In Defense of Paying Campus Missionaries

proclaiming and participating

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Once upon a time, I was a campus missionary.

Some of you know this. Some of you used to follow the blog I had w-a-a-a-y back in the day, where I posted about my whimsical missionary adventures. I left out most of the crying, to be fair.

I worked for an organization that is far from perfect; I frequently tell the anecdote of a male missionary going off at me about how women shouldn’t be team leaders and I needed to read the Bible. Their “modesty” dress requirements at training made me roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they didn’t get stuck gazing towards the heavens. They sometimes tried to act like a business in a way that was off-putting and nonsensical in a spiritual space.

And also, that organization changed my life.

I know it would be more popular for me to write some scathing hit piece on le horror of campus ministry but the actual truth is that a campus missionary introduced me to the spiritual life in college and I felt like God wanted me to try and do the same for others. I spent a year in the sweaty, liquor-drenched heart of New Orleans (where we basically barehanded for nine months) and another at a large, loud state school in the Midwest (where I had a parking space and a coffee maker).

In both of these places, I worked about as hard as I’ve ever worked. For at least 50 hours a week, I was talking to students—leading them in Bible studies, trying to walk with them in discipleship, pouring into their lives, listening to their stresses and sorrows. A very typical day would include a working breakfast with my team, a coffee date with a girl who was launching a Bible study, a meeting with campus ministry staff to go over an upcoming event, an hour to plan out my Bible study that night, lunch with a student I had recently met, a Holy Hour with my team, two or three more discipleship meetings in the afternoon, a phone call with a missionary I was mentoring, leading a Bible study, a dinner scarfed down in my car, and then a campus ministry event at night, all followed by going out with students to try and deepen our friendship and trust.¹ Try to get six hours of sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

So when I see that all summed up as I have recently—some privileged, lazy “mIsSiOnArY” who made “a FULL time salary for getting lunch with sorority girls²!!!” I kind of want to scream.

My organization, like many other missionary organizations, required us to fundraise our salary. That meant that we had to approach friends and family members and ask them to be our financial mission partners. A lot—a lot—of people on the internet have a problem with this, as I recently discovered.

I can not be on a college campus right now. My patience would be at an all-time low, I have three children who need me during evenings when I’d have to be leading Bible studies or attending worship events, and I’d be that weird 32-year-old acting like she can still shotgun a beer. Literally nobody in their right mind would send me out to do mission work on a college campus during this season of life.

But campus ministry—that imperfect beast—was the place for me. It was where I was introduced to the person of Jesus. Not the idea of him, but who he is as a real, breathing being. It was where my relationship with him burst forth into new life and where my entire life was transformed. I’m still being transformed, of course; day in and day out, I’m learning more about Christ and my neighbor and myself. But campus ministry, for me, was where it started. Seeds planted there have become mighty oaks in my soul.

Campus ministry is nitty-gritty, dirt-under-the-fingernails work. I had conversations with girls about their sexual assaults the night before. I held girls while they sobbed about the harms purity culture had done to them. I admonished girls living in the type of sin that would make your skin crawl without harming our relationship. I prayed over girls who had never been prayed over or for in their entire lives. I was in the muck and mud of these women's lives at a time in their lives when they were becoming who they were made to be—and yes, sometimes that looked like “getting lunch with sorority girls”. All while being surrounded by keg parties and Adderall. I thank God every single day that there are people out there tending to those precious souls trying to make it through the damn day.³

So how can I help campus ministry without being boots-on-the-ground?

By helping a missionary earn a salary to live on.

“Fundraising is proclaiming what we believe in such a way that we offer other people an opportunity to participate with us in our vision and mission. Fundrais- ing is precisely the opposite of begging. When we seek to raise funds we are not saying, ‘Please, could you help us out because lately it’s been hard.’ Rather, we are declaring, ‘We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources that God has given you — your energy, your prayers, and your money
— in this work to which God has called us.’ Our invitation is clear and confident because we trust that our vision and mission are like ‘trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither’ (Ps. 1:3).” Henri Nouwen

It’s wild to me that we claim we want a living wage for all people, except for church workers (and, ironically, writers…but that’s another topic for another rant).

We think church workers should dip their toes into voluntary poverty. We think juniors in Alpha Phi are just totally down to get lunch with a girl who looks like she emerged from the woods. We think college students aren’t woo’d by the prospect of coffee paid for by someone else. We think swinging a hammer or crunching numbers in a spreadsheet or crafting a brand design, all good and noble professions that I respect greatly, are more “valid” work options than helping people come to Jesus.

“That missionary makes more than I make at my sales job,” a person recently screeched on the internet in response to a conversation about campus ministries fundraising. The response I wanted to say—and? That missionary is working their tail off, same as you. Take it up with your boss if you want a raise.

