Re-Thinking Missions

Gary North

July 13, 2007

As the dollar falls, it gets more expensive to keep foreign missionaries in the field. I have a solution.

The foreign mission fields with the greatest potential are here.

Fact: American graduate schools are the best in the world, especially in engineering and the natural sciences. From all over the world, rich parents and governments send the best and the brightest to study here. These students are most likely to become leaders back home.

Fact: In the United States, very bright Christians want to attend grad school. Most of them can't afford it.

Let's make a deal.

First, foreign missions organizations re-define the mission field as the American university. Second, they hire college graduates who want to attend grad school. They assign these students the following tasks:

1. Meet with a language/culture group each week for an hour: five meetings per week. Topics: making sense of the Bible and American higher education.

2. Direct attendees to the foreign missions organization's Web site for a specific language/culture group. This site should offer chat rooms. 3. Sponsor four parties a year: registration week, Christmas vacation, spring break, graduation.

The Saudi Arabian government executes Christian missionaries in Saudi Arabia. So, bring the gospel to Saudis who are already here.

To cut long-term costs, the missions organization buys a small house or large apartment near a campus. Give the evangelists free rent to oversee the property. They must live there by contract. This makes their rent tax-free income. The property also becomes an appreciating capital asset for the missions organization.

Pay the evangelist the equivalent of tuition, books, food, and walking-around money. Pay for his family's health insurance through the university (cheaper). Buy a $250,000 term life insurance policy on his life, letting him name the beneficiary: wife or parents ($200/year).

Launch the program at a large university that has lots of foreign students. It should be in a low-cost region. Rent the house the first year. If the program works, buy it the next year. I would begin with Texas A&M. It has a strong Christian influence on the faculty. It is science oriented. It has 45,000 students. Real estate is cheap.

Open a new mission field when more money becomes available. The long-term goal is to establish a presence at the big-name schools. But they are mostly in high-cost areas. So, rent apartments there, if buying housing is prohibitive, e.g., Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Chicago.

Even if the campus missionaries never get a single convert -- unlikely -- they will still get their grad school degrees. The donors get something for their money.

What does it cost to keep a missionary in Western Europe -- salary, retirement, insurance, staff support (if any), and housing? Probably $100,000 a year, and rising. The foreign missions boards rarely say what the average salary is. An exception is the Presbyterian Church, USA. In 2006, the average expense was $51,000.

http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/faq.htm

How many baptisms of adults are there per year? The foreign missions board rarely say.

What is the cost per baptism for each mission field? That is, where is the money being spent most effectively? The boards will never, ever publish these figures. This would be too embarrassing for too many missionaries.

They respond: "You can't count the cost of souls!" Really? Then are there other measurable criteria for closing a mission? None? Is it "once sent, always sent"? Is it lifetime employment, no matter what? Is it tenure forever?

Basically, it is. This is why denominational missions boards cannot compete with Youth With a Mission's 15,000 missionaries and staff in 149 countries. YWAM began in 1960, and was expelled by the Assemblies of God. "You are just too inexperienced," the founder was told. Right. "Go away, kid. You bother me." YWAM is sometimes called Youth Without Any Money. This is generally an accurate description. Each missionary raises his own funds. They tend to be young. They are not seminary graduates.

With my program, there would be no tenure. But if a man really did have a gift for this, he could raise his own funds, YWAM style, after graduation. Also, my program does not tie down an ordained pastor, who he could be in home missions. Ordained foreign missionaries in the field should be running local theological training programs for indigenous missionaries, who know the language and the culture, and who in Third World countries are cheap to fund.

I am all for foreign missions. But when Mohammed cannot afford to go to the mountain, he had better start looking for a nearby hill.