The way you view ministry support determines your attitudes, actions, and relationships.
A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that shapes the way we view reality. Most people do not stop to consider their paradigms, yet those paradigms influence how they live. We must be intentional about which ones we adopt.
Many missionaries have always done fundraising in certain ways and viewed the people who support them as donors. We offer a different paradigm: lifelong ministry partnership.
Our young family moved to the tiny Guatemalan village of San Sebastian Coatan. Within a couple of years, I learned the language well enough to begin translating Scripture into the Chuj dialect spoken by the Mayans who lived there.
One day, while preparing to translate Paul’s letter to the Philippians, I began to understand it as a Spirit-inspired missionary letter to believers who were partners in mission.
Partnership means giving and receiving
The Greek noun koinonia in Philippians 1:5, and the related verb in Philippians 4:15, can mean partnership, participation, communion, communication, and fellowship. Paul thanked God for the Philippians’ partnership in the gospel and described their relationship as giving and receiving.
Am I in true partnership with those who support us?
My answer was no. I was getting far more than I was giving. God convicted me through His Word. I determined to learn how to give back to our partners as they had given to us.
That decision began a journey toward a new view of missionary support. Support was no longer a one-way transaction. It was a shared calling and a relationship of mutual care.
Excerpted from Never Do Fundraising Again: A Paradigm Shift from Donors to Lifelong Partners.