Christian Non-Profits - Strengths and Weaknesses

[Ernie]

This is a thread to discuss Christian Non-Profits - Their Strengths and their Weaknesses

Please do not engage in promoting left wing/right wing ideology or critiquing the actions or viewpoints of a particular civil political party or civil political leaning in this thread. Please keep partisan comments/debates out of this thread - avoid comments that reflect negatively on either right-leaning or left leaning political persuasions or persons.

Please keep this thread focused on the topic. If you want to debate the use of terms mentioned above, or the validity of threads such as these, please do so in another thread. Thank you!

[Ernie]

I prefer that Christian churches oversee all missions and ministry.
Later I will post my reasons for this and identify many problems I see with non-profits.

For now, I will settle on a talking about how non-profits can be a useful tool or arm of the church.

In our current western era, there are times when churches overseeing non-profits seems like the better thing to do.
1. When local churches are glad to financially support Christians to do ministry in far away places, but hesitant to do the same for Christians working locally.
2. When local churches do not have the needed personnel or finances to sustain and expand a ministry.
3. When local churches do not have the skills to serve or lead an initiative effectively.
4. When local church leaders stymie ministry efforts because they do not have time to invest or because of ego or other personal issues that get in the way of local ministry succeeding.

[Ken]

Personally I think they are stronger when engaged in activities that directly reflect Christian missions. Such as charity work with the poor, international aid work, that kind of thing.

I think they are weakest when they simply function as affinity groups to do things like sell financial products such as investments, life and health insurance, etc. That aren't directly related to any mission of Christianity.

[Ernie]

I've noticed that many people are hesitant to give funds to local churches for local outreach because...
1. They are afraid their money will sit in the bank while the local church argues over how it will be used or spent
2. They don't trust local church ministries to be managed well
3. They are afraid that the church will elect people to oversee the ministry who don't have a heart for the ministry
4. They think that local church members should fund local church initiatives rather than individuals from other non-local churches.

I can understand the concerns with 1-3 as these are legitimate. I think these concerns can be addressed, but conservative Anabaptists have not figured out a way to address them very well.

With number 4, I think it simply an unfortunate worldview that should be changed.

[JohnH]

A converse to #4 is that every local church should find itself in relationships of accountability, mutual submission, and oversight with other churches. (Sometimes this is called a "conference" or a "fellowship", but I am not advocating for a particular type of structure here.) When this exists, it feels much more comfortable to either directly contribute to something another church is doing, to mutually work on some kind of shared effort, such as disaster relief, that is overseen by multiple such churches, or to allow one's local church to contribute to the above things from the general fund.

A consequence of churches becoming "independent" and then many, many nonprofits arising is that this dynamic becomes weaker. Instead of networking with other churches, fundraisers from these various profits fly around the country, showing up on Sunday nights to give presentations on why you should donate to their particular thing, complete with a table with persuasive images and pamphlets out in the narthex. There is no oversight or accountability for these NGOs other than withdrawing one's donations. They are effectively independent.

Such nonprofits are often a lot more exciting than doing work like donating to the local widows' alms fund or picking a slot to volunteer at the nearby homeless shelter, and thus they will attract young people to go volunteer for them, and donations to them will start to displace the local church. Eventually, the local church's donations strictly cover what's needed to keep the doors open and the heat on, and there isn't much money left to donate to other causes.

Wealthy church members are particuarly targeted by such nonprofits - who often hire outside counsel and marketing experts to figure out how to court such well-heeled donors, often even retaining accounting firms who help structure donations for maximum tax benefits to the donors. The wealthier members of a church no longer donate to their local church and trust their brethren and deacons to choose wisely where such funds will go, instead becoming "wise in their own eyes" and choosing where to donate instead.

Such is how the local church is destroyed, only to be replaced by the godless 501(c)3, an institution featuring neither bishops, deacons, elders, or ministers, replaced by a President, Treasurer, board members, Executive Directors - as is legally required by Caesar.

[R7ehr]

A converse to #4 is that every local church should find itself in relationships of accountability, mutual submission, and oversight with other churches. (Sometimes this is called a "conference" or a "fellowship", but I am not advocating for a particular type of structure here.) When this exists, it feels much more comfortable to either directly contribute to something another church is doing, to mutually work on some kind of shared effort, such as disaster relief, that is overseen by multiple such churches, or to allow one's local church to contribute to the above things from the general fund.

