Missions Policy

Section One

Purpose and Strategy

In the New Testament, missionary activity is always centered around the preaching of the gospel, leading to the salvation of souls and the organization of believers into local churches.  Because we believe that God requires us to follow this pattern, we offer the following outline as our purpose and strategy for missions.

I.     We purpose by the grace of God to be His instrument for establishing congregations of Baptist conservatives throughout the Dallas / Ft. Worth metroplex, the State of Texas , the United States , and the world.  We intend to allocate resources and to train servants of God so as to make this possible.

II.    We shall support only those missionaries who are engaged principally in the work of evangelism leading to the establishing of indigenous, self-supporting, local churches, or those missionaries who can demonstrate that their work is a necessary ministry in support of and coordinated with those who are establishing local churches.  For purposes of this policy, a local church shall mean a body of believers who have been immersed upon a credible confession of faith in Jesus Christ, organized in a specific community, sovereign in polity, with the offices of pastor and deacons, for the purpose of worship, edification, the observance of the ordinances and the proclamation of the gospel.

III.  We shall work to develop individuals within our congregation who see the need for planting local churches and who will provide leadership through personal involvement in missionary church planting.  Priority shall be given to training and sending individuals for the establishment of churches of like faith and order, both in this community and throughout the world.  At no time shall other missions objectives be permitted to compromise the church’s ability to accomplish this goal.  

IV.  Faith Independent Baptist Church desires to be as closely involved as possible in the ongoing work of its missionaries.

V.    In order to maintain the closest possible contact with each missionary, the church may send a messenger to visit and assist each supported missionary in his field of service at least once every four years, if it is feasible to do so.

Section Two

Commissioning

We recognize that missions begins with the local church, the "pillar and ground of the truth."  In the book of Acts, the local church commissioned those who were to go forth preaching the gospel.

A.    Commissioning Required

Faith Independent Baptist Church will consider for support only those missionaries who have been commissioned for their work by a local church of like faith and order, and who maintain a direct accountability to their commissioning church.

B.    Commissioning of Members

Any member of Faith Independent Baptist Church who desires to be commissioned for the work of missionary church planting shall make this desire known to the pastor and deacons. The candidate shall receive a preliminary examination by the deacons and missions committee, who may then recommend examination by the congregation concerning doctrine, qualifications and call. A majority vote of the church shall be necessary to commission any individual for the work of missionary church planting.

Section Three

Qualifications

A.    Purity of Testimony

Because "many deceivers are gone out into the world," the preaching of the gospel requires us to stand against many false substitutes.  We also recognize that impurity of doctrine and impurity of life are often connected.  Therefore, we will support only those missionaries who maintain a clear testimony for the truth and who refuse to help spread false gospels and divisive doctrines.  Specifically, we shall not support any missionary who:

        (1)   Denies the verbal inspiration of Scripture, the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, miracles, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection or bodily second coming.

        (2)   Teaches the charismatic doctrine that apostolic sign-gifts such as speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, prophecy, knowledge or the gifts of healing may be experienced by believers in the present day.

        (3)   Cooperates or fellowships with any religious organization, fellowship, denomination or council that permits

apostates or charismatics within its membership or regular fellowship.

        (4)       Has brought such moral reproach upon himself as to damage permanently his testimony for Jesus Christ.

B.     Agreement in Doctrine

All missionaries or missions agencies under consideration for support by Faith Independent Baptist Church shall be presented with a copy of the church’s Articles of Faith.  In order to receive further consideration for support, the missionary or agency must indicate complete agreement with the Articles of Faith.   

Section Four

Sending Agencies

While we are grateful for those institutions that have been organized to assist the local church in coordinating its missionary outreach, we recognize that the local church can never surrender the ultimate responsibility for its missionaries or missions program.  Therefore, the following criteria will be used to evaluate sending agencies. Faith Independent Baptist Church will not support missionaries whose sending agencies do not meet these qualifications.

