Who’s in Charge? Authorities in the Life of a Missionary

A man loved his childhood family doctor. This doctor was kind, competent, and caring. The doctor took initiative addressing medical issues and provided sound advice that the man depended on.

Then the man’s employer moved him to a new city. Shortly after moving, he found a concerning lump. Immediately he called his doctor back home. The doctor gave the best advice he could, but he was unable to test the lump. Meanwhile, the man’s employer felt like the man’s symptoms, whatever they indicated, were too much for the company’s in-house nurse to handle. So they encouraged the man to resign and return to his home city. By the time he did, the lump had turned malignant, and cancer had spread throughout his body.

This is what happens again and again to missionaries across the world. Sending churches (like the man’s long-time doctor) do the best they can to care from afar. Sending organizations (like the man’s employer) feel an obligation to care for the well-being of the missionaries under their oversight. Both present laudable concerns, but both are limited in what they can do. The result is a system that doesn’t care well for missionaries on the field.

The spiritual health of missionaries is crucial not only for their personal well-being, but also for their ability to carry out their commission. A lack of pastoral care is more likely to lead to a lack of spiritual health, which in turn hinders the work of the commission.^{11 .} For example: Too Valuable to Lose, ed. William D. Taylor (William Carey Library: Pasadena, 1997). See also Missio Nexus, “Field Attrition Study: Research Report” on MissioNexus.org (accessed July 2019), 12-13. This Missio Nexus report states that from 2016-2018, eleven missionary organizations sent 1014 new missionaries, with 974 missionaries leaving the field. So, 1014 missionaries commissioned for a net gain of 40 new workers at the end of three years. It’s unclear to me from the report whether this is considering resignations solely among the new missionaries sent, or the entire missionary workforce. Over and over, I’ve seen missionaries pulled off the field for hardships like depression, struggling kids, and unaddressed patterns of sin that grow unseen until they produce a crisis.

So what do we do if the status quo is chewing missionaries up rather than building them up?

My parable doesn’t realistically depict the medical practice because medical professionals know the difference between their personal desire for a patient’s well-being and the scope of their professional responsibility. Concern for a person does not equal absolute responsibility for them. A family doctor would immediately send the man to a local doctor.

Likewise, we will best provide spiritual care to missionaries when we ask who is authorized to do what. We must be clear about what institution, organization, or person is the proper primary caregiver for a missionary’s spiritual welfare, as well as how other institutions or organizations each contribute.

The trouble is Christians don’t always ask, “Who’s authorized to do what?” because the question can feel cold and uncaring. But clearly understanding an institution’s responsibility, as well as the limits of its authority, helps everyone better care for missionaries, each for their part.

For each aspect of responsibility in a missionary’s life, we can answer the question, “Who does God authorize to do what?” Specifically, who is authorized:

• To commission a missionary? Answer: a sending church.
• To wield the keys of the kingdom in their life on an ongoing basis? A local church on the field.
• To supervise their missionary work? Their employers, the sending agency.

Let’s consider each in turn.

Who Has the Authority to Commission a Missionary? A Sending Church

The local church in which a person has lived and ministered—typically for years—is the most natural body to commission a missionary. That church best knows the individual. It can best account for his or her character, competence, and, therefore, calling.

According to Acts 13:1–3, the Holy Spirit directs the leaders of the church at Antioch to set Paul and Barnabas apart for his missionary work. After this event, the two set off on what we call Paul’s first missionary journey.^{22 .} Eckhard Schnabel in Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods (IVP Academic: Downers Grove, 2008), 74, argues it’s incorrect to call these his first missionary journeys, since he was clearly already preaching the gospel in Damascus and Silicia and Tarsus, and was likely doing the same for his three years in Arabia (cf. Gal. 1:17-18). But we ought not conflate Paul doing ministry with Paul carrying out his apostolic mission to the Gentiles. Whatever Paul’s activities were during this time, nonetheless, in Luke’s narration, he presents Paul’s active role in taking the gospel to the Gentiles really beginning from the Antiochene commissioning. Schnabel’s own language is helpful in describing the Antiochene commission as “an assignment of a new sphere of ministry” (386-87). As a church had not commissioned him, apparently, he was not yet a missionary, though he was an apostle, teaching and establishing the church of God wherever he was.

