Report 21

Global Ministries (1)

Part 1 | Part 2

Gary Dilley
Director of Global Ministries

I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve as Director of Global Ministries over the past four years. The 2001 General Conference was a transitional time for the United Brethren Church around the world. That conference began the process of bringing autonomy to several of the countries that had always been mission fields of the North American church. Some of these countries were more prepared than others for organizational and financial independence, but in June of 2001, Canada, Honduras, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, and the United States were all approved as National Conferences of the United Brethren Church.

Each National Conference is now in charge of its own ministry, destiny and mission fields, and each has its own leader. Some countries call their leader bishop, others superintendent. For the previous eight years, the United States bishop had served as worldwide bishop. The authority of the US bishop is now limited to the United States.

For years, the US mission director chaired the business sessions in these various countries and served as general overseer. National leaders have now assumed that role. The Director of Global Ministries has become a liaison between North American churches (US and Canada) and the other United Brethren constituencies worldwide. The Director continues to be general overseer of North America's mission fields, which currently include India, Haiti, and Mexico.

As we left the 2001 General Conference, Global Ministries began working with the ramifications of that decision, helping with the transition through that process and preparing for the future. But during the last two years, things became more complicated as talks began with the Missionary Church about the possibility of the US National Conference joining with them. After much discussion, the vote was taken in late 2004 to retain our UB identity. With that decision made, the US National Conference is now considering its future path, and we at Global Ministries have begun charting a course as to where we believe God is taking us. In many ways, we've all been on "hold" over the last year and a half.

During this interval, we've sought to clarify our vision, solidify ourselves financially and organizationally, continue to walk with our National Conferences toward autonomy, nurture our mission fields, and reestablish some relationships with our US United Brethren churches. We are pleased with the progress that has been made, but seek to continue to grow into what God wants us to become. Despite the ambiguity of recent years, Global Ministries continues to have good relationships with the other United Brethren countries and with our supporting churches.

After serving over 20 years in the pastorate and encouraging my local churches to be involved in reaching out to the world, this new position has been a learning curve for me. Over these four years, I've been able to gain some understanding of doing cross-cultural missions in a denominational context, visit the work being done in each of the fifteen countries with a United Brethren presence, and spend time with many of our United States and Canadian brethren in their local churches.

In addition to our UB work in the various countries, we now have eight fulltime UB missionaries, three individuals serving short-term stints in 2005, and 45 UB endorsed missionaries serving with other agencies.

Setting Our Future Direction

In 2002, we established a new mission statement: "The purpose of Global Ministries is to help United Brethren churches fulfill the global mandate of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20)." The full statement is in the box on the right.

We wanted to communicate, by our actions and words, that our purpose and desire is to serve the denomination effectively by helping each church and WMF as they seek to make a difference in God's world. We desire to be involved in channeling individuals from our churches into meaningful fulltime and volunteer missionary service across the earth. It's our hope that we can expose UB churches to some strategic places and people where our churches can extend their influence. We desire to assist in getting our people into other cultures, which will help them look at the world through God's eyes. And we want to be available to come alongside and help with any "What's our next step?" questions.

We began to work through the steps that would need to be done to bring our purpose to pass and to address some of the needs we saw in the denomination. In 2002, the Global Ministries Leadership Team accepted a philosophy and vision statement that I proposed to them along with core values. Let me explain some of that philosophy.

Currently, we are essentially a partnering agency working with many countries and national churches, as well as a small sending agency for missionaries. It is our desire to help the UB countries we work with become increasingly independent in their day-to-day functions, encourage them to build stewardship in their own local churches, and then continue partnering with them in strategic pursuits--church planting, outreach, equipping, strategic construction, etc--that will extend the Kingdom.

For so many years, the current fields have been our sole vision. They will continue to be partners in the ministry and we will be involved with them in various ways, but they will no longer be our sole vision. It's time for them to more and more take their role as autonomous, indigenous churches.

