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E-book: Our balanced attack
How Nazarenes finance world evangelism (part 1)
This e-book by Howard Culbertson was originally published by what is now The Foundry for the NMI mission book series under ISBN 0834114186. It has been revised and updated for this e-book version.
If I'm in my car on an autumn Saturday afternoon, I'll turn on the radio and hunt for a football game broadcast. It's a habit I developed growing up in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is a football-crazy state. It doesn't have an NFL team. No matter. The University of Oklahoma regularly wins conference championships. Its football team has been crowned national champion several times. Several players from OU and Oklahoma State University have won the Heisman Trophy, an award given each year to the best college football player in the United States. Teams from Oklahoma universities often play in postseason bowl games.
Because of where I grew up, I caught football fever. I spent autumn Saturday afternoons listening to the Oklahoma Sooner Football Network. I dreamed about being a great football player. Alas, I never did play on a school team. The only time I got out of the bleachers and onto a playing field was when I played my trumpet in the marching band. Along the way, I did play a lot of sandlot football. Of course, my dream of being a great player was unrealistic. Usually, I was the shortest kid on the playground. Without question, I was the skinniest. So they often chose me last. Still, whether as a player or a spectator, I have always loved football. I'm from Oklahoma, and Oklahoma is a football-crazy state.
There are some important things you should know about football. One is that you don't win championships by depending on a single player. You've got to have a balanced attack. That means using the skills of a variety of players. Consistent winning takes a team effort. "Balanced attack" also refers to the way you play the game. A balanced offense combines running and passing plays. A championship team also needs a strong defense.
What does all this have to do with missions? Well, let's first look at an example of a missions program that tried to operate without a balanced attack. While we were in Haiti as missionaries, a well-known American televangelist confessed to grievous moral lapses. At the height of his popularity, his broadcasts attracted an enormous stream of donations. With some of that money, he bankrolled most of his denomination's mission work in Haiti. Among the things he paid for were hot lunches in 100 elementary schools. Then, one Sunday evening on television, he confessed to sexual immorality.
By Monday morning, a full-blown scandal had erupted around him. After his confession, he continued soliciting donations to keep his headquarters operating and his personal airplane flying. Anticipating that donations would fall off after his confession, he called Haiti that first week to shut down the lunch programs. On payday two weeks later, Haitian teachers in "his" schools got empty envelopes. We had missionary friends supported directly by this television preacher. Their full reliance on his money brought their work crashing to a halt. Within days after the scandal broke, these missionaries packed up to go home. Without his financial support, their ministry had collapsed like a football team that had depended too much on a star player who then broke his leg.
Nazarene missions funding works differently. The funds for our global ministries are raised in several different ways. For me, football's balanced attack makes a great illustration of how Nazarenes look for resources to fulfill Christ's Great Commission. We Nazarenes don't depend on one person giving all the money. We use several different fundraising avenues. We appeal to the young and old, to the rich and poor. Sometimes, we appeal to the emotions, sometimes to a rational sense of careful stewardship.
The results are impressive. By pooling our gifts, Nazarenes sustain missionary service and global ministries far beyond what individual congregations could support alone.
The longer I'm involved in Nazarene missions outreach, the more convinced I become of the soundness of our balanced fundraising strategy. What is so special about it? Well, to begin with, ongoing expenses like missionary salaries and hospital supplies are underwritten by a budget system. This budget -- funded with gifts given to the World Evangelism Fund -- provides continuity for our missions outreach. Through economic booms and downturns, despite Satan's opposition, we'll be fulfilling our divine mandate, thanks to the World Evangelism Fund. To balance out a rather mundane-sounding budget system, some of our other fundraising ventures appeal to the emotions and depend on spontaneity. These include offerings to open new countries, to buy horses for rural pastors, to help disaster victims, and to construct churches and other ministry facilities.
Aided by funds raised through our balanced attack, we Nazarenes have been able to walk through many doors God has opened for us. We've planted flourishing holiness churches on six continents. In 1983, Nazarene churches celebrated 75 years as a denomination. That year, local congregations were urged to give more than their World Evangelism Fund share to help the church enter several new world areas. Those additional gifts helped us enter five new world areas: Myanmar, the Azores, Kenya, Suriname, and Botswana. Adding these to the list of areas where the church was already established gave us a total of 74 world areas, just one short of our diamond anniversary goal of 75 (one world area for each year since the 1908 Pilot Point merger).
Today, we're in 165 world areas -- including Italy, where we served before going to Haiti. Fueling such global outreach is a diversified fundraising system combining the best of emotional spontaneity with long-term commitment. That's what this book is about: a balanced attack that combines a dependable budget with special appeals and other sources of support. [ Continue reading ]
It's wrong to think about the 5.5% of adjusted church income that Nazarene churches are asked to contribute to the World Evangelism Fund as some kind of tax. Joining forces with other local churches in creating a fund for world evangelism is an excellent way of fulfilling our Great Commission responsibilities . . . [
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