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 and everything familiar 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 the description of Abraham: “And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). 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.
In obedience to the Great Commission, the local church must send out and support missionaries. Missions agencies were established to assist the local church in evangelizing and planting churches in unreached areas. The founders of these agencies recognized the biblical imperative and strategic need for local churches to collaborate in supporting gospel workers. Missions agencies are parachurch organizations that can partner with local churches to send and support qualified missionaries. 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 in his missionary ministry. The New Testament model shows local churches sending out missionaries (Acts 13:1-3), supporting them with finances (2 Corinthians 11:9; Philippians 4:16) and prayer (2 Thessalonians 3:1), and receiving their reports (Acts 14:27; Acts 15:12).
Missionaries also provided 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). Missionaries constantly reminded the local church that they were a part of the universal Church. The missionary’s reports reminded a local church in one area to care about the growth and strength of local churches in other areas. Paul recognized that collaboration between churches is one of the natural results of missions. Missionaries connected local churches. Paul 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. John writes (3 John 5–8):
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.
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 Matt 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 are to support missionaries well. The New Testament exemplifies collaboration and support among local churches and the exhortation to support traveling gospel workers. In church history, this partnership between local churches to send out and support missionaries led to the establishment of missions 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 areas of the world that had never heard the name of Christ. The church was 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. Andrew Fuller and a group of Baptist pastors came alongside Carey and formed the Baptist Missionary Society on October 2, 1792. Local churches partnered through this society to send and support missionaries well. One of the members of the Baptist Missionary Society described the crucial moments of appointing 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]
This mission society understood the need to support Carey in the complex and unknown task ahead. The financial and prayer support needed was too much for one pastor or local church to accomplish alone. Therefore, local churches partnered together in a society 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. They established societies with the common goal of collaborating to send and support missionaries, such as the London Missionary Society (1795), New York Missionary Society (1796), Scottish Missionary Society (1796), Netherlands Missionary Society (1797), Church Missionary Society of the Church of England (1798), and American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (1810). Through these societies, churches could do far more in missions working together than on their own.
Collaboration and Mission Drift
Mission societies “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). God has 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 institutions: mission drift. Mission drift is when an organization loses its focus on the mission. The drift occurs as the biblical zeal and clarity that first mobilized the organization gets lost and diluted. Tragically, in missions agencies, this happens partly because of collaboration.
An example of this is seen in the PCUSA missions agency in 1920.[2] To maximize collaboration between churches, the PCUSA agency set forward a proposal. They proposed an ecumenical approach to optimize support from as many local churches as possible. However, their collaboration led to a compromise in doctrinal convictions. The proposal redefined the task of missions from gospel proclamation and church planting to humanitarian aid. They traded Christian missions for a liberal social gospel.
This example from the PCUSA is not an isolated occurrence. Missions agencies easily drift and redefine the task of missions to something more pragmatic and humanitarian. Mercy ministries and humanitarian aid are necessary and 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 mission, the speaker argued. God is glorified when we join Him in His mission to reach the world. This looks different for different people. What does that look like? He continued to explain that obedience to the Great Commission looks like running an ethical business for some people. 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 responded that there is no priority for church planning and evangelism in missions. 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, it sounds good, but practically, it gets easily sidetracked, and soon, the mission of the Great Commission is compromised. This approach does not typically establish a healthy, reproducing church and has a weak ecclesiology. By contrast, the biblical priorities for missions are church planting, discipleship, evangelism, and the local church. Anything less than this clear priority will drift: “If everything is missions, nothing is missions.”[3]
An agency and its leaders must have a sound theology of missions and understand the priority of evangelism, discipleship, and the local church. 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. Indeed, collaboration is crucial for obeying the Great Commission. Therefore, first, we encourage local churches and potential missionaries to affirm the value of agencies and, where possible, partner with them to obey the Great Commission. The local church is the leading partner and should not abdicate its primary responsibility for missions.
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. Therefore, in most cases, an agency is necessary to send and support a missionary well. For example, a missions agency can help with many logistical needs that the local church is not equipped to fulfill. A missions agency can assist the local church and the missionary in ongoing care (including spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical well-being) and the administrative operations involved in missions work (including payroll, insurance, policy, etc.). Finally, a missions 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 GCC statement on “How to Choose an Agency,” we give several criteria:
Theological and methodological convictions
Vision for the work
Ministry relationships
Practical needs[4]
These criteria will help us to embrace wise collaboration without compromise. Also, they will 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 great help and strategic tool for effective missionary service. However, some agencies have experienced mission drift. Therefore, missionaries and local churches should be careful about the missions agency they choose to partner with. Collaboration is a good thing when based on biblical priorities for missions. One missions 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.