We have made the philosophical decision (as well as responded to the General Conference directive) that cross-cultural church planting in the US is not effectively done from Huntington, Ind., or through a denominationally funded agency. Cross-cultural church planting will be done by the annual conferences. We will still give some funds to certain strategic situations.

We have moved to asking missionaries to partner with churches and individuals, as opposed to depending on extra "general funds" sitting around to fund their ministry. We rejoice that our first new missionary under these changes, Luanne Brooks, raised her support and began serving in Haiti. Others have followed. Without these changes, Global Ministries would not be sending out new missionaries from the UB church.

The relationship between local churches and denominational mission agencies such as Global Ministries has also changed. In years past, mission agencies tended to set the agenda and ask churches to come alongside and help fund the vision. That has changed. Many churches today are establishing their own vision for outreach and missions, and are not interested in denominational agendas. And, as we know, there are a multitude of organizations and places in which to invest Kingdom money!

Many mission agencies today have special niches. They may specialize in specific ministries such as Bible translation, aviation services, broadcasting, or orphanages. They may minister in specific locations across the world. For example, if a church has a particular interest in Bible translation, Wycliffe Bible Translators is an excellent group to partner with. So what might Global Ministries, as a denominational mission agency, specialize in?

I believe our primary purpose is to assist UB churches in their desire to be obedient to the cross-cultural side of the Great Commission. That does not negate a common shared vision in specific areas, such as sending missionaries and strategic mission thrusts. But the questions for a denominational mission agency are changing from, "What can you do for us?" to "What can we do for you? How can we help? What kind of burden is God giving you for his world? What will be your part in God's story? What resources has he given you to share with the rest of the world? How can we work together to change the landscape of eternity?"

It is my hope that as the months and years go on, we can channel individuals that God has raised up in UB churches toward fulltime and volunteer service across God's world. I hope we can help churches develop effective local missions leadership teams. I trust we can serve in various ways such as work trip possibilities and preparation, and give guidance concerning strategic places and people that they can partner in ministry with.

As a denomination, I believe we can provide opportunities for UB churches for extending their witness, opportunities that they wouldn't have by themselves. There will be many things we can't and won't do, but we will be the one organization particularly desirous to assist UB churches.

We exist for United Brethren churches, rather than United Brethren churches existing for us.

As local churches develop their vision for cross-cultural ministry, we, as Global Ministries, also share opportunities for collaboration and shared vision, which gives the chance to work together on greater goals. The key words are "greater goals." The things on which we work together must be God-sized goals that will stimulate interest, and are big enough goals that we must work together and trust God for them to come to pass. This may be tied around sending missionaries into a certain area. It may involve working with a partnering country like Hong Kong, helping them extend the gospel into places like Myanmar and Cambodia. It may involve tying in with something a local US church has already initiated, thus giving the chance for greater impact. The possibilities are plentiful.

Core Values

We also adopted the following core values.

We must define our core business and then do it well.
We have limited resources and must use them strategically.
Over and over, we see that people give to people.
Our primary goal for national fields is to be self-directing and self-sustaining. We should be prepared to provide funds for national conference leadership and stewardship development to bring this to pass. We will no longer do endless subsidies.
As we look to new works, our efforts should be toward unreached and lesser reached areas. There should be strategic reasons for going into an area (lack of witness, missionaries to work with, working with a partnering country such as Hong Kong, etc.). We will consider strategic alliances, such as endorsed missionaries, for new church planting efforts.
We desire to plant healthy churches cross-culturally.
We desire purposeful, passionate, participative US churches for ministry to the world. The key to our future is mobilized churches, not just depending on mobilized women's groups.
We must assist and equip churches for the cross-cultural side of the Great Commission
We will develop and implement United Brethren partnership opportunities as soon as feasible. This is a process through which local churches or groups partner with overseas ministries through prayer and financial commitment.
We will move toward a funding plan under which fulltime United Brethren missionaries raise 100% of their support package. The support package will include salary and benefits, housing, travel, shipping, and administrative fees.
We desire to educate, inspire, prepare, mobilize, and send United Brethren people. Many UB people are passionate about reaching the world, but do not know where to begin.
We will focus our priorities on ministry outside the United States and Canada rather than on cross-cultural ministries within the United States and Canada. Cross-cultural church planting will primarily take place through conference and local church initiation.
We desire to partner with Huntington University, the Women's Ministry Leadership Team, and the Youth Ministry Leadership Team to have a greater global mission thrust.
We hope to cultivate new missionaries that will go with us when suitable, or direct them to appropriate partnering groups. We are open to seconding individuals for ministry in the Kingdom.

