Why One Church Cut Its Missions List to Build Stronger Relationships

"About four or five years ago, we began taking a different strategy with missions,” says Pastor Jeremy Bury of Marysville Grace Church. “We changed from supporting quite a few different organizations and missionaries to just a few. And our reason for doing that was the critical factor of relationships." 

Looking back, Pastor Jeremy realized that while their church was faithfully supporting many ministries, something was missing. "I think what we were doing was still good work, but in some ways, it was like those relationships were a mile wide but only an inch deep," he says.  

Instead of spreading their attention across many different ministries, their church is now choosing to invest more deeply in fewer partnerships. As a result, their congregation now has much more awareness of the missionaries they support and pray for them more directly. It has also had an impact on how the church relates to us as their sending organization. “We've been much more present and active in our dialogue and our support of Encompass since that's happened,” Jeremy says. 

"When we use the word ‘partnership’ to describe our relationship with a missionary, I firmly believe that we need to actually communicate with that person, understand them in their context, and build trust with them," Jeremy says. "In order to be truly effective, it needs to be more than transactional.” 

Rather than just sending someone the money and saying, “We love what you're doing, go and do it,” their church now seeks to build a truly personal relationship with each missionary they support. 

And as those relationships are developing, Jeremy sees how they don't just help the missionaries—they bless the sending church too. "God is working all over the world all the time, and if nothing else, it just broadens your perspective to how big and how incredible our God is,” he says. "In each part of the world, you gain better perspective of the gifts that God's given you, and then you can help each other with the challenges." 

Ultimately, partnering with missionaries is all about the relationships. He says, “In the west, we often approach missions like it's a program that comes with administration and structures—and those things are necessary—but sometimes they're antithetical to relationships. And relationships are vital in partnership." 

Rather than measuring partnership by the number of missionaries they support, Marysville Grace finds greater joy in personally knowing, praying for, and walking alongside the people they've been called to send. If you want to learn more about Marysville Grace Church’s missions philosophy, contact Pastor Jeremy.