Our Church being our Own Mission Board

By Dr. James Ray

Baptist International Missions, Inc., exists to serve the local church. Those who serve on the board of BIMI are pastors who pastor successful mission churches. BIMI is the delegated assistant to over 7,000 local independent Baptist churches helping them to complete their task of evangelizing the world. BIMI has served as the delegated assistant to local independent Baptist churches for over 45 years. There are some churches, however, who feel that they want to send their missionaries from their church without the assistance of a board. We offer this information to assist churches who want to sponsor missionaries without the assistance of a board.

Such a church would need to assume the following responsibilities:

1. Advise the missionary on ways to contact pastors and churches. Since the missionary’s recommendations of friends and fellow pastors will be limited in scope, the sending pastor should inform the missionary on ways to make contacts and get meetings outside the circle.

a. He should obtain mailing lists for the missionary for contacts. This list can come from fellow alumni of the school where the missionary attended.

b. He should instruct the missionary on calling techniques and possibly provide a phone for him to use.

c. He should instruct the missionary to spend a designated number of hours on the phone each day in order to arrange meetings.

2. Provide prayer letter service. This can be possibly arranged by having the church secretary or a staff member in charge of mailing the missionary’s prayer letter to all supporters. BIMI has found that volunteer help with prayer letters in time fails and creates a communication gap between the missionary and his supporters. Paid help works best.

3. Secure insurance for the family. Be sure the missionary has worldwide coverage. (Remember that one or two weeks overseas vacation coverage is not sufficient.)

a. Health Insurance. Most normal insurance policies do not cover missionaries and their families who reside in foreign countries. This is a serious responsibility of the sending pastor and church.

b. Evacuation Insurance. If the missionary is in a health crisis or if there is a death, the cost of evacuation can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight. A policy must be in place that will cover evacuation. A local church mission board must also be able to execute evacuation in emergencies.

Case in point. A missionary with BIMI was severely burned in Mexico. A hospital in Texas demanded $400,000 before they would help him. His life hung in the balance. BIMI’s insurance representative worked with the hospital and insurance and had the missionary flown before sunset to the hospital in Texas. Due to the mission insurance, the hospital dropped its demand for upfront cash.

A church sending its own missionary should have a $150,000 reserve fund to cover evacuation of their missionaries in emergencies such as this—WHEN, not IF these emergencies arise.

Make sure the missionary does not have a large amount of debt. Supporters take a dim view of support money going to credit card and other personal debt, especially while on deputation.

5. Help with set up, equipment and advice for deputation presentation. (Help with material, multi-media etc.) • Prayer cards
• Display boards
• Letterhead and stationery
• Brochures describing the ministry and field to which the missionary is going
• Projector/video/slide presentation

6. Advise on international banking and transfer of funds. Want an education? Just try to get money to banks in Africa, Eastern Europe, and third world countries. It can be done, but it takes an education. It is a life!

7. Take care of tax liabilities. The local church that provides sponsorship to a missionary must be sure that all records are kept carefully to give the missionary necessary legal papers at the end of the year for reporting to the IRS. The church must also know about foreign exemption requirements.

The local church must be prepared to issue proper tax income documents for the IRS. As the missionary’s employer, the church is held responsible.

8. Be accountable to other churches that send funds through the sending church. Receipts must be sent out to each donating church each month with a total calculation sent at the end of the year. This is essential for legal tax exempt purposes.

Illustration—A local church supporting and processing only 20 missionaries would pay over $600 per month just in postage stamps, sending receipts to their missionaries (80 donors per missionaries from other churches, other than the home church). Then there would be secretary help, printing, and other expenses. Perhaps super churches can do this, but the average church needs help.

9. Have an escrow fund. It is imperative that a church set aside a stated amount of the missionary’s monthly income for his furlough. If this is not done, the church must pay for travel home for furlough or be responsible for raising it from other supporting churches. Most churches find this difficult when they are in the midst of building programs and such like.

10. Be in contact with foreign governments and assist with work permits.

Foreign Governments around the world want an organization to promise repatriation in case the missionary or worker has to be evacuated.

11. Be responsible for legal matters. Foreign governments will hold the sponsoring agency (in this case the local sending church) responsible for all liabilities. For example:

a. If the missionary has an accident with his car and possibly hits an individual (and this absolutely WILL HAPPEN eventually)

b. If he is arrested for breaking a law (unintentional or not)

c. If he must be repatriated to the U.S., etc., the sending church must make sure that funds are on hand to pay any legal expenses that are incurred. (Mission boards face this type of emergency all too frequently.)

In-House legal challenges. The sending church must realize that assuming responsibility for families in foreign countries is not a light undertaking. It is not a ministry that a church can discard with the change of a pastor or when the program becomes a heavy burden or inconvenient. The lives, welfare and survival of human beings depend on those undertaking the sending out of missionaries.

12. Know what to do in a crisis situation. The pastor must have in place a policy to deal with emergencies of any nature such as kidnapping, sickness, medical, or death.

Examples:

1. Norway—“My husband just died.” (A director flew to Norway with $10,000 advance insurance money and was with her for the service and burial.)

2. Phone call from Russia—A missionary had a car accident and hit a woman, killing her. The missionary was being held by police.

3. Vehicle accident in South America—The missionary parents were killed. The children were left alone without any means of support.

4. Plane crash in Nepal—An entire missionary family was killed.

5. Siberia—Robbery at gun point

6. Missionaries are kidnapped—huge ransoms are demanded by kidnappers to sending agency. What preparations or procedure are in place and what guidelines have been developed? No one knows all the answers to any given situation but clear policy should be in place before the crisis.

The pastor has to be able to place normal church duties on hold and take care of these matters. Usually this can be done with 1 or 2 missionaries, but it gets very difficult with 10, 15 or 20 missionaries. One man can only do so much within 24 hours a day.

Of course, once all of this has been set up, the church has become a mission agency for all the other churches. The church has reinvented the wheel.

The following has not been mentioned:
• Leadership Development
• Computer services
• Help with visas/passports/documents
• Monthly statements
• Deputation training
• Correspondence with other donor churches
• Physical examinations
• Shipping
• Travel needs

So, here then is what needs to be done!
› The Sending Church could follow the 12 steps listed above

OR
› Call (423) 344-5050 and BIMI will do it for the church AS ITS DELEGATED SERVANT!

Then, the pastor can pastor the church, study for sermons, preach, visit the sick, pray for its missionaries, and visit its missionaries without having to be bogged down with nuts and bolts and logistics…because the church has delegated a mission agency to assist it!
© Copyright 2007, BIMI