# Missionary sending and accountability, a few questions



## Pergamum (Sep 29, 2012)

Should we send missionaries through mission boards? Direct from one single church? From a denominational board? How does this all impact accontability? 

(If you believe that missionaries should be sent through a denominational board but not through a missionary society, what is the difference?)

Who is the missionary accountable to? What happens when there are disagreements between parties?

When sending a missionary, are they usually commissioned? What is the process of sending? Do they get evaluated every so often? Checked up on?


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## Pergamum (Sep 29, 2012)

The questions center around authority for sending and responibility for the sending and care of missionaries.


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## Edward (Sep 29, 2012)

We make a distinction between denominational missionaries, who we support with money, prayer, and encouragement, and home church missionaries, for whom our elders have additional responsibilities, as they are members of our congregation. Most of our missionaries work through the denominational board (most frequently in connection with other agencies) while a few of the home church missionaries are sent directly by the local church on independent projects. 

But the basic model is to work through and take advantage of the resources of the PCA MTW while focusing our efforts on certain areas of the world.


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## Pergamum (Sep 30, 2012)

Thanks.


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## Scott1 (Sep 30, 2012)

PCA Denomination sent missionaries, for long term missions, at least, ordinarily are members of a presbytery, which licenses, ordains and installs them. There, they are accountable for doctrine and morals by a "spiritual jury of peers."

This provides an additional layer of both support and accountability.


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## Pergamum (Sep 30, 2012)

Scott:



> There, they are accountable for doctrine and morals by a "spiritual jury of peers."



Can you explain this?


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## Edward (Sep 30, 2012)

Scott1 said:


> ordinarily are members of a presbytery



That got me wondering what percentage are actually ordained. Looking at the list, it appears that virtually all missionaries are either couples or single women. So it appears that less than half are answerable to a Presbytery, and that most would be members of congregations.


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## TylerRay (Sep 30, 2012)

Missionaries are ministers of the Gospel and, as such, are sent by and accountable to Presbytery.



> it appears that virtually all missionaries are either couples or single women.



The problem is that the Bible doesn't know about those kinds of missionaries.


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## Pergamum (Sep 30, 2012)

Edward said:


> Scott1 said:
> 
> 
> > ordinarily are members of a presbytery
> ...



Only a minority of missionaries are ordained, elder-qualified men in our days.


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## Pergamum (Sep 30, 2012)

TylerRay said:


> Missionaries are ministers of the Gospel and, as such, are sent by and accountable to Presbytery.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Most missionary orgs, perhaps even MTW and other reformed missionary orgs would disagree with you.


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## Edward (Oct 1, 2012)

Sorry, Perg, I had not intended to hijack your thread into that debate; just to clarify the practices of PCA MTW.


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## Pergamum (Oct 1, 2012)

Edward, 



> MTW uses a team-based approach to missions. For that reason, we actively seek missionaries from a variety of backgrounds—ordained or unordained, singles and families, men and women—and with many different ministry skills and interests.
> 
> Though MTW's first priority is church planting, we also have missionaries working in a variety of other ministries such as teaching, medicine, community development, and administration.



The above is straight from the MTW website. They seem to have no problems calling women and unordained men by the title "missionary" so why should you?


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## Edward (Oct 1, 2012)

Pergamum said:


> They seem to have no problems calling women and unordained men by the title "missionary" so why should you?


 I think you are confusing me with Tyler. I haven't expressed a view on non-ordained Missionaries, and that doesn't seem to be the topic of this thread. So I just noted the practice, but will leave that discussion to other places.


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## Scott1 (Oct 1, 2012)

Understand the specific situation, in the PCA, long term missionaries that go through the denominational sending agency, Mission to the World (MTW).

There are a lot of variations, so this is not true in every case, but in the case of long term (e.g. 3 year or longer commitment), the missionary is often an ordained teaching elder in the PCA.

In the PCA, a teaching elder is a member of his presbytery, which is composed of other teaching elders in his region, to which he is accountable for doctrine and morals.

Even transferring between presbyteries in the PCA requires examination for stated differences of doctrine, if any, in writing.

Anecdotal, two recent missionaries, both ordained teaching elders have gone out on missions, neither is church planting, but both are men ordained and accountable as teaching elders, their wives in support roles.

There is a network of support for these men withing their presbytery as well, a very beneficial aspect to them.


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## Pergamum (Oct 1, 2012)

Thanks.


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## Contra_Mundum (Oct 2, 2012)

The OPC calls its (mostly) overseas employees _missionaries_. This includes a minister and his wife, and technically his family too if they accompany. The term "missionary" is therefore a broad term in our parlance.

Thus, it is not uncommon for us to use additional qualifiers: such as "missionary-evangelist" to describe the fundamental missionary function. "Missionary-wife" would be another common description for wives of such men (and other servants). And who hasn't heard the informal term "missionary-kid"?

We have "missionary-doctor" and "missionary-nurse," who perform diaconal service to people in need. We have straight-up "missionary-deacon," (Hi Bob!).

We have "missionary-associates," who often go to the field as self- or alternate-funded aides to the missionaries. They do functions like teach missionary-kids, or do ESL classes (for examples); or such an associate might be engaged in an "internship," which in at least one case I believe resulted in a call to full-time service as one of our regular missionary-evangelists.


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## Pergamum (Oct 2, 2012)

Thanks Rev. Bruce.


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