It’s no secret that missionaries are retiring sooner than they’re being replaced. “God wants us to be willing to go,” is something many churchgoers have heard from countless missions presentations. Why? Many are not willing, though, largely due to more attractive career potentials or the trappings of debt, creature comforts, family, and all that is familiar.
What about those who do answer the call? The sad news is that among those who do go and are far from retirement age, many are having to come home from the field — for many, that means leaving the place they’ve come to consider home, many times without adequately trained believers to take their place. Why? Lack of financial support. Particularly during the recent economic downturns, many churches and individual believers have dropped missionaries that they once supported.
Missionaries trying to re-gain full support while on the field are usually met with disinterest, especially since the economy continues to keep many churches that are at least keeping their commitments from increasing their missions support.
Even before the recession, one missionary estimated that while he was on deputation, he would typically be granted a meeting with a church — without promised support — for every 100 calls he made to churches. For well-trained, willing servants of Christ who are willing to leave their homelands and many conveniences, such hurdles to gaining financial and prayer support from fellow believers seem inappropriate.
After years of itinerant life in which they hope to garner regular donation pledges, missionaries will still be living on bare-bones budgets and subject to fluctuating exchange rates, once they get to the field. Some mission fields offer more barriers than others; a new language, cultural barriers, and religious persecution are all part of many missionaries’ hurdles to share Christ. Imagine going through all of that, only to begin to see some spiritual fruits of all your labors, only to have financial support dropped, and needing to return “home.” It wouldn’t feel like home, then, would it? It would feel more like failure, resignation, and rejection.
It was through a missionary whose support was dropped, making him return from the mission field, that George and Louise Eusterman began to brainstorm ways to use their knowledge of EFTs to help create more reliable giving solutions for Christian ministries. After decades of learning through mistakes and seeing growth in their health club business, they retired from their secular careers and founded eGiving.com.
Egiving Systems has been ministering to churches and other Christian ministries for over 10 years, now, and has helped believers fund Kingdom growth in substantial ways. Through online giving and recurring electronic giving solutions, the Eustermans have seen God work to keep missionaries on the field through greater faithfulness of God’s people’s gifts. The recurring electronic giving platform has enjoyed a remarkable 5-year consistency among 95% of participants — a vast improvement over other means of receiving pledged donations.
For more information about how you can help missionaries stay on the field, visit eGiving.com
Hello,
My dad is one of those missionaries who has been set on his ways for a long time. Now, he barely receives $500-$700 a month for his missions. It’s hard to imagine this a bad monthly salary for a church planter in Africa or even Mexico, but for the US? When we think of missionaries, often times, we forget that even the US needs missionaries and that they need help.
Recently, I have dropped everything but my full time job to help my father gain support from churches and individuals. He used to work under MTW and now is under PEF. I need help. How can he raise funds? What types of marketing are available and Godly for his ministry? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Esther,
Where in the US is your dad planting a church? Does he have a website for the church? How is he currently bringing awareness to the needs of his church planting ministry? Is it just recently (i.e. during the economic downturn) that his monthly funding has significantly dropped? At what monthly level does he need to be? What monthly level was he at in 2008?
Best,
Andrew
Seems like a sure way for me. Wish more missionaries were tech savvy and went this route! I think I’d be more prone to give in an automated way like this also. Set it up and forget about it!!