Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Moving Forward - Part 2

The blog post from August 31 spoke about moving champions forward in their spiritual journey. Giving is part of this journey and we are looking at three parts of moving forward in the discipleship journey.
Today we move from the PARTICIPANT level to the ENGAGED or “E” level.

Here is an overview of the “E” level
• Effort goes beyond short-term project
• Work grows from short-term to long-term commitment
• Awareness gets beyond event focus and becomes cause focused

Here are some examples of moving from “P” to “E”.
• One time giver sees the need to be a recurring giver.
• Children’s Sunday school teacher sees the role she plays in the youth ministry and parents’ lives, in fact the teacher sees the role in the life of the Church not just the kids.
• A work team member who may support and assist in completing one project then gets the ‘aha’ moment and asks, “What’s next?”

Moving from “P” to “E” is really that ‘aha moment’ when we see the big cause and the regular activity required to move the cause forward. An institution without champions involved at the “E” level may potentially always be in ‘crisis’ mode. Meaning you could always be giving desperate appeals to the onetime donors to do it again, or always pleading for volunteers to help one more time.

The “E’s” get it. They realize the need for long-term giving and service. They see that it is their spiritual role not to be part-time players but to join the cause to see His Kingdom move forward.

But let’s keep in mind principle # 9 in Transformational Giving. Principle #9 is “Giving is learned not latent”. This is also true for champions moving forward. The one time giver or short-term volunteer may not see the need to do more without being discipled. For example many folks go on one mission trip and think they have met their ‘quota’ for the Great Commission. So a role your institution needs to take is developing a strategy to help the “P” see the need to grow in their journey. This needs to be intentional on your part. What are things can you do to help the “P” get the big picture and become an “E”? Most won’t make this move without help.

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