Are $$ the sign of success?

What a silly question to ask fund raisers...are $$$'s the sign of success???  Of course they are.  But wait.  Perhaps that is not the best question to ask.

Let's start with a more basic question before we jump to the jugular.

Are you doing fund raising or are you doing ministry?  If your fund raising is not part of a deeper ministry, this blog is not for you.  This is not to condemn anyone. This is just a different approach. Different is different not wrong.

So, if you are still reading,  I am assuming you answered...I am doing ministry, not JUST fund raising.

If you are doing ministry then stewardship/giving is part of the work but not all.  Therefore in TG, getting dollars is only part of the story not the entire story. Here is one way of setting goals my development teams uses in training.  This helps see the entire story and go beyond dollars to ministry.

If support raising was a college course,  what would an “A” look like?  No one takes a college course without getting a syllabus in order to know what to do to get an “A”.  All the work done in the class is done with the final grade in mind.

 

So here is what the syllabus might look like.

Fund Raising Syllabus

Goals of class

1.      Mobilize current champions to deeper involvement

2.      Enlarge team with new champions for The Cause

3.      Hit budget (Doing 1 and 2 will lead to #3)

How to accomplish class Goals

Plan

·        Fund raiser set goals for their work

·        Identify Champions activity according to PEO

·        Identify a few champions to work on migration goals with them

Implement Plan

·        Activity must align with class goals

·        Activity needs to align with CMS principles

·        Activity needs to be regular!!!

Evaluation

·        Success is measured by the goals of the class stated above.

·        Monthly identify what is working and what is not.

·        Evaluation is done collaboratively with a coach.

The Great Compassion

In a post on July 6, 2011, I wrote about a new equation.  The basis of this equation is that a transformed life (T) is a result of following the Great Commandment (to love God and your neighbor) and then to practice the Great Commandment one must fulfill the Great Commission (go make disciples).  So the equation is T=GC²

I would like to add to the equation of T=GC².  It is another GC.  Paul Borthwick in his book Western Christians in Global Missions has another GC he calls the Great Compassion.  Matthew 25: 34-40 is the famous passage that Jesus tells us how to perform ministry.  It’s pretty simple really, we serve each other. (To refresh your memory, Matt. 25 is where Jesus tells the help we give the least of these, is serving Him.) 

So the math is simple.

First we must love God and our neighbor.  (If you wonder who your neighbor is, Jesus answered that with the telling of the Good Samaritan.)

Second if you love God and your neighbor then you are to obey the Great Commission.  So loving your neighbor is taking the Gospel to them and making disciples.

Third, we implement the Great Commission.  But how?  Isn’t the Great Commission just for teachers, missionaries and preachers?  And if the Great Commission is for the teachers, missionaries and preachers then the rest get to stop at step one?  No that is fuzzy math. 

 

Everyone who claims the Great Commandment is to do the Great Commission and the Great Compassion tells us how.  We disciple the world by giving.  Not just giving dollars but giving ourselves as Christ did.  We give to others through our service.  When we serve we transform.  So the new formula is a Transformed Life (T) equals all three Great C’s…T=GC³.

Don't Get Boxed In

Have you heard of the ‘4 rights’ in fund raising…the right solicitor, the right amount, the right project, and the right timing?

Well be careful because to make four right turns ends up making a square. Before you know it you are back where you started.  Do you ever feel that working in fund raising is always back to square one?  By that I mean, after the donor has given a gift you feel like you must start all over again to get a second gift.  Prayerfully, Transformational Giving can keep us from getting boxed in.

In TG the right solicitor is you with the Holy Spirit. So no one has to be excluded in seeking resources for God’s work.  TG is a God-thing.  Never do it alone.  Doing it with the help of God makes you the right solicitor.

In TG the right amount is not up to us!  The amount is a matter of obedience for the champion in relation to God.  Let God talk.   Challenge the champions to ask God for the right amount to give.  Let them see how giving is a spiritual discipline and like all spiritual disciplines, it is most effective when guided by the Spirit.  Seeing that the amount to give is up to God helps move giving beyond the budget and to the heart.

