SQJ Taipei

I’ve not been feeling well… enough about that.

Because this really makes me sick

read the link… but here’s the gist…

a church wrote the following to a team of missionaries:

a couple of weeks ago, an anonymous letter was sent to Italy after i had gone and spoken at a supporting church. it was just a scribbled note attached to the annual church budget which listed all the ‘missions’ that this church supported. two mission works were circled: the area church camp and the ancona work. the person then circled the amount of money that was given in that year to each work which was listed in the adjacent column. the person then wrote “30 saved this year” next to the amount given to the church camp. Then, further down the list, next to the amount given to the ancona work was written, “1 saved this year.”
the scribbled note attached to this budget said, “We should have y’all come home. We are paying too much for what we are seeing for all the money being sent. A lot of people at church, think its time to stop, come home and go to a real mission where people want to hear about Jesus.”

Please go read the post.

I immediately thought of this post from Missions Misunderstood when I read about the short-sighted letter from that church.

The whole thing is good… but this is the money paragraph:

With that said, people (especially those who support me) need to realize that I’m not doing what I do so that they don’t have to. Sending money to me (through my organization, of course) is not what you get to do instead of being a missionary yourself. The Commission is not one you can or should hire out, and I’m not your stand-in. In fact, if you give to missions for any reason other than obedience to God, please stop. We don’t need your money.

Josh… if you want me to take this down, let me know… but I’m SEETHING mad about this type of thinking. I figured since you put it up that it was already public so this wouldn’t be any different.

Perhaps the person who wrote the silly note (and those whom he wrote it on behalf of) are all super-evangelists… but usually those who use their reasoning are the ones who think evangelism is for a certain few Christians and not the responsibility of all.