The fact that the Antioch church commissions Paul is especially noteworthy in light of the fact that Jesus had directly called Paul to minister on the Damascus Road a decade earlier (Acts 26:16–18).^{33 .} From Paul’s testimony to Agrippa. In Galatians 2:1, Paul says his return to Jerusalem was fourteen years. It’s not clear whether this is fourteen years from his conversion, or from the first visit with Cephas he mentions in 1:18-24. Scholars also dispute whether the Jerusalem visit in chapter 2 is when Paul and Barnabas brought material relief from Antioch (Acts 11:30) or the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15, and after Paul and Barnabas’s first trip). Ten years is a conservative estimate. Paul doesn’t go until the Spirit of Jesus moves through the leadership of a particular church.^{44 .} Again, this is not to argue that Paul was not preaching the gospel in those intervening years,  but rather that the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to present the commissioning from Antioch as the beginning of the gospel’s geographic advance through Paul’s ministry. Whatever Paul’s three years in Arabia and Damascus looked like, Luke presents them as more like his ministry in pastoring in Antioch than his church-planting travels. Why would a man appointed by Jesus’s own mouth wait so long?

For all the valuable contributions other Christian organizations can make, the only institution in the New Testament to whom Jesus gives new covenant authority is the local church and its elders. He doesn’t authorize agencies or presbyteries or synods. He authorizes local churches to wield the keys and make disciples. He authorizes them to formally affirm a Christian’s profession and teaching (see Matt. 18:17–20; 28:18–20). He authorizes them to preach the gospel, to baptize, and to teach everything he commanded (Matt. 16:13–20; 28:18–20).

Therefore, the key-wielding local church is the most obvious candidate for who should commission a missionary.

That said, the conversation begins to change once we move beyond the commission and the missionary departs. He or she is no longer in the church. While Paul’s relationship with the Antioch church is significant at the beginning of his itinerant ministry, that relationship gradually recedes from prominence. Paul and Barnabas do return to give an encouraging report (Acts 14:26–27). Yet Paul also partners with other congregations, such as the churches in Philippi and Rome (Phil. 1:5; 4:15, Acts 18:5, Rom. 15:22–32).

Once Paul and Barnabas leave, their relationship with Antioch appears to be one of partnership rather than ecclesial oversight.^{55 .} See Ken Caruthers, “On Authority of a Sending Church” in Authority: God’s Good and Dangerous Gift (9Marks Journal Summer/Fall 2016). Accessed December 28, 2022. The Antiochene church doesn’t wield authority over their strategic decisions, their disputes, or their direction (cf. Acts 13:13–14, 16:10, 18:9–11, etc.). Yet when I hear Christians say the local church is the primary means of carrying out the Great Commission, they often seem to mean that the sending church should retain control over these kinds of decisions. They assume that “sending” entails both commission and supervision.

It’s true that a sending church remains responsible for the money and other forms of support that they give on an ongoing basis. Should a sending church and a missionary disagree on a significant matter or should the missionary disqualify him or herself, the sending church has every right to pull its support. Should a sending church happen to provide a missionary with the bulk of his or her financial support, we might even say the church possesses a kind of managerial authority, similar to what I’ll describe for the missions agency in a moment. Still, once the missionary is sent, that church’s ecclesial authority to bind and loose and give the Supper begins to quickly fade.

It’s also true that modern technology enables a missionary and his or her sending church to maintain close correspondence. But we should beware of letting modern technology determine how much authority a church should exercise. Capability doesn’t necessitate responsibility.

I’m not encouraging missionaries to cut off their relationships with their sending churches. Missionaries should continue to seek counsel and support. But seeking advice is not seeking directives. The relationship, in other words, must change. The church-to-missionary relationship is not a church-to-member relationship. The latter involves affirming a profession; the former involves affirming qualifications for a task. The church, therefore, should no longer try to pretend to be the spiritual home or overseer in the missionary’s life. Pretending they can at a distance, as in my opening parable, doesn’t actually serve the missionary.

When missionaries are living through happy and peaceful seasons on the field, remaining members of their sending church back home feels like no bad thing. The trouble becomes evident in difficult times, and usually at some spiritual cost to the missionary.

Who Possesses the Authority to Serve a Missionary the Lord’s Supper? A Church on the Field

Who should therefore serve as a missionary’s spiritual home? As soon as possible, missionaries should either plant or join a church on the field so that they can be members. That is to say, the church on the field should be the one to exercise ecclesial authority in a missionary’s life. It binds a missionary by affirming his or her profession of faith. It declares that a person is a Christian and should be served the Supper.

After all, a church’s affirmation of a person’s profession of faith isn’t a one-time event. While baptism is the church’s ‘front door’ initial affirmation, the church also provides ongoing affirmation as expressed through the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10:17). That ongoing affirmation depends on a member’s persistence in faith and repentance.

