Why Raise Financial Support?

When explaining our ministry to people we are often asked some variation of the question, “Why not get jobs in France, instead or in addition to raising financial support?” It’s an excellent question, and one that I am hoping to give a somewhat more thorough and complete answer to here.

First a clarification, it is certainly not the case that in raising financial support that some Christians are called to do ministry while the rest are called to pay for it. There are not two classes of Christians: one that serves God and the other that pays them to do that service. All followers of Jesus are called to full service of him in everything.

So, if that is the case why raise financial support for ministry? I think there are three main reasons, there could be many more, but these are the three that most readily come to mind. The first reason is biblical, the second is practical, and the third is because it is an opportunity to give. I will split them up into three posts so it is not too long.

#1: The Biblical Reason

In the Gospel of Luke Jesus sends out the seventy-two to announce his coming, and he tells them “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages” (Lk 10:2–7). Paul writes something similar in his letter to the Corinthian church when he says, “Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel” (1 Cor 9:13–14). So, both Jesus and Paul are in agreement that full-time ministers of the gospel should be provided for by others as they do the work God has given them.

“Wait,” you may say. “But Paul was a tent-maker. That’s how he provided for his ministry.” Paul was indeed a tent-maker and there was a time in which he gave up his right to receive support, as he calls it in 1 Cor 9:6, to provide for himself through that vocation. Acts 18:1–5 says, “After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.” Paul’s whole argument in 1 Corinthians 9 is about how he gave up his right to receive financial support from the Corinthians while he was preaching the Gospel to them. He did however receive financial support from another church, possibly the Philippians (see Phil 4:10–19), when Silas and Timothy arrived that allowed him to stop making tents and devote himself exclusively to preaching. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:7–9, “Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you. And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.”

Therefore, the pattern for Paul seems to be to receive support from established churches and believers so that he can start new works without making the new church pay to support him (see Romans 15:23–24). He made tents so the Corinthians wouldn’t have to pay for his ministry while he was waiting for funds from Macedonia. In modern day church-planting we are attempting to do the same thing, that is raise support from existing churches and believers so that we can start a work in a new area offering the Gospel to them free of charge. Do we need business minded believers to start companies and do ministry through their work? Absolutely. It takes gifted and talented people to do that work. But Jesus said that those people he calls to enter the harvest should be fully provided for through that work.

We believe that we have been called to this particular task and seek to take Jesus at his word by raising financial support.

Click here to see the second part in this three-part series... the practical reason.