Categories of Missionaries

During this quadrennium, we modified our missionary categories. We discontinued the category of partial support missionary for several reasons, and changed the voluntary category to short-term missionary. The United Brethren missionary family can now be broken down into these categories:

Fulltime UB missionaries. These missionaries are employees of the UB Global Ministries Leadership Team. Currently, the only such missionaries serve in Macau and India. Fulltime missionaries must raise their own support. However, Global Ministries comes alongside them in a variety of ways, including promotion and administration. In the recent past, we had a number of fulltime missionaries in Sierra Leone and some in Honduras. But the work in those places has been turned over entirely to nationals.

Endorsed Missionaries. These persons have been approved by the Global Ministries Leadership Team and are free to raise support in UB churches. Here are the requirements for becoming an Endorsed Missionary.

UB Membership. The person, or at least either the husband or wife in a family, must hold membership in a UB church.
Overseas Focus. The ministry they will engage in must have an overseas focus. This may involve actually relocating to another country, or serving administratively stateside in an organization whose focus is overseas. By these criteria, a person serving in the United States on an Indian reservation, for example, wouldn't qualify for Global Ministries Endorsed status.
Approved Agency. Their organization must meet the Global Ministries Leadership Team's criteria for a missions agency, which includes being fully qualified to receive tax-exempt monies.
Application and Acceptance. They must apply to the Global Ministries Leadership Team for Endorsed status and be approved.

Short-Term Missionaries. These persons are appointed by Global Ministries to serve in United Brethren-staffed or related works on a short-term basis. They are able to raise funds for their ministry expenses. Various retired persons and young people have served short-term in Macau, Jamaica, or Myanmar in such roles as teaching English, working at Jamaica Bible College, and assisting with local churches.

Short-term missionaries sign an agreement specifying the conditions of their service, but they are not actually employed by Global Ministries. These persons typically serve for 3-12 months.

Finances

For decades, UB missions was funded by asking people and churches to give to a General Fund. From that General Fund, we sent appropriations to mission fields, paid missionaries, staffed our office, paid office costs, and much, much more. UB people were comfortable with writing a check to General Missions and letting us decide how to use it.

Over the last decade, as in virtually all ministries, donors have become more interested in knowing where their gift is going, and when they do give, they like to specifically designate where there financial gift will go. As a result of that trend, less and less money was coming into the General Fund. This was leading to budget shortfalls and questions of how to best handle the situation.

We entered this quadrennium with a significant budget deficit and vanishing reserves. With this situation, and in this changing environment of giving, we took specific steps that included:

Evaluate and adjust administrative expense.
Live within our means.
Require missionaries to begin raising their full support.
Give our constituency the increased opportunity to give to "specifics."
Move away from unrestricted gifts to our mission fields, and move toward working together on approved projects, thus decreasing unhealthy dependency.
Restore reserves.

Today there are three main facets of Global Ministries giving. Here is the breakdown of 2004 gifts:

1. General Fund: $531,678.
2. Missionary Support Fund: $259,031.
3. Restricted Giving Fund: $452,963.

Total giving was up slightly again this year for a total of $1.25 million, but that is tempered by $100,000 of that amount being a memorial gift. Unrestricted gifts to Global Ministries (General Missions) continue to trend downward, as we've expected. It did not affect our operations this year, and we finished again in the black, but we are mindful of this. We need our UB constituency to continue some investment in the General Fund for us to serve the US church and extend the Kingdom worldwide. Giving to missionaries remained consistent, and restricted giving skyrocketed. People and churches have really warmed to investing in individuals, places, and projects.

Go to Part 2