That ongoing affirmation is what makes a church’s action of discipline, when necessary, possible. Paul had already made his judgment about the unrepentant sinner in 1 Corinthians 5: “I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing” (v. 3). Still, he instructed the Corinthian congregation to follow his example by making the same judgment: “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan . . . Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” (1 Cor. 5:4–5, 12). The point here is the local church possesses that binding/loosing authority over its members.

Note how Paul’s instructions echo Jesus’s words in Matthew 18:

• “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20)
• “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus . . . with the power of our Lord Jesus . . .” (1 Cor. 5:4)

It’s only the church, assembled in Jesus’s name, who possesses Jesus’s power to wield the keys. If a Christian’s membership resides with a congregation other than the one with whom they regularly gather, they’ve departed from a biblical practice of membership.^{66 .} “[Taking the Lord’s Supper] ratifies an individual’s membership in this local church. It seals his fellowship with and responsibility for these people who partake of the same bread and drink from the same cup.” Bobby Jamieson, Going Public: Why Baptism is Required for Church Membership (B&H Academic, Nashville, TN: 2015), 126. After all, the biblical practice of membership depends on regularly assembling together. It integrates the exercise of ecclesial authority and a Christian’s weekly participation in the gathering, not to mention the ability to watch a person’s life all week. When we separate ecclesial authority from where a Christian lives and regularly gathers, we enervate that authority. We risk turning the church’s formal affirmation into a meaningless label.

To say a missionary laboring in the Ecuadorian jungle is still a member of First Baptist Padookahville empties the term of any biblical significance. A missionary should order their life like an exemplary Christian. What kind of example is it to rarely set foot in the church he or she is a member of? We should therefore stop calling missionaries “church members” of their sending church.^{77 .} Some churches retain their missionaries as members but ask them to affirm a different covenant than regular members, quite literally creating a second category of membership. One church I know has in their missionary covenant a stipulation that the missionary should commit to joining a church in their local context. I like the idea of the covenant in general and that commitment in particular, but I dislike continuing to call them a ‘member.’

On a related note, missionaries cannot “belong” to their sending organizations as one belongs to a church. Sometimes churches, recognizing their geographic limitations, delegate the role of primary spiritual caretaker for a missionary to the sending agency. This is a mistake.

Certainly, a sending organization can provide spiritual encouragement and instruction to missionaries. But neither an agency nor a team can stand in for a local church (unless the team becomes a church) any more than a campus ministry can replace a church for a college student. Both churches and parachurch organizations provide spiritual edification and correction. But only one has been entrusted with the keys of the kingdom (Matt. 18:15–20). Only one is the Christ-appointed center of Christian discipleship. Martin Bucer put it this way: “Christ our Lord alone has and exercises all power and rule in his church and congregation. . . Anyone who does not serve the Lord by means of his word and Christian discipline in his church, but claims that rule for himself, is an antichrist.”^{88 .} Martin Bucer, Concerning the True Care of Souls (Banner of Truth: East Peoria, IL:2009), 13.

Any organization that attempts to fill the role of a local church (without a team becoming a church) may call themselves Christian, but their practice will disciple Christians to disobey Jesus.

Membership encompasses more than just the Lord’s Supper, but the question of where a missionary takes the Lord’s Supper serves as a tangible representation of a broader issue: the Christian life should be lived out in a committed fellowship with other Christians. Such a life cannot be lived out occasionally, across the globe, or digitally. If our missionaries are Christians, then ordinarily they must submit themselves to a local church—a body with whom they regularly gather, pray, sing, and read Scripture, encouraging one another as the Day approaches (Heb. 10:25). This isn’t just for missionaries’ obedience and witness. It’s for their spiritual well-being. It enables them to endure as disciples and to exercise the keys of the kingdom in a meaningful way (cf. Matt. 18:15–20).

Who Possesses Authority to Supervise a Missionary? An Agency

Both the authority to commission and the authority to serve the Supper derive from the more basic ecclesial authority of the keys of the kingdom. One church uses that ecclesial authority to send a missionary; another church, the church on the field, as soon as it’s planted or able, uses that ecclesial authority to receive the missionary. Sending organizations don’t exercise such authority, as I’ve said. Rather, sending organizations can possess managerial authority over a missionary as an employee.^{99 .} For an introduction to the biblical nature of managerial authority, see Jonathan Leeman’s chapter on the topic in Authority (Crossway, 2023).

