Why I Founded “Ergatas”, a Ministry Partnering Supporters with Kingdom Workers

I grew up in a Christian home but knew almost nothing about the missions world. In my mind, missions was for the “Christian Elite”, not some lowly sinner like myself. But God has a funny way of changing a person’s heart.

My first experience with missions was when someone at my church mentioned that a nearby mission, GRN, could use some computer help. I started volunteering there.

Around this time, I felt God impress upon me a desire to give to missions, beyond what I was tithing to my church. The problem though, was that I didn’t know any missionaries or organizations to donate to. “Wait a minute!”, your saying, “how can you not know any missionaries when your volunteering at a mission organization?”. Well, I did know missionaries, true, but I had no idea they needed money! No one ever talked about the fact that they had to raise their own support to get paid. I just assumed they got paid by the mission.

I could have donated to GRN of course, but I was already donating my time there, so I thought I should help another organization with my money.

Now, it’s easy to do a search and find a long list of Christian mission organizations, but which one should I pick? I didn’t see any way to filter or compare them easily. One name was just as meaningless to me as the next, and I didn’t want to spend a whole month reading the descriptions of hundreds of organizations. In the end, I just started donating to World Vision since I’d seen a few of their presentations at concerts.

I felt like there should have been a better answer though.

Several years later, I felt God calling me to join GRN as a full-time staff member. I had since learned that GRN missionaries all had to raise their own support. This was utterly terrifying to me. I was a highly introverted nerd, who had a hard time talking to anyone about anything, let alone the taboo subject of money. Even my dad said I couldn’t do it. He wasn’t trying to be discouraging, just realistic. But God was working in my heart.

Many people had painted a rosy picture about how rewarding support raising would be and how wonderful it was to tell people about your ministry. But all I could think about was how terrified I was to pick up the phone, fumble over my words, then hear the person ask “what are you talking about?”, have to try to repeat it over again, saying “um, uh” way too many times, and generally feeling embarrassed. Soon I had called everyone I knew but was still not close to reaching my monthly budget. My coach said to ask for referrals, which I did, but I never got any. He said to host a dessert social, but who could I invite that I had not already asked for support and referrals from? Who else would they bring? I was discouraged. I’m sure that’s not everyone’s experience, but that was mine.

God did provide in the end though, and there were certainly many rewarding experiences through it. My faith definitely grew during this process and the meetings I did have were always a wonderful experience.

But I was left wishing there was something that could make it a bit easier.

One day my wife and I got a new monthly donor who we had never met. I asked the finance department where he came from and they said he was just someone who liked to support missionaries who he thought were helping to reach unreached people groups.

I remembered back when I felt I should be donating more to missions, but had no idea where to give. I realized I was not the only one out there looking for places to give. There are people who are willing to do a little searching to find the best place to spend their donor dollars. But there were still no good tools out there to help them.

Being a millennial, I’m used to finding everything I need online. That got me thinking, what if there was a searchable website where missionaries could post their ministry and current support need? That would solve two problems. Donors would have a place to search for missionaries, so they could find someone with a ministry they were passionate about. Missionaries could be found by partners, rather than having to find all of their partners on their own. Why couldn’t it go both ways? Try as I might though, I could not find such a website.

I considered creating the website I had been looking for. But I had a mountain of work in front of me at GRN, so I put the idea aside.

In 2020 I finally had an opportunity to revisit that idea. I kept asking God to close the doors if it was not His will, but they kept opening. Soon “Ergatas” was born! The word means “workers” in Greek, from Matt 9:37–38: “Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’ ”

Ergatas provides a way to search for missionaries across organizations, by country, support level, job skill, and more. It’s the missing tool for those wanting to support missionaries but who either don’t know any personally or want to find a missionary with a specific ministry. It’s also a touch of help for missionaries in need of support.

Ergatas does not remove the need for missionaries to make those phone calls. But instead of missionaries having to find all of their partners, it allows more partners to find the missionary.

Maybe it can help you! Take a look at Ergatas.org. (oh, and it’s free).