November 01, 1989 by Mike Pollard

A lot of people think missions is money,” says Ron Blue, missions professor at Dallas Seminary. When questioning pastors about the strength of their missions programs, “inevitably I find they come back with a budget. They say, ‘Oh, yeah, we gave $____ last year!’”

All too often, churches do measure their missions involvement by finances. Giving to missions appeases a God who might otherwise demand we go or become more sacrificially involved in some other way. But what if your church sends a tentmaker missionary to a closed country who requires little or no financial support? What, then, is the measure of significant involvement in his/her life? How can your church be a support base, playing a part in reaching unreached peoples?

Hurdling the Barrier

Topeka Bible Church (TBC) of Topeka, Kansas is one church that has hurdled the “missions = finances” barrier. Although it does modestly contribute to the support of Jeff and Elizabeth Myers, tentmakers in the Middle East, its most significant support has come in the form of intensive personal preparation and care.

Jeff began attending TBC while earning a master’s degree at a nearby university in preparation for a career in the Middle East. Though substantially involved in missions, TBC is more well known in Topeka for its solid commitment to teaching Scripture. The church wants its members to know and live Scripture thoroughly, and regularly sponsors institutes of intensive Bible training. Such institutes were invaluable to Jeff, who received no formal theological training.

TBC also encouraged Jeff to develop his spiritual gifts. He taught the singles’ Sunday School class and began an outreach to students at nearby Washburn University. The church also allowed Jeff to be creative and risk failure. “We consciously put him into situations where he would teach and practice leadership,” says TBC’s Senior Pastor Kurt Denny. Elders of the church frequently met with Jeff to hold him accountable to personal spiritual growth and study goals. As Denny’s own missions interest was growing during this time, he took Jeff with him on a 1981 trip to the Middle East.

Jeff left for his first term of tentmaking service in 1982. During his five-year term, TBC’s involvement with Jeff and new wife Elizabeth continued to grow. “I felt like we really needed to adopt Jeff and Elizabeth personally,” says Denny. “Too often churches send missionaries off with agencies and wash their hands of them. But I guaranteed to him in words we will take care of him. That’s my personal and our churchwide commitment.”

The Pastor’s Role

In many churches, the idea of significantly supporting tentmakers is a foreign concept which, in order to succeed, must receive full endorsement from leaders. “The pastor’s role is almost supreme,” says Denny. “I used to deny that and thought it almost arrogant, but I’ve come to realize the truth. The pastor is the quarterback for all the things he deems important for the church. To stand back from missions is to say it is not important.”

Denny has himself gone to visit the Myers five times, always taking TBC people with him. “The best way to get someone excited about missions is to take them where the action is,” he asserts. He also goes to encourage the national believers, preaching and holding apologetics seminars. He says to the church whose members have gone out to work in restricted-access nations, “Learn about the lives and needs of your missionaries. Determine you’re going to be an adoptive parent. Commit to visiting, calling, and writing regularly.” His exhortation is in keeping with his action. For example, when the Myers arrived in the U.S. in 1987 to begin furlough in Illinois, Denny and his wife took personal vacation time to go to Illinois and to help wallpaper the Myers’ new apartment.

Although the Myers hold associate missionary status with a major mission agency, TBC became their “sending agency” in many ways. “We don’t have the size to supply all of the financial and political advantages an agency can,” Denny concedes, but he believes TBC has still played some vital roles in the Myers’ ministry. Jeff has submitted one-, two-, and five-year goals to the elders, to which they keep him accountable.

Leaders also helped the Myers confront sticky ethical issues on the field. For example, one national believer, who was preparing to be sworn into the national army, felt he couldn’t truthfully respond “yes” to the induction ceremony’s rote pledge of allegience to Islam. To make matters worse, it was announced that the nation’s leader would make a rare appearance to induct the new soldiers individually. A denouncement of Islam, particularly to the leader, could easily mean death. He asked Jeff advice on the Christian’s response to this dilemna, who in turn sought counsel from Denny and TBC elders. Denny arranged a phone conference with some of his seminary professors and provided wise counsel to Jeff.

On-Field Visits

Concern for the Myers was not concentrated only at the leadership level. Thirteen TBC laypeople visited the Myers during their first term of service, many coming during summer vacations to help run the missionaries’ home, make repairs, give musical concerts and share their testimonies with national believers. They brought with them gifts such as camera equipment, theological books, cassette tapes of church sermons, Kool-Aid for summer camp and battery cables, all impossible to acquire in the Middle East.

Dan and Kim Robertson, one TBC couple who visited the Myers twice, took their six-year-old son Matt and went “to get to know the culture. We got to see the real heart of the country and that made a lasting impression on us,” says Kim. The joy of coming truly to empathize with, support and more intelligently pray for the Myers was rivaled only by a deep friendship that they developed with a national Christian married couple. The two families’ sons became “the best of friends,” says Dan, an area manager for Southwestern Bell. “If you can possibly visit your missionaries like this, you should,” says Dan. “You won’t come back the same person.”

TBC adopted not only the Myer but also their co-workers. Pam Matthews, a TBC’er who plans a career in mission, went in the summer of 1986 to work with Kathy LoRusso, an older single missionary, while the Myers were back in the US for furlough. For two and a half months, Pam helped Kathy run a children’s summer camp, ran errands for Kathy, and developed friendships with young Arab high school girls. “Being your missionary’s friend is great,” says Pam, “but you need to go beyond that. Get involved in their lives and work.” Though TBC is not Kathy’s home church, she chose to spend a recent medical furlough in Topeka. After Pam returned, when the Myer’ fellow missionaries knew of a young Muslim woman who wanted to vacation and study in the US for a term, Pam took her in as a roommate.

Such extensive home church support has helped the Myers develop a philosophy of the local church’s ideal involvement with tentmakers. Jeff likens the relationship to that of a parent and child. “One of my major goals for my kids is that they become independent—able to grow and function on their own.” Likewise, the local church should develop missionaries who are spiritual self-feeders and who can reproduce themselves. “Parents don’t ideally control every detail of their children’s lives,” notes Jeff. “For example, in the process of sending kids off to college, parents won’t be the professor, but they help their children choose the right ‘college’ (e.g. an agency), help the kids finance the venture, and are there when it’s time for them to come home.”

And, adds Jeff, who has just returned to the Middle East recently, “I always know I have a place to go when I come home.”

All names have been changed for security reasons.