In other words, agencies have the authority to supervise—both to set terms of employment (such as character qualifications, theological boundaries, and fitness requirements) and to provide ongoing oversight and input (such as setting language proficiency requirements, long-term goals, and even daily task lists).

This managerial authority is over a person’s labor, not over their spiritual standing (though the two are related). A work supervisor and an elder hold two different kinds of authority over a person. If the same person holds both positions (meaning, your boss is your pastor), then he needs great clarity about the difference between the two roles.

This authority of supervision is not inherently restricted to a sending agency. As I said a moment ago, a sending church can also function as the missionary’s employer or supervisor. Or, a missionary can recognize the local church on the field as his or her employer in addition to being the local covenant community. There’s freedom and flexibility here.

There’s also room for different levels of oversight. How much direction should an employer provide on their employee’s day-to-day activities? Does a sending organization have the authority to tell a missionary where to live? Or where to move if they’re kicked out of a country? What about setting a quota for spiritual conversations? We all have preferences, and we need prudence, but there’s no biblical mandate about what missionaries must do in these scenarios—except that a supervisor shouldn’t assume an ecclesial authority that doesn’t belong to them.

Typically, though, managerial authority will be tied to the source of the missionary’s income, as with any other job. If the sending church provides the bulk of income, then they will possess that authority. If an agency provides or facilitates that income, then they will possess it. Organization leaders should be unafraid to wield the valid authority of an employer.

Sometimes, we can use a legitimate authority as an excuse to avoid making a difficult decision ourselves. But Jesus Christ is the only Lord of the conscience (c.f. Rom. 14:5–8, Rev. 20:11–12). On the last day, our Lord will commend faithful servants for how they served him. Ultimately, a missionary must answer to Jesus Christ. That may mean that in some situations they will disagree with and even disobey other God-appointed authorities—for isn’t it better to obey God rather than men (Acts 4:19)? If you don’t trust a missionary to make a thoughtful, God-honoring decision in ambiguous situations, then you should not send, support, or employ them.^{1010 .} Andy Johnson puts it this way, “Among the first questions you should ask is, ‘Do I really trust this person?’” Johnson, Missions, p76. See also Caruthers, “On the Authority of a Sending Church.”

Putting It All Together

What does all this look like in practice? A sending church sends, a local church shepherds, a sending organization supervises. To put it negatively, a sending church can stop supporting (decommission) a missionary, a local church can discipline him, and a sending organization can fire him. As a missionary faithfully labors, the three authorities often might not even notice each other.

But what should happen when a missionary is in crisis? Our tendency in these moments can be to rush in like a knife-happy surgeon who only sees one solution to every problem. The unintended results: Churches on the field learn they will always be second-class to American churches. Mission agencies pitted against churches. Missionaries confused who they can depend on in crisis. Let’s slow down. Before the crisis comes, we must consider our role in a missionary’s life. What is our particular responsibility? Don’t just ask, “Can I fix it?” but “How does my role inform how I should respond?” and “How can I build up the other authorities involved?”

In some ways, I’ve written this article in order to help precisely with those moments.

Ideally, different authorities will help each other and work together in the crisis moments. A sending church may not have the authority to discipline a missionary, but if the local congregation has disciplined that missionary, then certainly the sending church and the sending organization should take notice.

Of course, the greatest challenge to cooperation is always trust. Too often, organizations and churches fail to help each other simply because they don’t trust anyone else to do the job. Building trust is difficult and time-consuming. Usually, the only one who can build those bridges is the missionary, and they have the unique problem of being at the center of all the tension. Nonetheless, missionaries should intentionally strengthen the ties between the different authorities in their lives, for their own well-being and for the strength of the various entities they serve.

Conclusion

The Great Commission can’t be carried out by one solitary Christian. Nor by one solitary church. The Lord in his wisdom requires us not only to depend on him, but also on his people.

Sending churches cannot be the spiritual home of their missionaries while they’re on the field. But they must send and support them in their task. Sending organizations cannot be the spiritual home of their employees. But they must provide managerial oversight. Local churches on the field aren’t necessarily directors of their missionaries’ ministry. But they must be the spiritual home for missionaries seeking to obey Christ in all their life.

Our God is a God of order. The order he provides is for our good and his glory. When we’re clear on the responsibilities he’s entrusted to sending churches, local churches, and sending organizations, we guard ourselves from using up missionaries and grow in partnering with them in the work. If we neglect this order, we choose to imperil the spiritual health and fruitfulness of our missionaries.