Missions, Money, And Giving The Middleman His Cut.

There are a number of good posts over at Brothers of John the Steadfast discussing what passes for missions in our beloved synod.

Pastor Todd Wilken has a post entitled A Conversation with a Middleman that looks at synodocrats demanding their piece of the monetary pie from congregations that wish to support mission work.

Rev. Andrew Simcak, Jr breaks down where the money goes and brings to light how very little actually goes to missions. He points out in that less than a penny of every dollar raised actually goes to world missions in a post entitled What is Accomplished with the Money Coming to Synod and the Districts?

Finally, Mollie Zeigler Hemingway reports that missionaries that are out in the field are required to raise from 85-100% of the monies needed to keep them in the mission field in her post appropriately titled Mission Creep(s).

It is shameful that my beloved synod has not read Acts 6:2-4 which says;

So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

I guess supporting missions by financially sustaining those pastors who will be out in the field preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments without growing the bureaucracy just isn’t in LCMS, Inc.’s business model.

I wonder what the disciples would say to being told that a proper mission required them to wait on tables and earn 100% of the required money before they bothered with prayer and preaching. Furthermore, I wonder what the first century disciples would say to the idea that once they were in the mission field that they would still be required to work and earn 85% of the mission’s money to remain there.

Hmm, I wonder…