A consequence of churches becoming "independent" and then many, many nonprofits arising is that this dynamic becomes weaker. Instead of networking with other churches, fundraisers from these various profits fly around the country, showing up on Sunday nights to give presentations on why you should donate to their particular thing, complete with a table with persuasive images and pamphlets out in the narthex. There is no oversight or accountability for these NGOs other than withdrawing one's donations. They are effectively independent.

Such nonprofits are often a lot more exciting than doing work like donating to the local widows' alms fund or picking a slot to volunteer at the nearby homeless shelter, and thus they will attract young people to go volunteer for them, and donations to them will start to displace the local church. Eventually, the local church's donations strictly cover what's needed to keep the doors open and the heat on, and there isn't much money left to donate to other causes.

Wealthy church members are particuarly targeted by such nonprofits - who often hire outside counsel and marketing experts to figure out how to court such well-heeled donors, often even retaining accounting firms who help structure donations for maximum tax benefits to the donors. The wealthier members of a church no longer donate to their local church and trust their brethren and deacons to choose wisely where such funds will go, instead becoming "wise in their own eyes" and choosing where to donate instead.

Such is how the local church is destroyed, only to be replaced by the godless 501(c)3, an institution featuring neither bishops, deacons, elders, or ministers, replaced by a President, Treasurer, board members, Executive Directors - as is legally required by Caesar.

This is roughly my sentiment, albeit with out quite so much feeling. Specifically the last paragraph.

I see that church is the design that God has for humanity to help humanity, not non-profits. I've helped with non-profits, and will probably continue. But I view them as a human designed solution that is "necessary and good" only because the correct institution, the church, is failing. I find it a two edged sword, while the non-profits may in the short term pickup the slack that is caused by the church's delinquency, the non-profit world is in the long term exasperating and wounding the church in the long term. The non-profits are not making the church better.

[Neto]

I concur with various points made by JohnH (see above), especially the benefits of a group of congregations with very closely aligned doctrine, way of life (i.e., the ways in which they express their faith), and vision for ministry, both in the home culture, and in missions.

The weakness most evident to me (as a former specialist in a certain type of missionary ministry) of both conference (or fellowship) missionary work, and even more so as that of individual congregations "doing their own thing" independently of other congregations is that the administrators, no matter how dedicated they are and honest in all of their handling of funds and other resources, is the lack the specialized education or abilities to carry out their objectives in very specific ministry goals such as language learning, Bible translation, understanding vastly different cultures, and recognizing different but legitimate expressions of true Christian faith that look very strange to their uni-cultural experience.

Individual congregations can still have a high level of input into specialized ministries that DO have members with this type of training and experience, but it does take a special effort to be intimately engaged. The "para-church" ministries should be open to this exposure, and if they are not, choose another.

A large conference can attract and train members who ARE specialists, but I would say that it requires a membership who are genuinely dedicated to the objectives expressed by that particular vision. One way I've seen the "missionary vision" of an individual pastor go from a theoretical (or a predominately 'educated' theologically based) favor toward missionary efforts is to send a different pastor out on visits to active missionaries as a "pastor to missionaries' from time to time. I saw a pastor who was very gung-ho for missions on the general level become intimately interested after being sent out on such an assignment. It was only for a week or maybe two, but after that excursion into the world of one mission field, his level of interest in the needs and concerns of individual missionaries went from 'theoretical' to genuine spiritual concern and focus. (He no longer "looked past you" while you were attempting to answer his question. But it is also the responsibility of the missionary to not dominate his time, preventing him from engaging with visitors, or other church members.)

[Neto]

A converse to #4 is that every local church should find itself in relationships of accountability, mutual submission, and oversight with other churches. (Sometimes this is called a "conference" or a "fellowship", but I am not advocating for a particular type of structure here.) When this exists, it feels much more comfortable to either directly contribute to something another church is doing, to mutually work on some kind of shared effort, such as disaster relief, that is overseen by multiple such churches, or to allow one's local church to contribute to the above things from the general fund.

A consequence of churches becoming "independent" and then many, many nonprofits arising is that this dynamic becomes weaker. Instead of networking with other churches, fundraisers from these various profits fly around the country, showing up on Sunday nights to give presentations on why you should donate to their particular thing, complete with a table with persuasive images and pamphlets out in the narthex. There is no oversight or accountability for these NGOs other than withdrawing one's donations. They are effectively independent.

