Belmont Global

Faith Promise is how we support our global partners, friends and projects. Every year during February we ask our members to spend time before the Lord and ask Him how much He wants them to give. Then we ask folks to fill out the Faith Promise Commitment Card and hand them in.  We do not call these commitments “pledges” because that makes it sound like we are “keeping track” and ready to pounce on you if you “get behind.”  Your commitment is between you and the Lord.  This whole thing is a faith experience for all of us—for you, for our Global office, and for our field workers.

Yes, there is, and you can find it in an example Paul provides in 1 Cor. 8:1-7.  Here are few excerpted verses: “…they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability…they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will…see that you also excel in this grace of giving.”  They sought the Lord first and then, by faith, gave beyond their ability. God helped them do more than they thought they were capable of. They had to decide to “live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:17.)”

We use the term missions more narrowly than some others do.  For us, “missions” means sharing the gospel with someone from another culture where not much is known about Jesus.  For us, the term “ministry” could be used in one sense to describe sharing the gospel with someone from our own culture or with someone from a culture that already has information about Jesus. We love ministry the way I just described it, but our global missions funds are targeted to nations and cultures where the gospel is not yet rooted.

Some come from within the ranks of the church membership. These partners spent time serving in our midst in a variety of ways. This is where we expect prospective partners to begin serving—right in this body and other Nashville ministries we relate to.

All of our Faith Promise partners born in another country have been sovereignly connected to us by God in a variety of ways, such as Martin Arroyo, Lito Llave, Nihad, Avishalom Teklehaimanot and our five couples in Central Asia. All of these people are very special servants of God.

There is no need to designate your Faith Promise contribution to a specific partner because it does not affect how much regular, monthly support they receive. In the same way, if you move away from Nashville and join another church, we do not deduct what your support had been from any partner’s support. They receive an amount determined by both the whole pool of Faith Promise money we receive, as well as consideration to their specific situation.

When there are special needs or projects, our partners will let us know so we can help and offer the opportunity for others to contribute towards the need or project.  When there are special needs beyond these things, we will let our church know.

Our primary focus areas are the Jewish world, the Islamic world, the Native American world, and certain other parts of the unreached world as well as international students and other internationals here in Nashville.  We want to take the gospel and disciple people and nations in areas that have never really heard about Jesus and who have little or no internal resource to help bring the Kingdom of God into their midst.  Our partners are involved in a number of different professional and ministry activities in their respective host cultures.

Sometimes we have some hard choices to make in deciding where to allocate whatever Faith Promise dollars we have. Thus far the Lord has honored our decisions to stay in our focus areas—we have had a lot of great fruit over the years, from some very tough places in the world. Let me just say this: all believers working cross-culturally for the Kingdom are to be honored. But not every good or great thing done cross-culturally is necessarily a priority for Belmont Church missions support. Let me give you an example: A dramatist wants to be a Christian street mime in Spain and evangelize those who will listen and a businessman wants to start a tent-making business in northern Iraq in order to help plant a church. Both may be hearing from the Lord and both may be incredible people seeing themselves as working cross-culturally for the Kingdom. Both are excellent at what they do and are to be honored for their faith.  However, these two would not be considered equivalent candidates for any available Faith Promise support.  One is inside the area the Lord had given us to tend and the other is not.

100% of your Faith Promise support goes to support our long-term field workers, their projects, and pastoral ministry to them and their families. No FP dollars goes to short-term missions individuals, Global pastors’ salaries, Global office expenses, or other administrative expenses.

No, you don’t, but whenever you give, please clearly designate your giving to Faith Promise (FP).

Until the next Faith Promise commitment campaign in February of next year.

In the absence of most people not being able to give a lump sum somewhere near the start of the period, what we would prefer is a monthly amount so that we can take care of regular expenses in a responsible way. We know that this will not always be possible for everyone all the time, but we think you can see the virtue in doing it this way.

We must all always be on our knees about matters like this. Only God knows what will ultimately happen, if we are unable to sustain our Faith Promise giving. Things that are out of our control are in God’s hands, as we release it in prayer. For circumstances involving our own choices, we must answer to God.