As you are aware, we are in the process of working through funding changes for the sake of mission breakthrough in The Alliance. We have always been a movement that values generosity, sacrifice, and sending to the least reached in the world. That takes courage and careful stewardship. Changes like this require a high level of ongoing communication in order to help create clarity at every level of Alliance ministry—most importantly in the local church since that is our primary source of funding. This is being written as one among many efforts to bring additional clarity to donors in the local church.
We hope that the changes we are undertaking will eliminate confusion on how Alliance workers are supported and simplify how people can give. But we’re after more than just simplicity and clarity. These are means to our larger goal of breakthrough. We dream of greater Alliance advance in contributing to the completion of Jesus’ commission. I know you share this dream.
Today there are two kinds of giving that are available to donors and needed by our workers. Tim Meier recently summarized this by saying that people can give to the whole or they can give to the specific work and workers they know and love. At the national level, we will celebrate however they choose to give and will gratefully credit churches for both kinds of giving.
Rather than segmenting our funding into categories like Alliance Ministries and the Great Commission Fund (GCF), we envision all of this as GCF giving. In the old system, we had a GCF budget in the neighborhood of $45 million and various other funds that were above and beyond this budget that were another $15 million or so. The non-GCF funds included some support accounts for some international workers (IWs) such as those serving in marketplace ministries, CAMA, and Envision; work specials for projects IWs were undertaking; outfit funds for IWs; and funds to purchase vehicles for their work. We are now taking steps to wrap as much as possible and appropriate into one GCF budget that will exceed $60 million at its inception.
The funding of this budget requires both kinds of giving—those who give to the whole and those who give to the specific work and workers they know and love. Most churches will have both kinds of givers and some who want to do both kinds of giving. This is great and should be celebrated! There are churches that have sent out short-term missions teams to a certain country to work with one of our IW teams on some specific project. There are no doubt people from those teams who want to designate their giving to that specific area or one of the IWs they met or to the project they were involved in. This is the face of Alliance missions as they know it, and that stimulates their giving. We celebrate this and are grateful for their generosity. Their giving in this way helps to fund the GCF budget. And greater freedom to give in this way could be a key to engaging some in your church for the first time.
For others, their value might lie in the widespread impact and mission of The Alliance, and they want to support this in a less restrictive way. They might know many of our IWs all over the world. They love everything about Alliance missions and want to give in a way that supports the whole, so they give in an undesignated way. We need these kinds of gifts as well. We celebrate them, and they help to fund the GCF budget. Now, think of still others who love their local church but are not yet engaged with Alliance Missions. This type of appeal can be a simple, compelling way to engage some of them.
While general giving up until now has benefitted all four of our structures in some ways, that benefit is not felt tangibly by all of our workers. First, many in marketplace ministries and Envision feel the burden of raising the great majority of the funds they need, with little relief from general giving. And second, general giving for CAMA has been separate from general giving to the GCF over the past decade. Solutions we will unveil by 2022 are designed to overcome these complexities. By that year, we’ll accomplish changes in our budgets and systems. It will then be true that every Alliance worker both benefits significantly from general giving and is motivated to seek specific giving that rounds out the overall costs of their ministry. And as I’ve said, we’ll welcome both of these types of giving as means of funding our new, comprehensive GCF budget.
In the meantime, pastors and churches need to be aware that some IWs, especially those serving in Envision, marketplace, and CAMA, still need to raise a significant portion of their support and need churches that will give them an open door to do this. Churches can welcome these support -raising opportunities with the awareness that all types of giving are now considered GCF giving and contribute to fulfilling the GCF budget.
I hope this is helpful and believe it might bring some more clarity to pastors and churches in the district.. Thanks for being a committed team member! As we partner together in 2020, may we see more and more people in the United States and around the world coming to experience new life in Jesus Christ. That’s really why we do what we do. What a privilege!
Rev. Terry Smith, Vice President for Church Ministries