Such nonprofits are often a lot more exciting than doing work like donating to the local widows' alms fund or picking a slot to volunteer at the nearby homeless shelter, and thus they will attract young people to go volunteer for them, and donations to them will start to displace the local church. Eventually, the local church's donations strictly cover what's needed to keep the doors open and the heat on, and there isn't much money left to donate to other causes.

Wealthy church members are particuarly targeted by such nonprofits - who often hire outside counsel and marketing experts to figure out how to court such well-heeled donors, often even retaining accounting firms who help structure donations for maximum tax benefits to the donors. The wealthier members of a church no longer donate to their local church and trust their brethren and deacons to choose wisely where such funds will go, instead becoming "wise in their own eyes" and choosing where to donate instead.

Such is how the local church is destroyed, only to be replaced by the godless 501(c)3, an institution featuring neither bishops, deacons, elders, or ministers, replaced by a President, Treasurer, board members, Executive Directors - as is legally required by Caesar.

This is roughly my sentiment, albeit with out quite so much feeling. Specifically the last paragraph.

I see that church is the design that God has for humanity to help humanity, not non-profits. I've helped with non-profits, and will probably continue. But I view them as a human designed solution that is "necessary and good" only because the correct institution, the church, is failing. I find it a two edged sword, while the non-profits may in the short term pickup the slack that is caused by the church's delinquency, the non-profit world is in the long term exasperating and wounding the church in the long term. The non-profits are not making the church better.

I see that kind of danger at work as well, when the leadership of a para-church organization is not humble, and appear to think that they 'own' the ministry. But in general, I see these ministries as coming along side the individual congregations, helping them to reach their shared goals for reaching the lost of the world in ways in which the congregation is not able to carry out. (For instance, how many congregations can train workers in linguistics, literacy material development and implementation, basic medical work, anthropology and cultural study, and Bible translation?)

(I do think that most, if not nearly all personal counselling belongs in the local congregation. Sure, training is necessary for some types of issues, but if an outside counselling agency is utilized, I do think that it should be carried out along side the person's own pastor. But we also need to put more focus on ordaining men who, along with their wives, have personal interaction abilities that go well beyond the man's ability to organize and present sermons. Or, I should say, sometimes INSTEAD OF the preaching skill.)

[Thomas_muntzer]

A converse to #4 is that every local church should find itself in relationships of accountability, mutual submission, and oversight with other churches. (Sometimes this is called a "conference" or a "fellowship", but I am not advocating for a particular type of structure here.) When this exists, it feels much more comfortable to either directly contribute to something another church is doing, to mutually work on some kind of shared effort, such as disaster relief, that is overseen by multiple such churches, or to allow one's local church to contribute to the above things from the general fund.

A consequence of churches becoming "independent" and then many, many nonprofits arising is that this dynamic becomes weaker. Instead of networking with other churches, fundraisers from these various profits fly around the country, showing up on Sunday nights to give presentations on why you should donate to their particular thing, complete with a table with persuasive images and pamphlets out in the narthex. There is no oversight or accountability for these NGOs other than withdrawing one's donations. They are effectively independent.

I hadn't thought about that aspect of NGOs and it's true that many lack accountability.

[Ernie]

I still plan to post sometime about my problems with NGO's.

But I will just point out at this point that many NGO problems also face churches as well. For example: Churches, even big conference and fellowships can have problems with not being accountable to everyone they should also. Many churches and conferences have suffered for decades because the leaders were not properly accountable to the greater body of Christ.

And for what it is worth, a 501 c3 can file an annual I-990 with IRS, or they can be overseen by a church or conference and no I-990 needs to be filed.
With the filing option, a board can operate independently of the church. With the no I-990 filing, church leaders can get away with all sorts of things as long as nobody sues them. And church leaders can get away with all sorts of things even if they have not filed a 1023 for 501 c3 status.

So at the end of the day, leaders of churches or leaders of NGO's can be accountable and transparent, or they can hide things and act independently. Same with business owners or heads of homes.

The important thing is to help people develop cultures of humility, accountability, and transparency. Otherwise, bad things are going to happen in whatever social structures a person is part of.