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lessons in mission fundraising

As most of you know, we are career missionaries, and part of what we do is raising all of our ministry funds and salary. People and churches join us in this way.

God spent years making me ready for the things I’m learning now, and I want to share some things.

First, most changes in thinking involve a change of vocabulary. So now, I just call this fundraising, getting to full funding, and having partners. Partners in the gospel.

Some recent lessons:

First, God is my Main Partner. He works in very specific ways in our lives and in the lives of those He wants to partner with us to bring us together in a united desire to reach the nations with the Best News Ever, the Gospel.

Second, man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. My tendency is to want to judge each person’s stage of life and decide myself whether they might or might not be able to partner with us. To me, people look too young, too old, too many kids, no kids, too little money, too much money … God is showing me, that only He can “see” the person’s heart and what He wants to do through that person. Did He not receive “all she had” from the widow? and comparatively only small portions from the wealthy? It’s all up to Him. My job is to obey Him and open the door.

My third and latest lesson comes from my recent pondering of Christ’s prayer for unity of His disciples in John 17. And it occurred to me, that God wants to “unite” many of His people together to reach even one soul with the Gospel.

I used to want to Do It All and be a ministry star. Or even a donating Star in someone’s ministry. But God’s switching that all around. It’s about Him, and He uses whomever He pleases. It’s how He unites us together and how He lets us all bear fruit and how He is glorified.

So, partner on!