Before he ever sends anyone, Jesus tells them to do the math.
“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” (Luke 14:28 ESV). If you are asking what it costs to become a missionary, you are not being unspiritual. You are being obedient.
The short answer: a short-term missions trip with ABWE typically costs a ministry fee plus airfare, while career missionaries do not pay their own way at all—they raise full financial support through churches and individual donors before they deploy. In both cases, the money is less a fee you pay than a partnership that God’s people build around you.
What Does a Short-Term Trip Cost?
Trips of one week to two months, offered through Launch Point, involve a ministry fee that varies by location and length, plus your airfare. Most participants invite their church and friends to give toward the trip, and gifts given through ABWE are tax-deductible. Short-term missionaries serving two months to a year raise support the same way, with coaching from ABWE along the way.
What Do Career Missionaries Raise?
Long-term missionaries raise a full support budget before leaving—covering salary, housing, ministry expenses, medical care, children’s education, and retirement. That number can feel like a mountain. So it is worth saying plainly: no missionary has ever earned his or her own way to the field. From the churches of Macedonia to the church down your street, God has always carried his workers on the generosity of his people. ABWE requires new missionaries to reach their full support goal before deploying, so no one arrives on the field underfunded, and ABWE builds a specific budget with each missionary—the amount varies by country and family size.
Support Raising Is Ministry, Not Begging
Many people fear support raising more than any other part of missions, often viewing it as asking for charity. Scripture sees it differently. The Macedonian churches pleaded “for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints” (2 Corinthians 8:4), and John says those who send workers well become “fellow workers for the truth” (3 John 8). Paul encouraged the Philippians to give not for his own sake but for “the fruit that increases to your credit” (Philippians 4:17). When you invite a church into your support team, you are not taking something from them. You are offering them a share in the harvest—and ABWE will train and coach you through every step of building that team.
A Word About Debt
One obstacle deserves honest naming: debt. Significant personal debt is among the most common reasons that willing workers never reach the field, because support raising cannot begin in earnest until it is dealt with. If that is your situation, do not hear it as disqualification. Getting free of debt is not a detour from your calling—it is often the first leg of it, and the discipline it builds is the same discipline a life of faith-funded ministry requires. Your church and an ABWE mobilization coach can help you make a plan.
The Real Cost
Dollars are the smallest part of the ledger. Jesus finished his word about counting the cost with a harder sum: “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33 ESV). The real cost of missions is a life laid down—home, comfort, nearness to family—and no support budget covers that. But generations of missionaries have run the numbers and found the trade good. Jim Elliot, who gave his life reaching the Waorani of Ecuador, reckoned that the one who gives up what he could never keep in exchange for what he can never lose has made no foolish bargain.
Your Next Step
So count the cost the way Jesus meant it—sitting down, with real numbers, before a faithful God. Talk with an ABWE mobilization coach, get an actual budget for an actual opportunity, and let God’s people surprise you. Start at abwe.org/go, or read How to Become a Missionary: A Step-by-Step Guide. And take heart: the God who commands the mission has always paid for it. “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
