presence did to their own understanding of themselves.

The paradigm shift came slowly, and partly through a foreigner who knew when to step back. The American pastor Cameron Wilson launched a series of Romanian mission conferences in 1999; after the fourth conference, he told the Romanian churches that if there were to be a fifth, they would have to organise it themselves. 

And they did. In February 2006, Romanian pastors founded the Romanian Pentecostal Foreign Mission Agency.¹¹ By 2020, Agenția Penticostală de Misiune Externă (APME) had accredited 67 long-term cross-cultural workers serving in more than 25 countries across three continents, and in 2017, the denomination adopted it as its official mission structure.¹² It reports its mission activities and finances each year to a committee of pastors and to the ecclesiastical council of the Romanian Pentecostal Church. 

A church that believed itself too poor to send now trains other churches to send workers to fulfil the Great Commission.

What makes this polycentric resource mobilisation rather than merely self-sufficient is what APME did not do. It kept its foreign partners, a Swedish organisation, an American founding board member, and a US body mobilising the Romanian diaspora to support Romanian missionaries. In addition, APME joined the Pentecostal European Mission in 2007 and the Pentecostal Asia Mission in 2019 because many of its workers now serve in Asia.

What’s more, it began to teach. The story of APME has been presented as a case study at world mission conventions in Mexico, Thailand, Singapore, Spain, and Canada, where its leaders have set out to encourage churches in other countries (churches as convinced of their own poverty as Romania once was) to start sending and supporting workers of their own.¹³

A church that believed itself too poor to send now trains other churches to send workers to fulfil the Great Commission. That is the arrow moving in the right direction.

Kenya: moving money sideways

Korea and Romania are both stories of churches learning to fund their own sending. Kenya shows a further step: congregations funding one another’s mission across borders, with no northern money anywhere in the chain.

The central operation of Mavuno Church in Kenya is planting churches where there are none, funded by local congregations contributing a share of their income to the centre. The flagship Hill City congregation gives around 42 per cent; others contribute 15% or more.¹⁴

In addition to this, Mavuno runs the Discovery Africa leadership programme, which has drawn emerging leaders from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, the DRC, and Zambia, and from Germany and the United States.¹⁵

What steps and decisions should our church or ministry be taking to be a centre of mission and generosity towards God’s work?

Isn’t it wonderful that Germans and Americans are travelling to Nairobi to be trained by Kenyans? That is what polycentric mission funding looks like. Congregations in Nairobi support church planting elsewhere on the continent, and the traffic in workers and trainers runs in both directions. The money moves sideways, not from North to South.

None of these three polycentric fundraising stories happened by accident. In each case, someone made a decision that was uncomfortable at the time and looks obvious in hindsight. Which leaves the rest of us asking ourselves: what steps and decisions should our church or ministry be taking to be a centre of mission and generosity towards God’s work?

Six practices for polycentric generosity and fundraising 

If polycentric fundraising is to become more than attractive language, churches and ministries in both the Global North and the Global South will need to change how they think, fund, lead, and partner.

For churches and ministries in the Global North:

1. Do not arrive with ready-made answers. Do not impose your theology of generosity, your fundraising models, leadership frameworks, or ministry solutions on partners and collaborators as though they were universally transferable. Listen to local believers and leaders first. Unearth and celebrate the local generosity stories. Understand the local culture, the dynamics of church and mission life, the wounds, the pains, the gifts, and the existing patterns of generosity before offering solutions.
2. Co-fund in ways that build ownership, not dependency. Do not let your gifts or grants become the silent owners of local mission. Promote co-funding wherever possible, inviting local churches and believers to bring what God has already placed in their hands: money, prayer, relationships, land, food, time, professional skills, hospitality, and courage.
3. Invest in local capacity and theological flourishing. The best gift is not always a grant. Sometimes it is training, mentoring, governance support, fundraising coaching, theological education, or simply space for local leaders to develop their own resources. Fund the people and institutions that help the church think biblically in its own language and on its own soil.

Finally, humbly accept that polycentric generosity cannot be fully delivered from the Global North because half of this work, including praying, thinking, theologising, and fundraising, belongs to the churches and ministries that have spent decades on the receiving end of the old model.

For churches and ministries in the Global South:

4. Do not underestimate what God has already given your people locally. Poverty is real, but it is not the whole story, and the conviction that you are too poor to send is often inherited rather than actual.  Romanian Pentecostals held it for fifteen years while two thousand congregations grew. Look for the generosity that already exists in your own culture before importing a mechanism from elsewhere. Teach giving as part of discipleship in your local churches. Tell local stories of local generosity. Celebrate those who support and love your church and your ministry. Invite people into God’s mission with joy and dignity, not apology.
5. Build trust before you ask for money. Local fundraising grows where there is transparency, accountability, and a clear vision for God’s work. Publish your financial reports. Explain the mission needs. Show what gifts make possible. Offer feedback honestly and in a timely manner. People give freely when they trust their leaders, understand the mission, and can see the fruit of God’s work in the lives of others.
6. Welcome international funding without surrendering local calling. International support can be a gift from God, but it should not define your identity or control your ministry agenda. Know what God has called you to do in your context. Receive international partners as fellow members of the body of Christ, while developing the local leadership, local giving, and local decision-making that make the work belong to the people you serve.

