MISSION AGENCIES: For Better or Worse
STATEMENT
Missions agencies are parachurch organizations that partner with local churches to send and support qualified missionaries. They arose out of the biblical pattern to coordinate support for gospel workers and have proven useful when they come alongside churches. Agencies can be catalysts for collaboration and strategy among like-minded churches. They can also assist with logistics, training, and care of missionaries on the field. The local church is the leading partner and should not abdicate its primary responsibility for missions. A well-intentioned but misguided agency can jeopardize the work of biblical missions. However, an agency that rightly understands missions and the role of the local church can provide crucial support.
Article Written by Ryan CurrieBilbo Baggins, the hobbit hero of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit, once explained the danger of leaving home to his nephew: “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Missions work often feels like a giant leap into the unknown. Even if you start with a plan and destination, the missionary can resonate with Hebrews’ description of Abraham: “And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). But even if the details and the place change, the task of missions remains the same. Wherever missionaries are “swept off to,” the Great Commission guides and defines the task of missions.
Missions agencies are parachurch organizations that can partner with churches to send and support qualified missionaries. The founders of these agencies recognized the biblical imperative for local churches to collaborate in supporting gospel workers. An agency that rightly understands missions and the role of the local church can provide crucial support as missionaries are “swept off” for the spread of the gospel.
Supporting Missionaries in the New Testament
As much as people value independence, this mission task is not any individual's job. Even the Apostle Paul recognized his need for local churches to provide accountability and support. The New Testament model shows local churches that send out missionaries (Acts 13:1-3), support them with finances (2 Corinthians 11:9; Phil. 4:16) and prayer (2 Thessalonians 3:1), and receive their reports (Acts 14:27; Acts 15:12).
The mutual support of missionaries provides a unique bond of fellowship between local churches. Missionaries carried news and greetings from one local church to another. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “All the churches of Christ greet you” (Romans 16:16). Through their reports, missionaries reminded local churches that they were a part of the universal Church, and that they should care about strengthening local churches in other areas. Paul recognized that missionaries connected local churches. He used this connection not only for his missionary ambition to preach the gospel and plant new churches but also to encourage and build up already established local churches (2 Corinthians 8:1–15).
The New Testament church had many missionaries and traveling ministers. In 3 John, John commends Gaius for supporting traveling ministers. He writes:
It is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support people like these that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (3 John 5–8)
John's letter to Gaius gives insight into how the early church viewed missionary support. These missionaries, even if they were strangers or not personally known, went out for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ. Because of this, they were to be sent “in a manner worthy of God.” They were ambassadors for Christ and were to be treated like the one they represented (see also Matthew 25:40). Gaius received the missionaries well, and the missionary, in turn, reported about Gaius' love and faithfulness to John and the local church.
3 John 8 is crucial in discussing missionary support: “Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.” The missionary supporters are fellow workers for the gospel. This is similar to Paul's statement that the church at Philippi was a partner in gospel work (Philippians 1:5). The workers sent out are to be supported; those who support them share in their labor and reward.
Local churches should support missionaries well. The New Testament testifies to this. Throughout church history, this partnership between local churches to send out and support missionaries led to the establishment of mission agencies.
Missions Agencies in Church History
The English shoemaker, pastor, missionary, and linguist William Carey (1761–1834) is known for his passion for unreached nations. He issued a clarion call to the church to recover a passion for the glory of God and a heart for the lost. He was zealous to preach the gospel and plant churches in places that had never heard the name of Christ. During his time, many Christians were apathetic and influenced by hyper-Calvinistic doctrine. When Carey began presenting the need to send missionaries, he was met with strong resistance. One older minister apparently told him, "Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without consulting you or me."
Gradually, Carey convinced others. On October 2, 1792, Andrew Fuller and a group of Baptist pastors came alongside Carey and formed the Baptist Missionary Society. Local churches partnered through the BMS to send and support missionaries. One of its members described the crucial moment when they appointed William Carey:
Our undertaking to India really appeared to me, on its commencement, to be somewhat like a few men, who were deliberating about the importance of penetrating into a deep mine, which had never before been explored, [and] we had no one to guide us; and while we were thus deliberating, Carey, as it were, said “Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.” But before he went down . . . he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us, at the mouth of the pit, to this effect—that “while we lived, we should never let go of the rope.”[1]
The BMS understood the need to support Carey in the complex and unknown task ahead. The necessary financial and prayer support was too much for one pastor or church to accomplish alone. So they partnered together to “hold the rope.”
As churches woke up to their need to send missionaries to evangelize the unreached, they also realized the need to partner together. So they established more societies with that goal: the London Missionary Society (1795), the New York Missionary Society (1796), the Scottish Missionary Society (1796), the Netherlands Missionary Society (1797), the Church Missionary Society of the Church of England (1798), and the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (1810). Through these societies, churches could do far more working together than on their own.
