Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Your Theology is Showing

I am an ordained ministry in the Evangelical Church of North America. A core belief of my denomination is for the believer to live a life filled by God’s Spirit and the reality that the believer can have this fullness now and walk in the abundant life God promises.

This post, nor this blog, is for the purpose of convincing the reader of any particular doctrine. However this post is about the fact that your theology greatly impacts your take on TG.

Just this afternoon, a missionary sat in my office and told me a great testimony of one of his champions. Back in the 1970’s as he was starting out, a gentleman came up prior to the missionary presentation and told the missionary that he was glad to have a missionary speaking that evening, but he did not have any money to give. He wanted him to know this right up front before the service started. After the missionary presented the gospel and how the gospel must be proclaimed to all nations, the same gentleman came up and said, “Well now I have to give.” The Spirit showed this man his role and he followed God.

Forty years later the champion has now died. By the time of his death his average gift was $170 per month. Through the years he never missed a month and maintained a loving relationship with the missionary. This champion's wife was not a believer at the time the man started giving to missions. But before his death she had become a Christian. Part of the impact on her decision was the habitual giving of her husband, the giving of the missionary back into their lives, and God’s faithfulness in providing through His abundance all the years.


The ideas of habitual giving and God's abundance are points where my theology impacts my giving and teaching. Being filled with God’s Holy Spirit is vital to the Christian walk; it is so important that Jesus tells His disciples to wait before going out to fulfill His commission. Wait for what??...The coming of the Spirit. The Spirit gives the believers the power to surrender our life to the Father and thus enabling us to be faithful. Then the surrendered life is a walk of discipleship in Christ with His Body (i.e. the Church).

Jesus never taught the Church to get people to repent and then forget them and move on to the next. He says to make disciples. This is much more than “get ‘em saved” then on to the next group. It is about a deep walk with the filling of God’s Spirit in the heart of the believer. There is an habitual aspect to walking with Christ. (Eric Foley has a good post on habitual giving.) And there is a need to trust in the abundant nature of God.


This belief regarding the fullness of God's Spirit drives my fund-raising. Onetime gifts to God are not enough. Discipleship is not a onetime event, nor is the need to be givers. God wants us to be habitual givers, whose lives are lived in Spirit-filled stewardship to Him. And as always our actions are not just for ourselves, but are testimonies to teach others.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Leadership and Giving

Here is a question that was posed to leaders that is critical for every leader to answer: “If I follow you will I find Christ at the end?” Great question!!

Now, take this question and apply it to your fund raising strategy. I think we will find that the answer is not found in a transactional/traditional fund raising mindset. Let’s take the principle behind this question and phrase it in a way the champion might ask you about your ministry.

If I give to your ministry will the gift lead to Christ?

Think about this for a moment. Does the giver’s investment in your ministry change them, or does it just get you funded. I believe every gift has the potential to change the giver that is how God works. But think how much more we could show Christ if we were intentional about the gifts doing more than simply funding the ministry. What if we built a strategy that treats each gift as part of the givers discipleship journey, keeping in mind that at the end of the disciple journey the purpose is to see Christ?

All of our ministry’s have the goal that the funds received are used to advance the Kingdom of Christ for the ‘receivers’. But as leaders we are also responsible to help the donor see Christ as well. Leaders can help donors become champions, and help champions see the power of God through giving. In giving the champion is being like Christ.

We can help champions see that they reflect Christ through their gift. When this happens we will see the gift multiply (perhaps not financially) because when Christ is reflected we reach the goal of the showing people Christ. So leadership and giving must be linked. We not only lead our staffs and the recipients of our outreach, but we must also lead the donor. Christ-like leadership leads to Him and so too does Christ-like giving.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Get Friends To Talk

A key part of the Body of Christ is in its members sharing their faith. If we never tell our neighbor about Christ how will they hear about the Good News?

In a similar way when giving transforms your life you tell others. We tell our friends about the organization we help and how helping them has changed us. We are more apt to attend a church or help an agency recommended by a friend. We even go to restaurants and movies friends suggest.

The seventh principle in TG is about our peers.
Principle 7: The relationship between champion and champion is as important as the relationship between champion and organization


Even before today’s world of internet, Facebook and Tweets, the suggestion of a friend went far beyond the impact of a store’s advertisement. But with all the communication tools for us today, the word of a peer plays a bigger role than ever.

