New Funding Models for Global Mission

• I was raised in a denomination that called, vetted, trained, and supported its full-time international missionaries. Imagine my surprise when I grew up and learned how many churches and parachurches required missionaries to raise their own support. While recognizing the strengths of this approach, Tim Welch identifies its growing number of weaknesses, along with the advantages, especially for Majority World missionaries, to adopt other models that may even be more biblical. Canvassing an encouraging variety of these, Welch makes a persuasive case for us to vary our models when possible to best meet today’s needs. Highly recommended.

  — Craig L. Blomberg, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, New Testament, Denver Seminary

• Tim Welch understands the issues related to funding global missions through his mission journey serving SIM for thirty-one years in Cote d’Ivoire. New Funding Models for Global Mission is a must-read for mission donors, foundations, and prospective missionaries as well as mission leaders.

  — Luis Bush, President, Transform World ConnectionsFormer CEO, Partners InternationalFormer International Director, COMIBAM & AD2000 and Beyond Movement

• I highly recommend this game-changing work by Tim Welch. Financing outreach among the least reached peoples through the impassioned Majority World Church is one of the greatest challenges facing contemporary mission practitioners. Welch both encourages and challenges mission practitioners to tear down outdated “faith-based” support structures in favor of more innovative approaches. He introduces culturally relevant funding models; the effective adoption of the models presented in this work will allow the Majority World church to expand even farther into restricted access countries where the gospel is most needed. I recommend this book to anyone serious about adaptive change in mission funding, but especially to those who labor daily to fulfill God's mission in the world by walking alongside our brothers in the Majority World church.

  — Lloyd S. Chinn, Global Director, World Venture, Africa

• New Funding Models for Global Mission is an innovational book that will be a useful resource for those in the ministry. Learning strategic funding will help us move forward with our ministries.

  — Damples Dulcero-Baclagon, Managing Editor, Asian Missions Advance

• New Funding Models for Global Mission by Tim Welch is an eclectic assemblage of mission support models. As someone who has from onset of my response to the call of God as an “African missionary” and finding myself in a pioneering leadership role in an indigenous mission agency, I can strongly relate with every aspect of the contents of this book. Tim highlights and articulates various Biblical and practicable examples and models of mission support and involvement. I strongly recommend this book especially to the Churches, mission agencies, missionaries, mission mobilizers, etc., from the Majority World which are perceived as constituting the largest mission forces now and in the future. May we start appreciating and utilizing what we have to carry out our own portion of the Great Commission along with other members of the body of Christ globally.

  — Reuben Ezemadu, International Director, Christian Missionary FoundationContinental Coordinator, Movement For African National InitiativesIbadan, Nigeria

• By reminding us of this saying of Hudson Taylor: “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply,” Tim invites us from the outset to focus on the owner of it all, before taking us to consider and revisit the various possible funding models for global mission. The church in the Majority World has much to contribute when it comes to mission funding and setting the agenda for global Christianity. Are we doing what we should be doing and going where God is sending with the resources we have? I recommend the reading of this book to all as we seriously consider our participation and partnership in mobilizing resources for the mission entrusted to us by Jesus.

  — Mario Li-Hing, MANI Leadership Team, AEA Board Chair

• This is a very informational and inspirational book for mission workers who want to get creative ideas on how to finance their ministries. May this concise volume help mobilize more workers into the vast harvests among the unreached and unengaged peoples of our world today.

  — David S. Lim, PhD, Board Chairman, Lausanne Philippines

• Our heart for missions cannot be separated from the challenge and privilege of funding missions. The Majority World is producing laborers, a direct answer to the prayer Jesus instructs us to pray (Matt 9:38). Tim Welch makes it clear in this book that sending Kingdom workers to the unreached will be significantly hindered unless we widen our horizons and practice new models of supporting them. He provides a rich list of possibilities to stimulate our thinking, but he offers us much more than pragmatic solutions. His commitment to biblical reflection makes this a valuable and timely read for those who consider the advance of God’s Kingdom a high priority.

  — Mutua Mahiaini, International President, The Navigators

• This is a timely book that addresses the need for the church in the Majority World to seriously grapple with the issue of mission funding by realizing the tremendous resources and channels for mission support and funding available to the Majority World. I highly commend this book for reading and discussion especially by church and mission leaders in order for more intentional and sustained mission mobilization.

  — Peter Oyugi, Leadership Team, Movement of African National Initiatives (MANI)

Author

• Tim Welch
  Tim Welch

  Tim Welch served as a missionary in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire for thirty-one years with SIM, including twenty-two years as national director. He began his service there at a Christian publishing house, and currently he serves as, the SIM Ministry Point Person for Literature, based in the US. He received his MA in World Christianity from Denver Seminary and his doctorate in Transformational Leadership from the Université de l'Alliance Chrétienne d'Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire. Tim has written five books in French on practical theology and two books in English on Africans in the Bible, one for adults and one for children. He was the general editor for the Bible d'étude africaine (CPE, 2015) and a contributor to the Africa Study Bible (Oasis International, 2016). Tim and his wife Janet live in Colorado. They have two children and four grandchildren. 

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