Upsides and downsides on more reliance on above ministry-share support

Upsides

• Better connection to local church partners
• More energetic support from local church partners
• Able to expand mission fields (see report)
• Better connection between North American church and world church. (This can become a downside in some situations too if the relationship is not healthy or managed well.)

Downsides

• Ministry share paying congregations imagine (incorrectly) that their ministry shares will fall and are no longer needed.
• Individuals from large congregations and wealthy communities can serve as missionaries while those from smaller churches and poorer communities will struggle. Juan from Florida notes the student debt angle of this.
• CRWM will increasingly lose leverage over CRWM missionaries because they are not as dependent on them for support and services. Historically this relational triangle can produce nasty situations that enflames conflicts between agency and missionary.

Observation

• This is another example of how the CRC is increasingly like the broader North American church.
• The Internet and social media play a part in this. The world is smaller. Nets and jets baby.
• Large, wealthy churches increasingly do what denominations used to provide for smaller churches.