NSAC's New Mission Funding Model Explained

We want to thank you for your ongoing faithful & generous giving to God’s mission both locally and globally.

Missional Living is one of our core values: “We will go into our neighbourhoods and around the world to express the love and hope of Jesus.” You hear us talk about it all the time. And, closely tied to missional living is mission giving -- financially supporting God’s mission through our missionaries and projects here in the city and around the world.

A New Funding Model

As you may have heard, after several years of research and discernment, the NSAC Board of Elders has approved a new Mission Funding Policy to be implemented at the beginning of our next fiscal year starting in a few weeks -- July 1, 2015. 

Under our current model, missions giving is designated by each donor to one of our approved missionaries, and this money goes directly out to them with a fair amount of accounting work on our end, and about a 4-6 week turnaround time before the missionary actually receives the funds.

We are moving to a new “pool model” where all that comes in to the new “NSAC Mission Fund” will now be pooled together and set monthly designations will then go out to all of our missionaries.

The goal with this new Funding Model is to make our mission giving as vision-driven as possible. Evangelism and discipleship will continue to be our core mission strategies -- things only the Christian church can do -- and projects like indigenous church-planting will have highest priority. The vision with this new “pool” model is that we would fund our mission and our missionaries more effectively and efficiently than ever before!

These days, mission-giving is very often fuelled by personal connection. One of the challenges in a larger church like ours is that it’s hard for congregants -- especially if you’re new to NSAC -- to have a personal connection with any of our missionaries & projects. Maybe you really want to give to our mission but you don’t feel you know enough about our people & their work. 

This is why we encourage you, going forward, to give to our new “NSAC Mission Fund.” Under the direction of the board of elders, our Mission Outreach Team (MOT) of 7 people connects regularly with all of our missionaries. They have their finger on the pulse assessing how the missionaries' work fits with our NSAC vision and what their current personal and operational needs are. Then, from our new mission pool fund, MOT will designate funds accordingly to our missionaries.

Our hope with this new Mission Fund is that many more of you will feel confident and excited to give to our mission ... from indigenous tribal church planting in the Northern Philippines ... to an urban church startup in Heidelberg, Germany ... to an orphanage in South Sudan - one of the most difficult places on the planet ... to mission among at-risk youth on the Downtown Eastside ... to prison ministry in Thunder Bay, Ontario ... to Campus Ministries in our city at UBC, SFU, & Langara.

Now, what if you only want to support certain ones of our missionaries? First I will say that if you’ve been giving to Christa Buss through our church, and you now give to our new mission pool fund, a portion of your money will still go to Christa Buss. However, after July 1, 2015, if you wish to continue supporting one of our missionaries exclusively, you will need to arrange to send support directly to their organization. This will be a great blessing as our missionaries will actually receive your funds 4-6 weeks sooner this way! For info on sending support directly, you can contact me (daves@nsac.bc.ca), our missionaries, or our church accounting office.

So, what happens when you write a cheque to NSAC and designate it to our new Mission Fund and put it in the offering in one of those new offering envelopes ... or if you set up an online giving option? 

Great question! Your gift will be deposited into our mission fund pool and every month, the Alliance Global Advance Fund that supports Canadian Alliance Missionaries worldwide, along with each of our 10 missionaries, will receive a portion of your giving. Annually, their projects will be assessed according to our NSAC vision and their current needs will be considered and then a monthly amount will be given to them accordingly.

In other words, your gift will go out 11 ways to support God’s mission both globally and locally. 

Very exciting! If you have any questions, feel free to talk to me, Dave Sattler (daves@nsac.bc.ca), or email any of the Elders or Leadership Team.