7 Things Missionaries Get Paid To Do
1. S A L V A T I O N
If you believe in eternity, life after death, a heaven and a hell, God’s wrath, the great commission, making disciples, you probably will agree that taking the good news of salvation to people across the world is more than simply a noble cause. It’s an urgency. Paying missionaries to do so allows them to give of their time to reach out to the lost and share the good news of salvation.
2. V A L U E S
Missionaries get paid to teach values and to transmit values through their example.
Have you ever heard of moral bankruptcy? Some cultures are more morally bankrupt than others and missionaries get paid to take values from one culture to another. One of the things that the church culture should theoretically be able to give to morally bankrupt cultures is values.
3. T E C H N O L O G Y
My grandfather had the vision to modify Volkswagen bugs into little wooden pick-up truck looking vehicles to help the farmers of Bolivia by relieving the heavy loads usually carried on their backs.
Historically missionaries have had a tremendous contribution to the undeveloped world to bring quality of life through technology.
4. P R O J E C T S
Projects are the 9 to 5 for missionaries. For these projects to be executed successfully, missionaries need to put in the hours.
Missionary projects may be planting new churches, building and maintaining an orphanage, creating a suicide hotline, building a bridge or a well. Professionalism is required from missionaries to do these projects adequately.
5. R I S K
Missionaries get paid to risk.
The roads they may travel, the people groups they reach out to, the governmental laws they may be subject too, the diseases they are exposed too, the water they drink, the distances between them and the nearest hospital. All of these bring missionaries one step closer to the possibility of being, injured, sick, imprisoned, murdered, die. Take that into account when supporting a missionary and keep them in your prayers.
6. R A N D O M A C T S O F K I N D N E S S
Once we were driving out to a mountain and we saw a woman lying on the road. It’s a very common thing to see. The missionary driving thought we should stop. Others in the car thought we should keep going, that she was probably just a homeless drunkard.
The missionary stopped and went to check on the woman, we all shrugged and got out of the vehicle and followed. She turned out to be a poor woman breathing her last, dying of tuberculosis. She died surrounded by us, hearing that Jesus loves her.
Missionaries should be the person that stops to help, the person that will take the extra time to check what is up, to sit with the dying, to stay the extra hour, to go the extra mile.
7. T E S T I M O N Y
Timothy Keller in a sermon said that being in the presence of a holy person changes you. Missionaries like all Christians should have a testimony of holy living to take wherever they go. Missionaries don’t get paid to be holy, but people in dark places of society being exposed to examples of holiness, life changing holiness, is a by-product made possible by you when you support a missionary to go.