Collaboration and Mission Drift
Mission societies “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). God used the faithful gospel partnership of local churches and countless missionaries—known and unknown—to transform nations and people groups. In no small part, it is due to these labors that there are faithful believers in every country of the world. Both missionaries and their supporters gave sacrificially to the cause of the gospel. Many are men and women “of whom the world is not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38).
However, history has shown that mission societies’ strength is also their biggest weakness. These societies (often called “agencies” today) experienced something common to many institutions: mission drift. Mission drift refers to an organization losing its focus. In this case, the drift occurred as the biblical zeal and clarity that first mobilized the organization gets lost and diluted. Tragically, in mission agencies, this happens partly because of collaboration.
Consider the PCUSA’s mission agency in 1920 [2]. To maximize collaboration between churches, the PCUSA agency set forward a proposal. They proposed an ecumenical approach that optimized support from as many local churches as possible. However, such collaboration led to a compromise of doctrinal convictions. The proposal redefined the task of missions; as a result, missionaries shifted from gospel proclamation and church planting to humanitarian aid. They traded Christian missions for a social gospel.
This example from the PCUSA is not an isolated event. Missions agencies easily drift and redefine the task of missions to something more pragmatic and humanitarian. Mercy ministries and humanitarian aid reflect biblical concerns, but they should not supplant the biblical priority of making disciples.
I was once at an agency meeting, and the leader gave a stirring message from the platform. All our work is missions, the speaker argued. God is glorified when we join Him in His mission to reach the world. What does that look like? He said that, for some people, obedience to the Great Commission looks like running an ethical business. For others, it looks like evangelism. Some engage in church planting. Others engage in mercy ministries and development. All these things are a part of God's mission, the missio Dei. He concluded, and the room filled with enthusiastic applause.
As convincing as this sounded, it felt like something was off. During the Q&A, I raised my hand and asked, “Do you see any priority for evangelism and church planting in missions?" The leader said he didn’t think so. He explained that the mission of God is broader than evangelism and church planting. Rather than using the term “priority,” we should talk about “ultimacy” or “holism.”
Theoretically, this sounds good. But practically, it gets easily sidetracked. Over time, the mission of the Great Commission can be compromised. This approach does not typically establish a healthy, reproducing church. By contrast, the biblical priorities for missions are church planting, discipleship and evangelism; the goal is a healthy local church full of followers of Jesus. Anything less than this clear priority will drift: “If everything is missions, nothing is missions” [2].
An agency and its leaders must understand this. As our statement says, “A well-intentioned but misguided agency can jeopardize the work of biblical missions.”
Collaboration for the Gospel
As a result of mission drift, the temptation may be to go to the opposite extreme and reject collaboration altogether. But we cannot do that! We need one another. The Bible and church history teach the value of collaboration.
Therefore, first, we encourage local churches and potential missionaries to affirm the value of agencies and, when possible, partner with them to obey the Great Commission. The local church is the leading partner and should not abdicate its primary responsibility.
Nevertheless, parachurch agencies are often helpful tools in the hands of a local church. They can be catalysts for collaboration and strategy among like-minded churches. Moreover, a single local church cannot often send and care for a missionary alone. In most cases, an agency is necessary to send and support a missionary well. For example, a mission agency can help with many logistical needs. It can assist the local church and the missionary in ongoing care (including spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical well-being). It can help with the administrative tasks involved in missions work (including payroll, insurance, etc.). Finally, a mission agency can spur local churches and missionaries to be zealous and faithful in proclaiming the gospel to all nations.
Second, we urge local churches and potential missionaries to select an agency carefully. In the next chapter we delve more deeply on this topic, but here are several critical criteria:
Theological and methodological convictions
Vision for the work
Ministry relationships
Practical needs [4]
These criteria will help us to embrace collaboration without compromise, which will ultimately help us to be more fruitful in missions. When a team is united in their theology, vision, relationships, and resources, they can focus on the mission without distraction.
Conclusion
Missions agencies arose from the desire to send and support missionaries well. They can be a strategic tool for effective missionary service. However, some agencies have experienced mission drift. Therefore, missionaries and local churches should be careful about the agency they partner with.
One mission agency leader recently shared with me the ideal scenario for an agency's partnership with a local church:
In the ideal world, a missions agency is a parachurch organization that exists to send missionaries and engage in healthy missions practice, all with a posture toward the church that sends and the church that receives. The term “parachurch” is key - a missions agency should sit alongside churches in partnership and provide a meaningful place for them in the work of missions.
Missionaries need support. A good missions agency will help local churches “hold the rope.”
footnotes
[1] John Piper, Andrew Fuller: Holy Faith, Worthy Gospel, World Mission, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016), 21.
[2] Ryan Currie. “Machen on Missions: Missionaries of the Cross or Missionaries of Liberalism” in Christ Over All. June 26, 2023. Online: https://christoverall.com/article/concise/machen-on-missions-missionaries-of-the-cross-or-missionaries-of-liberalism/
[3] Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church?, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011) 15.
[4] See GCC article “How to Choose an Agency” to learn more about selecting an agency.
