What is parachurch ministry?

Question 09032.

A parachurch ministry is a Christian organisation that works alongside the local church without being one. The prefix comes from the Greek para, meaning beside. Student unions, mission agencies, prison and hospital chaplaincy work, Christian publishers, camp organisations, counselling services, apologetics ministries and relief charities all fall into the category.

Opinions divide sharply. Some treat these bodies as the sharp end of Christian work and the local congregation as a slow and disappointing backwater. Others regard the whole category as a distraction that drains money and energy from where God actually promised to work. I think both positions are wrong, and I want to explain where I would place the line.

What a Parachurch Ministry Is and Is Not

The defining feature is what it lacks. A parachurch ministry does not baptise, does not administer the Lord’s Supper, does not exercise church discipline, has no membership in the biblical sense and has no eldership over the souls of those it serves. It is normally governed by a trustee board and staffed by employees, and it exists to do one thing well rather than to be a complete expression of the body of Christ.

That is not a criticism; it is a description of the category. A parachurch ministry is an association of Christians formed for a purpose, in the same way that a group of believers might form a school or a hospital. The trouble starts when such a body begins to function as a church for the people involved in it, and I have watched that happen more than once.

Where the Idea Came From

Organisations of this kind are relatively recent. They multiply from the eighteenth century onwards, with the missionary societies, the Bible societies, the Sunday School movement and the great social reform campaigns. In almost every case they arose because the churches of the day were not doing something that plainly needed doing, and a group of believers decided to get on with it.

That origin is worth remembering when the local church becomes critical. Most parachurch work exists because of a gap. William Carey’s society was formed because his denomination told him to sit down. Before we complain about these bodies drawing away resources, we might ask why the work was left undone in the first place.

What Parachurch Ministry Does Well

Specialisation, mostly. A single congregation cannot maintain a translation department, a legal defence team, a residential rehabilitation centre or a publishing house. Pooling resources across many churches makes work possible that none could carry alone, and the results have been considerable.

It also reaches places the local congregation cannot easily go. University campuses, prisons, hospitals, the armed forces and disaster zones all have their own gates, and organisations built for the purpose get through them. A parachurch ministry can also move quickly, without the deliberation that congregational decision making requires, which is an advantage in an emergency and a danger the rest of the time.

The Proper Relationship to the Local Church

Here is where I want to be clear. A parachurch ministry is a supplement to the local church, not an extension of it and never a replacement for it. Ephesians 4:11 and 12 says Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. The word translated equipping, katartismos, carries the sense of putting something into full working order, and the setting for that work in the New Testament is the congregation.

In practice this means the staff of any parachurch ministry should be committed members of local churches, under the discipline and care of elders who know them. It means the organisation should send people into congregations rather than gathering them out of them. And it means that when a student finishes at university, the aim is that he joins a church rather than mourning the loss of his Christian union. Read alongside this my article on what distinguishes a parachurch organisation from a church.

Mission Agencies as a Distinct Case

I treat mission agencies somewhat differently, because their purpose is the establishment of local churches elsewhere. An agency that exists to plant congregations in places that have none is doing the church’s own work at a distance, and on that basis it warrants the support of the wider body of Christ rather than being viewed with suspicion.

3 John 5 to 8 commends Gaius for supporting travelling workers who went out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles, and says we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. That is the oldest warrant there is for what mission partnership does, and it long predates the modern agency.

Legitimate Concerns

Three of them, and they are real. The first is accountability. An organisation answerable to a self appointed board, with a charismatic founder and no external check, is structurally vulnerable to exactly the failures that have made headlines over the last decade. The second is doctrinal drift, which happens quietly when a body works across denominational lines and gradually narrows its statement of faith to keep everyone comfortable.

The third is competition for loyalty. When a believer’s identity, friendships and giving are all bound up in a parachurch ministry, and his local church receives whatever is left over, the priority has been inverted. I have seen good Christians treat their congregation as a place to recover on Sunday from the real work they do elsewhere, and it is not a healthy arrangement for anybody.

There is a fourth concern I would raise more quietly. Because a parachurch ministry answers to donors rather than to a congregation, it has a structural incentive to describe its work in the most impressive terms available. That pressure is not wickedness; it is simply how the funding model works. But it means the reports coming out of any such organisation should be read with the same charitable realism you would apply to any other appeal.

Money and Governance

Ask hard questions before you give. Are the accounts published? Who sits on the board, and could they remove the chief executive? Are salaries disclosed? Is there an independent complaints route for staff and beneficiaries? A well run parachurch ministry will answer all of this readily, because it has thought about it.

Be wary of organisations that spend heavily on fundraising and communication relative to the work itself, and of appeals built on emotional pressure rather than plain information. Christian giving is meant to be considered and cheerful rather than extracted, and any body that finds that inconvenient is telling you something about itself.

Testing a Parachurch Ministry Before You Support It

I would apply four tests. Does it hold a clear doctrinal basis, and does it actually operate by it? Does it strengthen local churches or draw people away from them? Is it accountable to somebody who can say no? And is it doing something that genuinely needs doing, rather than duplicating what churches nearby already do well?

Those questions apply to the well known names as much as to the small ones. Popularity is not accountability, and longevity is not the same as health. My articles on the Alpha course and on the purpose of the Church work through some of this from another angle, and the NET Bible notes on 3 John are useful on supporting travelling workers.

What the Local Church Owes Them

We should not be grudging. If a parachurch ministry is doing solid work that our congregation could never do, the right response is to support it, pray for it and send our people into it. Some of the most fruitful believers I know were converted at a Christian camp or through a university work, and I am not going to be sniffy about the means God used.

We also owe them our people’s roots. A student who arrives at university already grounded in a congregation, who understands membership and expects to submit to elders, will be an asset to any Christian union and will land well in a church at the other end. Churches that complain about parachurch influence while sending out biblically illiterate young people have some responsibility for the outcome.

So, now what?

If you serve in a parachurch ministry, make sure your own church knows you, uses you and holds you accountable. Do not let your organisation become the place where your Christian life actually happens. Ask your elders to pray for the work by name, and report back to them honestly rather than only when funds are needed.

If you support one financially, do the homework once and then give gladly. And if your congregation has drifted into treating every outside organisation as a rival, ask what work is being left undone that provoked them into existence. Which of the ministries you support could you actually name the trustees of?

Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

3 John 8 (ESV)