In this article I want to dig into the practical work of funding your ministry through missionary support — specifically how praying for money is one of the most important things you can do to become fully funded. In previous articles I have laid the groundwork for those who are considering raising missionary support to fund their ministry efforts. I’ve explained why you might not want to raise support. And for those who do want to move forward, there’s a few important things to do now before you even begin. I laid out how missions agencies work and a few resources to help you get launched. I exposed some surprising realities from my fifteen years of support raising. I also confronted the idea that tentmaking is supposedly a more biblical option than raising support and articulated the difference between “fundraising” vs. “partnership development.”
I must emphasize that being confident in your mindset, your calling and the biblical foundations of support raising are vital to your success. Doing the right thing with the wrong mentality will not be fruitful. Once your paradigm is correct, there are a few simple steps that can be done to get your ministry fully funded. These principles have been utilized by thousands of missionaries who are raising support in the United States. (I do want to acknowledge that in other cultural or economic contexts, the approach may need to be modified. But for those in America, the path forward is well trodden.) The process goes something like this:
- Pray constantly
- Articulate your vision
- Build a realistic budget based on the vision
- Set some support raising goals
- Establish accountability & coaching
- Brainstorm contacts
- Dedicate some time to do it
- Call and make appointments
- Meet with people, share your vision & ask for partnership
- Follow up & formally establish the partnership
- Cultivate those relationships in an ongoing way
Each of these components is very important, and hopefully I can write an article on each of these eventually. Today I want to focus on step #1: pray.
This step may seem like a no-brainer, and you may be quick to dismiss it. But the truth is that most people do not take time to pray before they work.
And I should correct myself here. “Pray before they work” is not correct. As Christian missionaries and ministers, prayer is one of the ways we work.
“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” – Oswald Chambers
Yet one should avoid an extremist approach to raising support. On one side, you have people who only pray. They claim to be walking by faith, but many times they are simply too proud or scared to ask people to partner with them. On the other side, you have people who go out to labor without any prayer at all. The root of prayerlessness is also pride — thinking we can make it happen without the Lord’s grace. Neither of these approaches are usually sustainable or fruitful for the long haul. All of the eleven steps I listed above are vital, but prayer is first on the list for a reason.
When it comes to the ministry of partnership development, there are three ways that I have discovered that prayer can help us meet our goals.
- Prayer prepares you
- Prayer access Holy Spirit’s wisdom
- Prayer goes before you
Prayer Prepares You to Fund Your Ministry
Let’s be honest. Partnership development is a scary endeavor. It requires us to face our fears, share our hearts with people and risk rejection. A risk-free way of funding your ministry is not possible. Therefore, you have to be prepared to step out in faith and obedience to God’s calling on your life.
Times of prayer (including musical worship and time in the Scriptures) allows God to fill us with His Holy Spirit, strengthen our faith and confront our fear with His perfect love. We will probably still have some hesitation after we pray, but the reassurance of God’s unfailing love for us will empower us to press through our feelings into brave obedience. We can allow the Holy Spirit to heal our hearts in His presence. He can speak to us about who He is and who we are in Christ. These revelations, healings and encounters with God in the secret place will embolden us in our journey of raising support.
And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Acts 4:31
I am not talking about praying about your finances here. I’m talking about developing an intimate relationship with God. I am encouraging you to take time to worship Him, sing to Him, meditate on Scripture, share gut-level honest prayers and listen for His voice. A foundation of prayer will be something that carries into your entire life of ministry. Recognize from the beginning, during your partnership development process, that intimacy with God is critical.
Prayer Accesses Holy Spirit’s Wisdom for Funding Your Ministry
Prayer prepares you to raise support, but you’ll also want to spend some time praying about the partnership development process itself.
I believe there are biblical principles about finances that do not change. And I believe there are cultural practices that tend to work in raising support in a given context. The biblical principles are consistent, but the specific practices may need to be adjusted for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that I believe God wants to lead each missionary and ministry with specific wisdom in how to become fully funded.
The Holy Spirit is called the “spirit of wisdom” (Ephesians 1:17), and He is eager to help us do things in a wiser way than we can figure out on our own. Ask Him to give you wisdom, and He will lead you.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
James 1:5
Just because God wants to give us each specific wisdom does not mean that we abandon the collective wisdom from the support raising processes that have worked for thousands of missionaries. The point is to simply bring it before the Lord and ask Him to guide your steps. Maybe the Holy Spirit will lead you to read a book like The God Ask by Steve Shadrach or Partnership Development For the Fully Funded Missionary by Rob Parker. Perhaps as you’re reading those books, God will highlight certain portions that are important or He will give you an alternative to part of their approach.
One of the ways God has given me wisdom in my support raising process is in knowing who I should prioritize in my partnership meetings. After brainstorming a list of contacts, I will sort them by priority. Those I want to meet first are at the top of the list. However, I’ll also pray (usually in tongues) while browsing over the list. Sometimes certain names will “pop out” to me, and I feel drawn to make meeting them a priority.
When I follow those subtle nudges from the Holy Spirit, I have found much more success with my meetings than when I try to use my own wisdom to make decisions. The person highlighted to me did not always give money, but they tended to be more eager to hear what I shared and more likely to partner with us in prayer and finances.
Prayer Goes Before You
Not only does prayer prepare us and give us wisdom, but prayer goes before us. I believe in the power of intercessory prayer to impact the world around us. I believe we can pray for things on the other side of the planet, and God releases His power. When it comes to partnership development, we need to ask God to specifically go before us and prepare people’s hearts to give. We need to ask God to help us meet our goals. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to people about how much to give — even before we meet with them!
The apostle James provides us a key:
You do not have, because you do not ask.
James 4:2
The principle of asking applies to asking people for our support, but it also applies to asking God for our funding! Before we sit down and ask others to partner with us in our God-given vision, we need to ask God to release His power to go before us. Everything we have comes from the Lord. He is our ultimate source. If you will pray consistently for God to provide for you, while also being faithful in doing the work of partnership development, you will see God release everything that you need. I’ve gone through seasons where my prayers for finances dwindled, and not surprisingly, my finances dwindled as well.
One of the most encouraging ways God has gone before me through prayer is when people decide to give before I even ask. This has only accounted for about 10% of all that support we have raised over the years, but it does happen. Sometimes it is monthly support and sometimes it is a special gift, but it is always a welcome surprise.
Because I have been faithful in meeting people to share my vision, building an email list, sending out newsletters and posting on social media, hundreds of folks are aware of what’s happening in our ministry. I have prayed that God would speak to those people to give, and He has done so for some of them. All it takes is one person feeling stirred by the Lord to give, and you can experience a financial breakthrough.
In conclusion, the primary practical work of raising support is the work of prayer. Prayer will prepare you to be faithful and bold in your support raising and ministry efforts. Prayer will allow you to access divine wisdom from Scripture and the Holy Spirit. And prayer will go before you so that people’s hearts are more open to give.