A.     Local Church Accountability

The sending agency must recognize that the final accountability of the missionary is to the local church, not to the agency. This recognition should be reflected in the way the agency coordinates the work of the missionaries under its care, including the requirement of local church commissioning for every missionary.

B.     Faith Principle

Since the most direct form of accountability in missions work is tied to financial support, Faith Independent Baptist Church will cooperate only with those sending agencies which operate according to the faith principle. By this we mean:

         (1)  That the agency receives no regular budgeted support from any convention, council, conference, association or denomination, but rather raises its own support directly from local churches and individual believers; and

         (2)  That each missionary is required to raise his own support through direct contact with local churches and individual believers.

C.      Financial Policies

Faith Independent Baptist Church will not support missionaries whose sending agencies implement the following financial policies.

         (1)  Use of a general or pooling fund to which all missionaries contribute and from which all missionaries draw their support.

         (2)   It is the preference of Faith Independent Baptist Church to support only those missionaries whose sending agencies are willing to guarantee that all funds given to the missionary will go to the missionary.  If a sending agency requires a minimum deduction from the individual missionary’s support to defray the expenses of the agency, the Missions Committee will review the amount of the minimum deduction when determining the feasibility of support of the missionary.

D.     Support of Agency

If Faith Independent Baptist Church supports a missionary who is being assisted by a sending agency, the church may support the agency by an amount up to ten percent of the missionary's regular budgeted support.

Section Five  

New Testament Emphasis

The order of the local church is clearly taught solely in the New Testament.  The name Baptist has been used historically to designate those churches which adopt a New Testament understanding of the doctrine and order of the church.  Since agreement on the central issues of local church order is critical to accomplishing the work of missions, Faith Independent Baptist Church will grant missions support only in those instances in which the missionary, the commissioning church, and the sending agency (if one is involved) meet the following qualifications.

         (1)  Both the commissioning church and the sending agency (if one is involved) are committed to the historic doctrines which distinguish Baptists from other professing Christians.  Specifically, these doctrines include the absolute authority of the New Testament in all matters of church faith and order, regeneration and believer's immersion as requirements for church membership; purity of testimony as a requirement of church membership; the soul liberty and priesthood of each individual believer; congregational church government; and the separation of church and state.

         (2)  Both the commissioning church and the sending agency (if one is involved) are seeking to establish distinctively Baptist churches.

          (3)  Both the commissioning church and the sending agency (if one is involved) use the name Baptist either in their name or their sub-title.

Section Six

Support of Missionaries

A major part of the missions work of Faith Independent Baptist Church will focus upon the financial support of church planting missionaries. Subject to qualifications stated elsewhere in this policy, the following procedure will be used by the church in deciding whether to support any individual missionary.  

A.    Individual Involvement

The church and its leaders shall seek to be as heavily involved in the lives of its missionaries as possible, including not only financial support, but also prayer, personal contact, provision of needed materials, and personal visits to the field of ministry where possible.

B.   Approval for Support

            (1)      Anyone may recommend a missionary for support to a Missions Committee member, the pastor, or a deacon.

            (2)      Prior to a missionary speaking to the church on deputation, the pastor will screen the missionary to determine their

            doctrinal convictions, personal character, and acceptance of the church’s Article of Faith.  

            (3)      No missionary will be considered for support until the church has heard him preach and seen a presentation 

            of his work.  This may be done in person or in some form of video media.   If the presentation is made in some form

            of video media, the presentation should be no more than six months old.

            (4)      The Missions Committee shall have the particular responsibility of examining each candidate for missions support

as to doctrinal convictions and personal character.  Although the pastor has already screened the candidate, it is

ultimately the responsibility of the Missions Committee to confirm the candidate for recommendation for support.

(5)      The deacons will review the recommendations of the Missions Committee prior to the recommendations being

            presented to the church. 

(6)     A majority vote of the congregation shall be sufficient to grant support to the missionary.  