The invitation we forgot to make

Thirty-five years on, I no longer believe that the foreign money that came to Albania in 1991 was a problem. It was that nobody ‘passed the plate.’ What missionaries withheld from Albanians was worth more than funds. They withheld the invitation to join in God’s mission work, assuming new believers like me had nothing to give. 

The apostle Paul had a different perspective in a similar situation. Writing about the churches of Macedonia, he observed that their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity, that they gave beyond their means, and that they pleaded for the privilege of sharing in the work (2 Cor 8:2–4). The privilege of sharing in God’s work – this is precisely what we might take away from local believers and churches when we decide in advance that they are only going to be recipients of our generosity. 

The Great Commission was never entrusted to donors and recipients. It was given to a body

The Great Commission was never entrusted to donors and recipients. It was given to a body, one that now numbers over 2.6 billion members, roughly seven in ten of them living in  places mission agencies from the Global North still call ‘the mission fields.’

I am convinced the Global Church already has the resources to further the Great Commission in our generation. Those resources are in the hands of millions of Christians who are not being joyfully and consistently invited to join God’s mission locally and around the world with their giving, prayers, skills, and influence.

To unlock the generosity of God’s people everywhere, Christian leaders need to develop authentic theologies of generosity, find the courage to invite local believers to give, and build the trust and accountability needed to motivate every believer to bring to the table whatever God has entrusted them with. 

Somewhere near you, there are local believers and churches waiting for the invitation.

Ask them.

Questions for reflection

For ministry partners in the Global North

1. Where might our funding, theology, systems, or strategies be unintentionally shaping the mission’s agenda more than local discernment?
2. Are we funding ministries and initiatives in developing nations in ways that build local ownership and capacity, or in ways that make our partners more dependent on us?
3. What have we genuinely received from our Global South partners in the last twelve months, theologically, spiritually, strategically, or relationally?

For ministries in the Global South

1. Where does generosity already flourish in our culture, church, or community, and how can we connect that more clearly to biblical discipleship?
2. Who in our church or ministry communities has never been invited to give because we assumed they had too little to offer?
3. What is one area of our work that could begin to be co-funded locally and globally, and what amount and date should we set to reach our joint goals?

Endnotes

1. Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) (2026) Status of Global Christianity 2026. South Hamilton, MA: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Published in International Bulletin of Mission Research. Lifeway Research (2026) ‘Nine Encouraging Trends for Global Christianity in 2026’, 14 April.
2. Lausanne Movement (2024) ‘Perspectives from Global South Christianity‘, Lausanne Global Analysis.
3. Lifeway Research (2026) ‘Nine Encouraging Trends for Global Christianity in 2026’, 14 April.
4. Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) (2026) Status of Global Christianity 2026. South Hamilton, MA: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Published in International Bulletin of Mission Research.
5. Clark, D. N. (2019) ‘Christianity in Modern Korea’, Education About Asia. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (n.d.) ‘Presbyterianism in the Hermit Kingdom: The Presbyterian Church of Korea at 110’. Louisville, KY: Presbyterian Historical Society.
6. Clark, C. A. (1930) The Korean Church and the Nevius Method. New York: Fleming H. Revell.
7. Nevius, J. L. (1886) The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press.
8. Clark, D. N. (2019) ‘Christianity in Modern Korea’, Education About Asia. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies.
9. Lausanne Movement (2024) ‘Perspectives from Global South Christianity‘, Lausanne Global Analysis.
10. APME (n.d.) Historical Landmarks. Cluj-Napoca: Agenția Penticostală de Misiune Externă.
11. APME (n.d.) Historical Landmarks. Cluj-Napoca: Agenția Penticostală de Misiune Externă.
12. APME (n.d.) Historical Landmarks. Cluj-Napoca: Agenția Penticostală de Misiune Externă.
13. Rițișan, G. and Constantineanu, C. (2016) ‘APME — A Case Study in Cross-Cultural Mission Originating from Eastern Europe’, in Mission in Central and Eastern Europe. Oxford: Regnum Books International, pp. 345–362.
14. Kahura, D. (2018) ‘For the Love of Money: The Church “Business” in Kenya’, The Elephant, 6 December.
15. Mavuno Church (n.d.) Discovery Africa. Nairobi: Mavuno Church.