What is fundraising?

But the main reason I wanted to throw my computer at Instagram-land was this: these people completely misunderstand what fundraising is. And that may very well be the fault of the missionary who appealed to them.

Fundraising is not holding out your hand and demanding a check.

Fundraising is not pity-dollars given by the uber wealthy to the poor, deprived missionary.

Fundraising is not something to apologize or feel guilt over.

Fundraising is an invitation. It’s an invitation to someone to reevaluate their relationship with their money, and to relate to a new apostate in an entirely new way.

It’s a well-known fact that St. Paul’s missionary work was financially supported by others. He writes in 1 Corinthians 9: “Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?”

In other words, are soldiers expected to pay for their own weapons and armor? If you spend your time developing a garden, should you not be fed? And since mission work isn’t one where you can ethically charge money (could you imagine asking college students to pay to join a Bible study?), and God created a material world, you need to be supported by your community to engage in the practice of campus ministry.

I’m not saying you need to donate to every campus missionary who asks. In fact, I’m not saying you need to donate to campus ministry at all. I’m saying that the structure of fundraising for campus ministries isn’t just the only workable solution; it’s actually the ideal one. It widens the net of who is praying for the souls of college students, and who is taking real steps towards getting them to Heaven. It’s including so many of us in the work we would otherwise be unable to participate in.

If you are considering donating to a campus missionary, here’s what I would keep in mind.

• You are absolutely entitled to ask the missionary how they’re spending most of their days. If you’re concerned they’re just in campus ministry because they don’t want to get your idea of a “real job”, it’ll be apparent pretty quickly. Missionaries should be spending most of their days meeting with students or attending campus activities with the goal of meeting students.

• Feel free to give feedback or suggestions. You are not an ATM. You are a mission partner. This is your mission, too.

• Ask to see some of the materials the missionary is using in Bible study and discipleship. Do they align with your spirituality? Do you believe they’re going to help make disciples of all nations?

• Remember that mission work isn’t a business. If you’re hoping for some cut-and-dry “expected return” (ie., 52 students in Bible studies! A discipleship chain four levels long! Baptisms, baptisms as far as the eye can see!) think again. Mission work is much more about planting seeds, praying, and letting the Holy Spirit work.

I was going to close out with a snarky statement about the Instagram naysayers; the ones who claim being a missionary isn’t “hard work” when they haven’t spent five seconds of their life considering the Great Commission⁴ or the ones who think the Magical Grocery Fairy fills the pantries of missionaries with granola bars. But instead, let me tell you this.

When I was 20 years old, I was lost as hell. Pun intended. I was connected with a few girls at the campus Catholic Center but I was living a life of sin and strife. I was deeply unhappy. I was directionless. I had no idea what my purpose was. And it was over lattes in a Starbucks where a campus missionary listened to me. She heard my fears and worries and gently invited me to consider an answer.

God works in mysterious ways; maybe I would have stumbled into his church a different way if I hadn’t had that relationship with a campus missionary. But that’s how he chose to do it. That’s how he chose to lead me out of sin and darkness and into a blinding light of resurrection that I have to choose over and over and over again. And I am forever—forever—grateful.

St. Therese of Lisieux, patron saint of missionaries, pray for us!

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Do you support campus missionaries? Do you wish there was a different way campus ministry could be run? Were you involved in campus ministry as a student? I may snark on the Instagram arguers but that’s because their arguments are thoughtless and troll-y, and our community here is always so introspective and loving, even in strong disagreement. It makes conversations 10x better and reminds me why I’m grateful to be on Substack these days!

On My Nightstand 

• Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy: A hauntingly beautiful novel about a biologist trying to rewild Scotland with wolves and overcome her traumatic past. Very dark, but very lyrical.

• What If You Just Hate Making Dinner?: This essay on family dinners and modern cookbooks made me both laugh and think about women’s day-to-day labor—the very best kind of essay.

• The Final Days: A brutal piece about our exit from Afghanistan. Really hard to read, but important to remember.

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In case you missed these Letters:

• Shiny Happy All of Us - for subscribers

• Trigger Warnings and Taylor Swift - for subscribers

• Live Not By Life Hacks - for everyone

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1. Believe it or not, people don’t want to tell you their spiritual struggles if they have no idea who the hell you are.

2. Sorority girls, apparently, have less treasured souls than the rest of us. Who knew?

3. I could tell you dozens of stories about the impactful moments I had as a missionary. I know that some of you had shitty experiences with campus missionaries and for that, I’m genuinely sorry. But the transformations I witnessed in some of my girls’ lives—and the transformations that took place down the line, like with their own bible studies they led and the healthy, God-honoring friendships that bloomed—have changed me forever.

4. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2028%3A16-20&version=NIV