The sponsoring church arrangement describes a resource-pooling strategy employed by some "mainstream" congregations of the Churches of Christ.
Under this arrangement, one congregation (specifically, the congregation's eldership or, if it lacks elders, the men of the congregation) agree to oversee the work of an individual (such as a missionary to another country) or group (such as a children's home). Other congregations and/or individuals, desiring to support that work, would send contributions to the overseeing congregation designated for that work.[1][2] The work may be performed using a separate entity for legal purposes (and, as such, contributions would be sent to that entity) but the sponsoring church's elders/congregation would still maintain control and oversight of the entity and its work (an example being the Gospel Broadcasting Network, a satellite television network featuring Church of Christ programming, which is overseen by the elders of the Southaven Church of Christ congregation in Southaven, Mississippi).
The arrangement differs from the "missionary society" or "mission board" arrangement within denominations (such as the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention) in that, within the society or board arrangement, the denomination maintains oversight and control of the work apart from any local congregation. However, as Churches of Christ are autonomous local congregations and are intentionally non-denominational (and oppose such societies or boards as not part of the New Testament pattern), the sponsoring church arrangement exists so that individual congregations can co-operate on projects that one congregation alone would not be financially able to undertake, while maintaining local congregation oversight and control of the work.
There is within the Churches of Christ a group of congregations known as the non-institutional Churches of Christ that believe there are no Scriptures that provide a precedent or justification for "sponsoring church" arrangements. The "sponsoring church" designation (sometimes also referred to as "mainstream" or "Bible college supporting" churches) is often used to distinguish between congregations that support outside institutions and those which do not