Check out this web site to read what a leader in fund-raising learned about peers connecting online.

As we think of the need to move champion-to-champion communication forward, we need to ask ourselves some questions.

1. Is your ministry impacting donors at a level that moves them forward in their walk with Christ? If this is not a part of their giving then champion-to-champion communication will not happen.

2. If the answer to #1 is yes then ask this question…Have you created places or ways for the transformed champion to tell their story?

3. Have you created tools and training for champions to work on behalf of the cause of the ministry they have with you?

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Why bother?

Ever wonder why God bothers with us being givers when “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills”? I mean really, if God had the desire to dump a billion dollars in your ministry’s bank account He could. But He doesn’t. Instead, pastors teach on giving, we take up offerings, relief agencies send direct mail and missionaries travel the countryside raising funds. Why all the bother?

Because it is not about the money. Giving is about relationships. But not just about the relationship you’re thinking. It is taught in ‘fund raising 101’ giving is about relationships “Giving comes through relationships with people.” Some even call it “Friend Raising” not fund raising. Honestly, if the only reason you want to be my friend is to support your ministry no thanks. My friendship is not for sale.

Giving is about relationships: mainly our relationship to God. Do I trust His character as the Provider? Do I believe His Word enough to know that He has all the resources I need? I can give away what He has given me because it is about my walk with Him not my bank account or your ministry budget.

If fund raising is approached with people’s relationship with God in mind then we should build our plan around the first principle of TG.

Principle 1: Every act of giving is first and foremost a statement about the faithfulness of God.

Giving is our statement about what we think of God and our relationship with Him. And, if our fund raising plan helps the giver see this is true for them as well, then we all have opportunity for our testimony to be reflected in our donations. Helping people give is part of disciple making and even (dare I say) an evangelistic move. Think for a moment, helping a person give has potential to lead him/her to faith in God.

Giving is indeed a testimony about what we think about God. So passing the offering plate can play as big a role in disciple making as the sermon just preached. However TG must become more than money but that is for another post.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Foundation

As you build you have to have a foundation. In thinking, principles equal building blocks. My home is built on a foundation made with blocks. My thinking is built on a foundation made with principles. So what are the building blocks for Transformational Giving? Well they are the 10 principles authored by my trainer, Eric. Here they are…

Principle 1: Every act of giving is first and foremost a statement about the faithfulness of God.

Principle 2: Transformational giving is based on the abundance and trustworthiness of God, not a theology of scarcity.

Principle 3: It is better to give than to receive.

Principle 4: A champion connects with an organization for the purpose of enhancing their mutual impact on the cause, not only to support the organization’s impact on the cause.

Principle 5: A Transformational Giving relationship between a champion and an organization is primarily a peer-level accountability relationship, not merely a friendship or a mutual admiration society.

Principle 6: The champion, not the organization, is called to be the primary means of advancing the cause within the champion’s sphere of influence.

Principle 7: The relationship between champion and champion is as important as the relationship between champion and organization.

Principle 8: Giving is not the process but rather one vital result of the process of a champion being comprehensively coached to share the cause effectively within his or her sphere of influence.

Principle 9: Giving is learned, not latent.

Principle 10: Champions categorize themselves not according to the amount of their giving but by the degree of comprehensive personal ownership they are exhibiting in the cause.

Listen Up

Transformational Giving is about the champion and the cause and not just us. Check out the 10 Principles of TG. So this means that personal interaction with champions involves more listening than talking.

In most of our fund-raising we think about what we should say. We even train one another in ‘how to talk the talk’ of fund-raising. TG has us talking less and listening more.

A great way to listen is to ask questions. This gives the donor/champion something to talk about. Let me get the ball rolling by giving you a few questions you can ask.

“What moved you to getting involved?” Or as my good friend Eric Foley puts it, “Why in the world are you giving to my ministry?” This gets the champion talking. Now you can listen and see what God is doing in their life.

Doug Cater of Equip and WGM Board member uses this question. “Tell me more about what you feel God calling you to do?” See, it is about what God is calling the champion to do.

Maybe try this, “What do you see God intending to do through your giving?” Many donors may not be able to answer this right away. But to move the donor into becoming a champion this is certainly a question they need to answer in their own journey.

If you have other questions to help the giver see the power of God in their gift share them with us…