Frustrated About the Mars Hill Global Fund? Help Ethiopian Pastors Directly Through New Covenant Foundation

Yesterday, Mars Hill Church posted a request for members to give money through the end of the year. The request raised the possibility that the eleven independent churches might not get off the ground if members didn’t keep giving to Mars Hill.

Without generous people like you continuing to give through the end of the year, many of these churches may not have the necessary funds to continue as new churches.

As I said yesterday, I don’t understand this threat. If the churches are so fragile that survival depends on Mars Hill giving now, I don’t understand how they will make it when the Mars Hill money runs out.
In any case, one casualty of Mars Hill’s demise may be the Ethiopian pastors supported by the church through partnership with New Covenant Foundation. New Covenant provides several ways for donors to support Ethiopian pastors. Current funding for those pastors will run out at the end of the fiscal year.
One may donate to New Covenant Foundation here. Watch:
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/113747611[/vimeo]
Mars Hill used videos of Ethiopian and Indian pastors living in poverty to raise money for the Global Fund. However, as the church admitted, most of the money went to expanding Mars Hill locations in the United States. Millions were raised with only a tiny fraction being spent on international efforts. We all learned later that this was the plan all along.
I believe that the money raised for the Global Fund should now be given to the charities which manage the resources for the Indian and Ethiopian pastors. If the actual donations are not given to them, then the dissolution pot should be divided 12 ways instead of 11 with a share given to the international pastors. This commitment was not mentioned in yesterday’s end of the year fund raising appeal.
To help address Mars Hill’s lack of clarity on this matter, I am today featuring the Ethiopian charity. In a future post, I will provide information about Vision Nationals, the charity which operates in India. Mars Hill folks have been voting with their nickels for months, they can do it again one last time.