Some churches need external support. Some churches need external support for the long term. Some churches may even need support in perpetuity. Never is this more evident than churches in so-called hard places. They are reaching largely unreached people in our country and – even the most outwardly successful of them – are reaching the kind of people who simply do not have the funds to sustain a long term ministry.

If you see hundreds of asylum seekers coming to the Lord and, against the odds sticking around in your church, they still won’t have the reddies to prop up a pastor’s salary and sustain any of the work of ministry. The same is true (though they have slightly more) reaching working class people on council estates. Some of our churches just need long term support to keep reaching the people they are reaching. If we are kingdom-minded people and churches who also want to see the whole of our nation reached for Christ, we should have no problem providing it. And, it should be said, by God’s grace some people, churches and organisations are so minded and are willing to put their money where their mouths are.

Many of these kingdom-minded guys are theologically reformed and keen to support other theologically reformed churches. These reformed guys insist that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and believe that the elect only come to Christ through a work of God’s Spirit who, famously, blows wherever he wills. They are certain that we do not save anybody, but it is the Lord’s work start to finish. They are clear-sighted that there is nothing that we do, nothing of our work of itself, moves anybody one iota closer to the kingdom apart from the Spirit already at work in them and without God’s effectual calling that cannot be resisted and without which nobody can come to Christ. They are super clear on all this.

But I am always amazed by how many of those who claim to be good, theologically reformed, kingdom-minded people suddenly turn into Arminians as soon as financial support is involved. All of sudden, they become painfully interested in numbers. First, they want to know how many people have you seen saved? Second, they often organise their giving so that you get 3-years of funding and then, thereafter, things begin to drop down. The assumption underlying these things is pretty clear: if you’re doing what you should be doing, you will be growing. If you aren’t seeing converts, you must not be doing something right. If only you were growing, you would have enough people who would be able to financially support your ministry and make you self-sufficient and self-sustaining. I understand Arminians reaching these sorts of conclusions, but theologically reformed folks really ought to know better.

For one, if the Spirit is the one who determines whether people will be saved or not, what business have we got determining whether to support ministry to a particular people group is worthy of support based on numbers? Shouldn’t we be figuring out whether to support a ministry based on whether that particular church is being faithful or not? Should we not assess specifically what they are doing, not the numbers that seem to respond to whatever they are doing?

Based on this sort of numbers game, none of the Old Testament prophets would get support from these guys. Isaiah’s faithful – yet painfully unfruitful – 30-year ministry of nobody listening to a word he said would get short shrift. Jesus’ own earthly ministry can get in the bin because, by the end, all his followers had deserted him too. Similarly by this standard, no modern ministry to South Asian Muslims will ever get support because I do not know anyone who has had significant fruit anywhere in the country among this people group. I have been at it 10 years without a single convert amongst this group of people. Those who have seen any fruit at all amongst these people are often in single digits after a considerably longer time. If number of conversions and baptisms equates to acceptable evidence of something worthy of supporting, that group of people can literally go to Hell without any church anywhere near them because there doesn’t seem to be much fruit in it. Similarly, we might bin off Jewish people who aren’t exactly jumping into the boat in droves either. No theologically reformed person thinks these people shouldn’t be reached, no theologically reformed person thinks successful gospel ministry should be judged by numbers, but as soon as it comes to discussing money and finances, they become the most dyed-in-the-wool Arminians in assessing it entirely in the face of their theological convictions.

The second question suffers from a similar problem. Even where a ministry is fruitful, the assumption is you will grow and become self-sustaining. As I mentioned above, that clearly doesn’t work in areas where the only people you are ever reaching are the poor and destitute. Three years of funds with a ratchet down to account for growth is just deeply unrealistic model for some areas. If you are going to have a ratchet, you need to be thinking in decades, not single years. But again, the ratchet model operates on an assumption of growth and an apparent belief that, if you are doing what you ought and are worth supporting, you will be growing. It is not a biblical view and nor is it remotely reformed. Yet, the most straight up and down Reformed Baptists you might ever wish to meet suddenly turn into Arminians the moment you discuss money and support for your ministry.

If we really are reformed, we need to stop assuming that faithful ministry necessarily means converts and membership increase. The Bible, and our theological convictions, do not allow us to do so. If we really are reformed, we need to stop assuming that the only ministry worth supporting are those that can point to vast swathes of people jumping into the boat. It wasn’t the case for any of the old testament prophets, nor for Jesus, and certainly isn’t the case in many ministries to particular people groups who are especially hard to reach. If we are reformed, we need to stop assuming that a lack of numbers necessarily means we aren’t doing something we ought to be doing. If Isaiah was faithful to his calling, yet without people listening, so churches being faithful in reaching out to people who simply are not responding – in whom the Spirit has yet to work and draw them to Christ – is not evidence the church is failing in its calling or being unsuccessful in the eyes of Jesus. We simply need better measures and different metrics when we decide what we want to support and why we are (or aren’t) going to support them.

That isn’t to say we cannot make judgements about these things. It isn’t to say everyone who comes cap in hand is necessarily doing what they ought. But that is the point. We should judge ministry success by what the church is doing, not by the results that are exclusively in the hands of God to work by his Spirit. You might not want to support a ministry because, as you judge it, their theology is all over the place and they are not being biblically faithful in their teaching. You might not want to support a church because their approach to mission and ministry is clearly flawed, insisting on methods that – apart from some sort of miracle – really are never going to work. You might consider a church unfaithful in some of what it is doing. You might consider them to be doing things that are deeply unhelpful so far as the gospel is concerned. All these things might impact on your decision. All of these things would be reasonable for any reformed person to press into and think about.

But what reformed people ought not to be doing is assessing the success of a church by converts and membership rolls. We all know that some pretty ungodly churches can have some excellent numerical results and some very godly, faithful ones often do not. We all know that churches doing nothing at all might, by God’s grace, still get people in through the doors whilst those doing everything we might hope a church would to reach its community see absolutely no fruit for their efforts. We know – because of what the Bible says and as a result of the theology we claim to believer – that the results are down to the Spirit. We are called to be faithful to our calling, to fulfil the mission given to us by God, with the results being entirely his lookout and above our paygrade.

But it seems to me, reformed people become remarkably Arminian when it comes to this stuff. Maintaining faithful ministry in some very difficult places to particularly hard people demands they stop it too. This is my plea for some theological consistency from my monied reformed brothers and sisters. Please, for the sake of Christ and his kingdom, stop jettisoning your theological convictions the minute we discuss finances, support and partnership. Help faithful ministry, assess ministry success by faithfulness, and stop encouraging and applying a numbers-mentality. It is not reformed and it has real consequences for faithful, needy churches doing Great Commission work in places that nobody else will go. And it guarantees nobody else will go because they will be well aware, if they do, nobody will help them be there because the fruit is not low-hanging and easy to pick.