Up to 50% from Church and 50% or More from Myself

New Life’s short-term mission trips’ preparation is in full swing. A couple of the trips have taken place already. And the deadline to sign up for the remaining trips is March 31. I hope many of you will go on a trip this year to encourage the missionaries out there, serve God and experience Him deeply.

From the earlier years of New Life, we have always had a very unique and special policy when it came to raising funds for these trips. Members who have been here for a while know this. However, due to many not being familiar with the policy I would like to address it once more.

This policy came into being due to a few phenomena that we observed in people raising funds to go on short-term mission trips. First, we noticed that people wrote a very generic letter and sent it out to multiple people in New Life asking for financial support. It was very hard for the recipients of these generic letters to feel their sincerity, heart and passion for the trips that they wanted to go on.

Second, the same people in the church received ten different letters that sounded the same from ten different people. It was quite burdensome to receive these letters.

Third, those who wanted to go on short-term mission trips sold t-shirts and cookies to raise funds. Many church members felt pressured to buy them. We wanted to take this pressure off from people.

Fourth, many of these trips that took place outside of New Life were very expensive ranging from $3,000 to $4,000 due to a large overhead cost. We wanted to make these trips more economical by coming up with our own trips.

Fifth, many of these short-termers went on these trips without contributing anything from their own pocket making these trips look almost like glorified vacations on someone else’s money. Where there is no sacrifice, there is not much gain.

Therefore, we have come up with this policy in regards to short-term mission trip fundraising.

1. We don’t allow any type of fundraising inside New Life whether it be through support letters, sale of goods or social media.
2. We practice regular tithing and generous giving. This will allow New Life to support up to 50% of the trip cost, as long as our budget allows, for all those who go on short-term mission trips. Thankfully, we never had to go below 50% in our support for these trips all these years. I personally have never heard of any church that supports up to 50% of the short-term mission trip cost for their members. New Life is extremely generous when it comes to doing missions and evangelism. If God’s people regularly tithe and generously give, then there will be no need for fundraising to do God’s work unless it is something unusual that God is calling His people to do.
3. We expect everyone who goes on a short-term mission trip to contribute 50% or more of the trip cost out of their own pocket. For those who have a full-time job, this really should not be a problem if you manage your finances well. But for those who don’t have a full-time job, this may be a little difficult and challenging. That’s why you must cut out those boba teas, Starbuck’s fancy drinks that sound Italian, going out to see movies and eating out. You may even need to fast time to time to save money for the trip that you want to go on. You should also get a part-time job to partially fund your trip. Without doing this, without contributing your own money out of your own pocket for the trip, you will have a very difficult time taking it seriously and will not experience the full impact of the trip.

Some high school and college students who are involved in a particular cult save money all their lives to go on a two year mission trip to spread the lies during their youthful years. We have the truth of God through His Son Jesus who lived, died and rose from the dead to pay for our sins and secure our eternal salvation. He surely deserves our all. I trust that you all will respect and follow this policy.

Your pastor,

Eric