Spreading the Gospel During a Recession

The global economic downturn affected nearly every aspect of American life in 2009, including evangelical missions. Decreases in investment funding and missions giving combined with increased overseas costs, had a significant impact on American mission organizations. One of the hardest hit was the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In 2008 the SBC fell nearly $30 million short of a $170 million goal for its annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Other sources of revenue have also decreased. Shawn Hendricks reports that 200 qualified missionaries now must wait, as the IMB doesn’t have the money to send them. According to Baptist Press, the IMB plans to draw down its total missionary force from 5,600 to 5,000 in 2010. Another denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, has also had to reduce its budget, eliminating 30 full-time missionaries this year.

In a helpful article at Christianity Today, Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra explains that “organizations in which missionaries depend on direct contributions from families and churches” are faring better than groups—like the IMB and C&MA—that pool resources. According to Steve Moore, President of the Mission Exchange, a $50­–$100 gift from a family to a missionary they know is “the last type of mission-related giving to be affected in rough economic times.” However, with high unemployment and many churches reducing their mission budgets, many missionaries in the fundraising process are feeling the effects.

The global recession is also affecting missionaries who are already on the field. Hendricks explains that the weakened dollar has made it more difficult to support missionaries in places like Europe, where the exchange rate is currently $1.45 for 1 euro. Inflation has led to dramatic increases in cost of living for some missionaries. For example, for one IMB missionary couple in Venezuela, “when inflation rose to 26 percent, two combo meals at McDonald’s cost $35.”

As we feel the effects of a slumping economy, it is tempting to focus only on our family’s financial security or that of our local church. We need to resist this temptation. Millions will never hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ unless someone goes to tell them. Thousands want to go and tell, but they must be sent. Difficult economic times do not have to result in a decline in missions activity. We can learn from the example of churches in Cambodia where giving has doubled and sometimes tripled in the past year, even though the nation has been hit especially hard by the economic downturn. We should pray for the same grace that God gave to the churches in Macedonia about 2,000 years ago: “For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord” (2 Cor 8:2-3).