I am so encouraged and refrshed to see this honnest hearth digging, God/truth seeking in your blog. The beauty of faith is not, how we have believed in the past, trusting a lot of already made black and white answers, but trusting God enough to be able to live with questions and uncertainty. It’s great to let god be big enough to not be fully understood all the time. It’s great to be able to say “i don’t know” and not feel that the whole christiandom depens on us being able to explain and justifies everything. I enjoy so much leting God be God.

Looking foreward to meeting you in heaven and discussing all that unknown that will then seems so obvious.

I don’t know all the ins and outs. I don’t pretend to understand either side of this issue. I just know there’s more to this picture than Stepchild’s questions and concerns. And the IMB is just as obligated to earn my trust, and stepchild’s trust, and the trust of every M and every contributor. The recent policy changes, and the way the Board of Trustees is handling things has been a real trust breaker for many people. And the fact that leadership from other SBC entities are meddling “outside their jurisdiction”, so to speak, doesn’t engender a lot of trust either.

Also, I very much appreciate Stepchild’s questions. How would we know anything of these issues if someone didn’t speak out? How would we know to pray about these kinds of things if we didn’t know about them?

I hear Stepchild expressing gratitude to the IMB several times on his blog. I’ve heard him express, essentially, he has a clear conscience that he is doing what he agreed to do (what he was hired to do, if you will). As a CP and Lottie contributor, I’m glad he’s one of the recipients.

Thank you Stepchild. Thank you for not bailing out, and for being faithful to those that truly support you — God, and SBC churches & church members.

This is a good point you raise. And perhaps therein lies the difficulty with my suggestion – the “supporters” certainly are the SBC members who give to the CP, not the IMB itself. I recognize that, and I think that if that is how one honestly sees the situation, then there could be some justification found in distrusting the institution while trusting in the work of God in the hearts of Southern Baptists who give faithfully to the CP.

As for your question – it’s a good one. I’m afriad my missions experience is limited, but one thing I might offer is a possible restructuring of the IMB. The IMB is top heavy, hence the struggles StepChild is having. A better way might be to go the route of Frontiers (www.frontiers.org) and make the orgnization structured like an inverted pyramid. In other words, big decisions and authority is/are “field-based.” There is enought trust given to the missionary by the sending organization such that the missionary is empowered to act without having to fear being “disciplined” by a board 4,000 miles away. How about this?

Thank again.

First of all, I do not think you should not be an IMB missionary because you raise critical questions. I applaud you for that. However, if you do come to the ultimate conclusion that you do not trust IMB, I would say that it is not appropriate for you to serve.

Second of all, the reason I don’t ask “why” you have trust issues is because I also have trust issues with the IMB and if you and I were to compare reasons, I’m sure they would be similar. I don’t doubt that you have legitimate issues, but brother, if you can’t trust your sending agency, then let’s work together to get you underneath someone you CAN trust! Your work is TOO important for you not to be able to trust your senders.

Thirdly, please accept my apologies for the way my post came across. I do not doubt your sincerity for half a second. However, I would like to see you step up to the plate and take action if, after your searching process is complete, you conclude that you really cannot trust the IMB.

Finally, you say that if the IMB decide that you are the kind of person they do not want to support, you will move along. I have no doubt you would. However, if you were to voice, in a forthright fashion, your distrust OF the board TO the board – THAT would be the reason they may have questions about you serving. Not because you’re emergent, postmodern, or whatever else. Once again, my issue is the trust issue – not your criticisms or concerns.

I hope you hear my heart in this. I don’t mean to be judgmental – only to suggest an avenue of blessing to you. Get with an organization you trust, brother. In my opinion (which could be wrong), you’re missing out if you don’t.

Blessings.

Thank you for yout gracious response to what could have been perceived as a very judgmental posting. To answer your question, yes – I have dealt with these kinds of issues on the field. And as a matter of fact, the hurt I endured was absolutely earht-shaking for me. And because I could not support and trust the sending organization I chose to seek other funding. If I am not trusting of the sending organization, my working for them (you correctly identify them as an “employer” at least of sorts) is a conflict of interest. I believe that God calls us to support our spiritual leaders wholeheartedly. Does that mean we can’t disagree? Of course not. It simply means that we’re still supportive of and trusting of the other party. I may disagree with something my wife does, and I’ll certainly share that with her – but I’m not going to start telling others that I “distrust” her. Those are very harsh words, indeed. I have my own issues with the sending organization in question – and believe me, Ihave a few. However, the principle still remains. When we are supported to do the work of Christ, we enter into a very special relationship with our supporters. And contrary to your separating “working for God” and “working for the sending organization,” I believe they are quite connected. How can you work for God and have such a strained relationship with your sponsor that you are compelled to tells others publically that you “distrust” them. IPlease forgive my tone if it sounds judgmental. M raises some great issues, and I agree with 99% of them. However, as long as we consent to be associated with the organization, we should speak well of it before others. When we crticize (and that’s ok), we should always do it with Christ-like love in mind (even though, I admit, that is sometimes hard to glean from mere written words – as was evidenced in the response to my last post.

Thanks again.

Anonymous,
You’re right about the ethical dilemma of taking money from an organization I don’t trust. I wrote about it in my very first post here, called Missions Misunderstood.

I’m sorry that I offended you. You may very well be “underwriting my missionary efforts,” and that is exactly why I’m posting my thoughts publically. You wouldn’t even know my thoughts on all of this if you weren’t reading my blog. I’ll go ahead and mark you down as someone who doesn’t see room for folks like me to serve through the IMB.

I think it’s interesting that you don’t ask why I have trust issues with the Board.

Anonymous, even though your sarcastic use of parenthesis kinda hurt, thanks for reading and taking time to comment. Please know that I didn’t come to work for the IMB because of the money. If the Board were to decide that I’m not the type they want to support, I’ll move along.