C.      Changes in Support

Any changes in support for any missionary shall be recommended by the Missions Committee through the deacons, and may be approved by a simple majority vote of the congregation.

D.     Removal of Support

Support may be removed from any missionary at any time by a simple majority vote of the congregation.  While such an action should normally be recommended by the Missions Committee through the deacons, it may be proposed in any business meeting by any voting member.

E.     Retirement

Because part of the work of the church is caring for those who do the work of missions, and because missionaries do make financial sacrifices while on the field that might preclude them from preparing financially for retirement, the church shall not remove support from retired missionaries without a review of the missionary’s needs.  We do encourage missionaries who are supported by the church to spend as much of their retirement as possible in the ministry of a local Baptist church of like faith and order.  Supported retired missionaries are also required to maintain contact and accountability to Faith Independent Baptist Church per Missions Policy, Section Six, Item G.

F.    Six Month Reserve

When the church makes a commitment to any missionary for budgeted monthly support, it will set aside a portion of its undesignated missions funds sufficient to provide six months of support for that missionary.  The church will do this as quickly as possible after committing regular support to the missionary.  This fund will be used if the church is ever in such a difficulty financial situation that the incoming missions monies are not sufficient to meet obligations.  In the event that the amount of the missionary's budgeted support is changed, his six month emergency fund will be adjusted accordingly.

G.   Accountability

In order to maintain the closest possible contact with each missionary, the church will request that each missionary supported send an informative letter, or some other form of media, on at least a quarterly basis, to update the church on the missionary’s ministry, support needs, and prayer requests.  The church may request a statement of how financial support is being used on the mission field and may send out a questionnaire for supported missionaries to complete and return, not more than once annually.  Failure on the part of the missionary to respond to these requests could result in discontinued support.

Section Seven

Daughter Church Planning

In addition to planting churches through supporting missionaries, Faith Independent Baptist Church recognizes its responsibility to plant daughter churches in and around the Dallas /Ft. Worth metroplex and its surrounding communities.  We would rather see five churches of two hundred than a single church of a thousand.  It will be the goal of Faith Independent Baptist Church to establish at least one daughter congregation every ten years.  Accordingly, we as a congregation adopt the following objectives toward fulfilling this responsibility.

A.    Awareness of Need

The Missions Committee shall research and keep the church aware of communities which represent acceptable target areas for daughter church planting.  Among other factors, the Missions Committee should evaluate the size of the community, the number and sort of churches already present in the community, the proximity of the community to families from Faith Independent Baptist Church , and the availability of families within the community who share our faith and practice.

B.    Projected Growth

While formulating its long-range plans for staff, facilities and programming, Faith Independent Baptist Church will plan to grow no larger than 300-400 members; growth beyond this point should be used for establishing daughter congregations.

C.   Intermediate Objectives

The goal of Faith Independent Baptist Church will be to provide a site of each daughter church, to assist the new church temporarily with the support of its pastor, and, if possible, supply some assistance toward erecting a building.  Faith Independent Baptist Church will evaluate the needs of the daughter church and determine support.

D.   Purchase of Sites

As funds become available, the Missions Committee should seek to become aware of the real estate market in communities with good daughter church potential.  If a suitable site presents itself at a reasonable price, the Committee should be prepared to recommend purchasing the site to the deacons, who shall present the matter to the congregation.

E.    Developing Leaders

Faith Independent Baptist Church should be constantly concerned with developing quality leaders who will provide a core for daughter churches.  In particular, we should be training men to hold our faith, order and philosophy who will become the pastors of daughter churches.

Section Eight

Special Projects

The church may occasionally approve the use of missions funds for special projects which pertain to the ministry of evangelistic church planting.  Such projects should be recommended by the Missions Committee with the approval of the deacons.  Under no circumstances shall the Committee recommend a project that would require funds which have been committed to regular missionary support or to daughter church planting.