MSC – standing in the gap in missionary service

Mission Service Corps personnel are a valuable part of the Southern Baptist missionary force. That fact may have been lost in an article I wrote in last week’s issue of the Index.

The issue I wanted to address in the article is not the worth of such dedicated individuals but how they are counted in the denomination’s headcount of missionaries. I disagreed that they should be counted among those career-funded missionaries who receive Annie Armstrong Easter Offering funds when, in fact, they do not.

While I have never served as a MSC worker, my wife has. She is seminary trained and had a strong ministry of helping churches throughout California. That said, I am familiar first-hand with the quality of some of our personnel who serve out of a sense of calling even when there are no funds to support that calling. In so doing they are walking in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, whose own vocation as a tentmaker propelled his many missionary journeys.

Service in the workplace

When I was maturing in my faith as a young teenager I was encouraged to pursue my calling as a journalist largely through the mentoring I received from my pastor, Jerry Spencer. As a teenager I struggled with my calling to Christian service because, in those days that meant being a pastor or music leader. God clearly was not moving me in those directions, and Southern Baptists are the better for that discernment.

It was through Jerry’s mentoring that my vocational calling to journalism was affirmed and shaped. He told me it was totally acceptable to work out my calling as a Christian layman, and stressed the importance of taking my faith into the secular marketplace. He taught that I did not have to be supported by a church or denomination in order to fulfill the desire God had placed on my heart to serve Him. That was a radical concept in those days before a stronger lay movement began to take shape.

I was never MSC because it was not created for another 15 years, in the late 70s. But it would certainly have been an option. Instead, I began my career as a newspaper reporter and had the most powerful witness of my career in that marketplace. Working in a denominational environment can isolate you from the hurting world; there is no better place to shine the Light than in the everyday business community.

Without Jerry’s influence – and his ongoing mentoring – I would not be the person I am today, and I am grateful for his godly counsel.

And that brings me back to MSC. More power to them.

Difference in funding

The beauty of the MSC program is that the Southern Baptist missionary force is extended through volunteers who support themselves. NAMB prefers not to use the word “volunteer” and that is an administrative choice. They now commission MSC personnel as full-fledged missionaries so they choose to call them missionaries, and that is OK.

But they remain separate from missionaries funded by gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering in that they have to raise their own support – because they choose to be bivocational or because there simply are not enough Annie funds to go around.

Therefore, they stand in the gap between funded missionaries and the greater needs that are going wanting.

If there is anything I would like for our readers to take away from the previous discussion on North American missions, it is this: Gifts to Annie may be reaching record levels but, adjusted for inflation, those levels are actually flat. The need has never been greater to support the offering so even more missionaries can be placed on the field.

And second, please support your Mission Service Corps friends. They are a vital link to reaching North America for Christ.