In TG the right project is defined by God.  Every believer has a role in the Great Commission.  Giving reflects the participation of the champion in the Great Commission.  I do recognize within the Great Commission there are causes; for example, helping orphans in China, or a clinic in South America.  God gives us all burdens and not all are the same.  So you may be talking to a champion that is not burdened to give to your call.  That’s ok.  As believers you and the champion share a burden for the Great Commission.  Celebrate that and assist them in growing this burden even if it not your cause.  Ask yourself, “Does my time with the champion discussing their cause advance the Kingdom of God?”  If the answer is yes, then allow God to bless their cause.  He will bless yours as well.

In TG the right time is now.  With giving being a matter of faith and obedience, the time is always now.  This attitude can help replace desperation with urgency.  We are not desperate for funds if we believe in the abundance of God.  However, the spreading of the Great Commission is an urgent matter.  There is a big difference between being desperate and working with urgency.  Desperation says, “I need the money now. So you better give.”  Urgency says, “They need the Gospel now. So let’s obey and work together.”

New?

Transformation has become a buzz word today in Christian circles. Nothing wrong with that. After all, the Bible does tell us not to conform to the world but to be transformed.

Some feel that the idea of Transformational Giving is new and we have just hopped on the ‘band wagon’ with using the word transformation. Well Transformational Giving is really not new. This blog is based on a rather old event at Zarephath in 1 Kings 17.

Some of the teaching may feel new simply because it may involve your group changing from transactional or subtractional types of funding to transformational. Another new thing for some may be having a list of principles complied in one place as Eric Foley has done. But really the idea of an offering being an act of transformation goes back to Abel’s offering to God.

In digging around to learn more, I found a newsletter from the spring of 2008 that has transformation as its theme. It is from the ECFA quarterly newsletter. This newsletter has some great info about transformation and the role it has in your organization.

One article is an interview with Wes Willmer about his book Revolution in Generosity: Transforming Stewards to be Rich in God. It helps us see how if your giving is transformational, generosity improves because it focuses on the biblical perspective of being rich in God.



Rich Haynie, has an article “God and Asking”. He states:

In my experience, most people do not travel the road of asking for financial resources founded on biblical principles. Yet those asking for funds are in a unique position to participate in God’s work of transforming the hearts of His children. Fund-raising can play an integral part in the fulfillment of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20)—both indirectly, by gathering the funds necessary to send people to “all the nations” to make disciples; and directly, by helping facilitate the transformation of people into the image of Christ by “teaching them to observe all He commanded” about money and possessions.

This ECFA publication was 2008. So maybe we are not so new, but maybe we should be if fund-raising is not based on biblical principles. Perhaps your ministry could use new methods built on some very old truths.

Equations

The most well known equation in the world is e=mc2. You may not even know what it means but odds are you have heard of it.

I propose a new equation for Christians. T=GC2.

Here is what this means. T= Transformation. GC2 = Great Commandment and the Great Commission. When the Great Commission and the Great Commandment are not separated but rather knit together as God intends, you will see transformation.

A few summers ago I was asked to come do some training at a Christian liberal arts university for their mission department. The issue was, “How do we get our study body to come to the annual Mission Conference?” Statements like these were made…
• “Students not called to missions do not feel the mission conference applies to them.”
• “Students in local ministry do not think the mission conference is for them.”
• “Many just don’t see the need for missions anymore.”
• Etc.

Several problems are reflected in these statements but this blog is not about people getting involved in cross-cultural missions. However the solution to these statements has the same base that we see in peoples need to give. Part of the problem begins in the compartmentalizing of the teachings of Christ. By compartmentalizing we have separated the teachings of the Great Commandment and the teachings of the Great Commission and made them separate when in truth the Great Commission is the natural outflow of the Great Commandment.

The Great Commission is not just about international missionary service. Rather it is about transforming people with the Gospel. So we learn through scripture that the Great Commission is asked of every believer. In other words, the Great Commission is for everyone following the Great Commandment. One big problem in students feeling that the mission week is not for them is because we have allowed the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to be separate, when in fact they should have never been separated.

So when you love the Lord with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, you will then go and make disciples. You will work with the Holy Spirit to see lives transformed.

Giving is a key part of both the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Giving ourselves is at the heart of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. This gets much bigger than money. Loving God and loving our neighbor are not to be separated. Service and giving are all part of being obedience and obedience transforms. So T=GC2.