Outreach and Private Business Part 2

My personal opinion is that the way we view outreach, whether it is done through nonprofits, missions work or governmental programs, needs to change. All these organizations tend to become like companies, companies with employees, executives and boards, and even thought they may start out with all the best intentions, they eventually become more interested in the survival of the entity than in the mission they were originally founded for. Even the way most local churches do their outreach is ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive to their cause. All these organizations, nonprofits, local churches, radio ministries and in a way even the government are competing for the same dollars, reaching out to many of the same people in a way that makes all of them ineffective and in a very real sense makes them almost seem to be greedy for money and notoriety, more interested in promoting what they are doing then really having an impact. There seems to be little or no coordination between any of the organizations. In addition we are training a generation of young people who tend to look at the "mission field" as a career. A career funded by generous well meaning people's donations. What happened to Paul's concept of actually working for what you get? What happened to his concept of not being a "burden" to anyone? I am not saying there isn't a place for the people of God to support God's work financially; I believe there is and that it is an important component of Christian growth. What I am saying is that we as Christians need to look long and hard at what we are doing with our outreach resources and why. If you step back for a minute and try to listen to and reflect on what message is being given, whether it is "missionaries" going door to door looking for support, or radio ministries constantly in need of addition funds, or churches with huge budgets always looking for more, far to often the message seems to be, we know what is best and we need your money to do it. The message of how desperately the world needs Jesus Christ almost gets lost. It is why I believe our whole concept of what outreach is needs to change. The question is, how do we change it?