HOW TO WRITE A MISSIONS SUPPORT LETTER SAMPLE SUPPORT LETTER The support letter should contain at least six components. 1. The opening sentence needs to grab people s attention. You want to catch and hold the reader s attention with the first sentence. Consider these examples. - Can you believe there is an unreached people group in America? Out of the 5 million people in the greater Boston area, only 3% consider themselves evangelical Christians. 2. Introduce or re-introduce yourself to people, and bring them up to date with your life. Be brief. No more than one or two paragraphs. Answer the question, Who are you? A helpful hint would be to enclose a picture of yourself or a mission trip flyer as a reminder for your reader to pray for you. 3. Convey your burden. Answer the question, Why? Why you? Paul explains in Romans 1:14-17 why he is burdened to preach the gospel to the Romans. Try to explain why you sense God calling you to go to Boston and what He is doing in your walk with Him. People need to sense that you have been called of the Lord to this special work. Ideally, paint a picture on an individual who will be impacted through your mission. Possibly the mission could provide a true story of impacted lives. 4. Give the mission s name and tell about its vision and strategy. Answer the question, What? Give all the details about the trip: date, purpose, what will you be doing, etc. Ask for your reader to partner with you in prayer leading up to and during the trip. The biggest need that we have as a team is the support of other brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for our missions success. 5. Inform the reader that you are responsible for raising your own support. Answer the question, How? How much? Share the total financial goal. Indicate what this includes (airfare, lodging, meals, supplies, etc.). Be specific and don t assume that your reader understands all of your financial responsibilities. State your total goal to raise and also how you plan to work as many fundraisers as possible to supplement the funds you raise. Give your reader the idea that you aren t depending entirely on them, but that you are working as hard as you can to earn money to go towards this mission. 6. Give the reader a way to respond to your financial need. Inform your reader that they can give a tax-deductible gift in your honor to McGregor Baptist Church. Ask your reader to respond by sending a check payable to McGregor Baptist Church and to include a separate tear off section of the letter with your name on it. For IRS tax purposes, the students name should NOT be listed on the memo line of the check. 7. Remember to include accurate dates for the upcoming trip. This year s Haiti trip will be from Friday, March 27 th thru Friday, April 3 rd.
SAMPLE SUPPORT LETTER Dear Hugh & Mary Lynn, Can you believe there is an unreached people group in America? Out of the 5 million people in the greater Boston area, only 3% consider themselves evangelical Christians. This summer the student ministry of McGregor Baptist Church is going to change that. It s been too long since Maggie and I have been to Atlanta to see you guys. We hope y all are doing well and please know that your family and ministry is in our prayers. We think about you guys a lot, especially this past summer when Maggie and I celebrated five years of marriage. It seems like yesterday when y all were giving us advice and performing the ceremony. We have been busy here with the student ministry at McGregor in Fort Myers, Florida and have seen some incredible growth in our students. It has been an amazing four year journey watching these students mature in their faith. We feel very blessed of the Lord to serve Him in this capacity. Last year, Maggie and I felt called to travel to Boston, Mass and we were surprised by how spiritually dark it was. Walking the streets and hearing the stories of how few churches there are has left a definite impression on us. We met a pastor there, Matt Chewning who has a huge heart for reaching the city of Boston. We feel God has called us to partner with Matt this summer to reach the community of Beverly, a Boston suburb, with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. From June 28 through July 6, Maggie and I will lead a team of students to share the gospel in Beverly and the greater Boston area. The purpose of our trip is to partner with Netcast Church in serving the community. Netcast Church is a church plant that has grown from a few families to a couple hundred people in just twelve short months. God is up to something and we want to give our students the opportunity to experience it. This summer we will host two community events, one for teenagers in a local skate park and another 4th of July picnic for families. These events will give us the opportunity to share the gospel and also love on the community. We will also be hosting sports and music camps for children in a local park throughout the week. The goal is to spread the word about what God is doing at Netcast Church. Would you consider partnering with Maggie and I by praying for us as we go on mission this summer? Another way that you could partner with us is through financially sponsoring us. I know that you are aware that ministry isn t cheap and that times are tight. The cost for
this trip is $950, most of which is just airfare from Fort Myers to Boston. The rest of the cost is for lodging, meals, and ministry supplies. We will be staying at Gordon College, a Christian university in the Beverly area. They will also be providing most of our meals for the week. The ministry supplies that we will need include food for two community events as well as promotional materials to spread the word about the events. We are doing several things to raise the funds ourselves, but wanted to give you the opportunity to partner with us and be a part of an amazing mission trip. I must raise all of my support for this trip by June 1, 2012. If you would like to financially partner with us you can send a check of any amount payable to McGregor Baptist Church. Please include the tear-off section of this letter with your check. I have included a self-addressed envelope for your convenience. Thank you for your support. I look forward to personally sharing with you the victories of the Gospel from this week on mission. In Christ, Ben & Maggie Fleming (Please cut and return this portion with your financial support) Boston Mission Trip Participant: Ben and Maggie Fleming I commit to partner with you by praying for you. I will support you financially with a tax-deductible gift. Please include this tear-off section of the letter with your commitment. All financial gifts MUST be made payable to McGregor Baptist Church for tax purposes. Please use the enclosed self-addressed envelope for your convenience.
Here is a much more informal and comical version of a support letter. Dear, I never write you letters. That s a weird way to open a mission trip letter. My youth minister/pastor gave me a form letter to follow but that felt even weirder. The truth is that I don t write anyone letters and if I opened up this letter by pretending this is just the latest in a long chain of correspondence we ve kept up oh these many years, that would feel as fake as when people run out of things to say and ask you questions like, hot enough for you? Wow, that was a really atrocious run on sentence, but I m excited about this trip and I m not going to let sentence structure stand in my way. If I were you, I would probably be thinking, is going on a mission trip? That s a completely fair thought. I keep asking myself that too. I m not the first person people think of when it comes to feeding the hungry/helping the poor/working on a coconut farm. Plus, I m so busy. School/work is really intense right now and this is not a good time to go on a mission trip. But I m not sure if there is ever a good time to go on a mission trip. And I could probably come up with a list of reasons why I shouldn t go, but I keep coming back to the one reason I should God loves people. I ve been trying to live that in the life I currently have. I mean it s easy to pray for far off places and far off people, but loving who you live and work with is a challenge. I ve been trying to see my life as a mission field, not just this trip. And it s been cool to see the way God has used this new approach to everything from the way I tip at restaurants to the way I treat people in traffic. But now, it s time to take the things I ve learned to a new longitude and latitude. I m going to for days/weeks. Going wasn t a hard decision. When it comes down to it, Jesus laid out a pretty simple religion for us, didn t He? Love God, love others, and love ourselves. Nope, deciding to go was easy. Paying for it however, is a real challenge. To be honest with you, I just don t have $#####, laying about the house, eating baked Tostito chips and watching soap operas. So, instead of selling my plasma 87 times, I decided to send letters to people I don t usually write and ask for something I don t usually ask for, money. I d love if you could financially support me on this mission trip. A little, a lot, any would be great. And if you want to know more about the trip, please let me know and I will give you a call.
The one thing on the form letter I got from church that I agreed with was the request for prayer. If you could pray about the trip, that would be great. As much as God loves mission trips, other people don t. There will be a whole host of obstacles that pop up and entangle themselves around our ankles as we prepare to go love the people of. And knowing that you are praying would mean a lot to me. Thanks for reading this rambling letter. I have included the form letter version as well in case you prefer a more traditional approach to the can I please have some of your money letter. Sincerely,