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.”

Faith vs. Stewardship

Faith versus stewardship?? Seems like a misguided battle.  You may be thinking these two principles are so closely linked that I have created an imaginary battle by even stating it.  Maybe. Let’s see.

My current role in fund raising is from the perspective of a missionary agency.  So let me speak to what missionaries are currently seeing in the realm of giving.

In the month of May I have had the same conversation, via email or office visit, with three different missionaries.  The conversation is based on the fact that churches have stopped giving offerings.  A few years ago when a missionary shared at a church, the congregation usually gave a love offering to the missionary to at least cover the cost of coming.  Now it is all too common for a missionary to speak and receive no gift for their time, travel, or ministry.  One missionary said in his last 15 services he received two offerings.

I must admit that as a pastor myself, I am embarrassed when missionaries tell me churches do not give an offering to at least cover the travel to get to the church, or to pay for the time they shared with the church.  After all, the Bible does teach us to pay a worker his wages.

But what has driven the church to not take an offering to cover the ‘wage’ of a speaker? Or what has driven the members of the Body of Christ to stop giving. Many have even stopped giving to the local church itself.

Several individuals have told me their lack of giving is them being good stewards of what God has provided.  I completely understand adjustments in giving when jobs are lost, or income is down.  However to stop giving in the name of stewardship is not biblical and it pits stewardship against faith. 

Stewardship is needed and a must as a follower of Christ.  But the Christian's stewardship is in place to maximize his/her giving to God not to minimize it.  The believer purchases clothes and cars based on what he can afford.  Stewardship is the tool to guide the spending habits of the believer.  The Christian principle of stewardship teaches us to count the cost and not spend more that we can afford.  But remember spending and giving are not the same!!

Faith goes beyond figuring if I can afford an item or not.  Faith says that in giving, the question is not “What can I afford to give?”  Rather the question is, “What is God telling me to give?”  Many have stopped giving in the name of being good stewards.  This is actually bad stewardship.
To stop giving is more a testimony about a person’s faith, not his/her stewardship.  Remember Transformational Giving Principle 1: Every act of giving is first and foremost a statement about the faithfulness of God

Even though it does not appear that faith and stewardship are opposites, misguided applications of these principles has too often pitted them against each other.  God’s desire is for our stewardship to be guided by our faith.  They are to work together.  God may regularly tell you to give more than you can afford, but it is not more than he can provide.  Therefore giving is a matter of faith.  Faith then guides our stewardship.  I would go so far to challenge you that stewardship without faith risks turning into stinginess.

Opening Up

This post is a follow up of the post on April 11, 2012 regarding the access of information available to our champions. A result of all this information being available we looked at the fact that the ministry agency/ church, now must put the information into context rather than just add more information to the pile.

The result of information being accessible is a desire (spoken or unspoken) of those who come to the church or the agency in order to serve to be part of an open system. So this begs the question, what is an open system?

For starters it turns the ‘seating arrangement’ around so that now the champion/donor/volunteer is the ‘performer’. Our friend Eric Foley describes it as allowing the champion to be on stage not the agency. So the focus changes from us to them.

An open system demands cooperation rather than exclusion.

An open system of ministry integrates the lay worker and professional worker in a way the recipients may not see the difference.

An open system is one of partnership not individualism.

I have grown up in systems that are not only closed systems, but also teach close systems. The issue is we live in a world that longs for open systems. It is not an easy switch but it must be made. Thankfully, in my limited experience, I am seeing many ministries I work with and several around me see the value of opening the ministry system to be inclusive and cooperative.

You know when Guttenberg printed the Bible the Church was forced into rethinking the dispersing of God’s Word. No longer did just the priest have the Bible. The Bible could now be in the hands of the lay person and they could gain knowledge without the Church. I am sure that was a scary shift for every priest. But who wants to go back to that. Praise the Lord we all have access to God’s Word.

Let’s see the shift in today’s information age with excitement not with fear. If we allow our ministry to shift from a close system were just the ‘pros’ do the work to an open system, we can be part of this new era of a ministry reformation.

What would an open system look like for your ministry?

Too Much Information?

“I know something you don’t know.” This familiar playground chant really is just the beginning. We all learned early that information is power. We may not say it in the same way as adults, but as we grow older the truth of information being power never goes away.

This is not to say it is bad. It is just true. How people use the power of information is what makes it good or bad.

In today’s world, power is accessible by more people than ever because the information is out there. With the web and blogs and whatever the next generation invents, we all know that being informed is not longer an issue. (Some champions in your ministry may have more info about what is happening than you.)

No longer are the ministry professionals the ones who have a ‘corner on the market’ of information. So when we do our web sites and brochures if all we are doing is spitting out info, we are not telling them much they do not already know. In an information age, our champions have information overload. If all we do is give more information we risk not moving anyone forward in their discipleship journey.

What is the role of the ministry in light of all the information out there? We have the opportunity to provide context for all the information the champion already has.

Let me give you an example:

John Doe lives in EveryTown, USA. EveryTown has the population of about 300,000 people. His mom, Momma Doe, lives in SmallVille, USA; population 5000. Momma Doe hears on the news about a shooting in EveryTown. She reads about it in the newspaper and sees it on the Internet. (Don’t kid yourself, Momma Doe does have Internet, I can prove it by all the forwards of cute little kittens she floods my inbox with every Monday.)

Momma Doe is worried her son John is not safe living in the ‘big’ city. So she calls to ask him to come home. Momma Doe has the information, and it sounds awful, but she does not have the context of the information. So John’s job is to put the information in context. He tells his mom that the shooting was not anywhere near where he lives and works. The shooting was in the drug district, it was the result of a drug deal gone bad, and it happened at 3:00 AM in an all night bar. So John will stay safe so long as he does not frequent the all night bar at 3:00 AM in the drug district and avoids getting involved in a drug deal gone bad.

John put the information in proper context.

Providing context is a great way to help your information sharing now move the champion forward. Once the info is placed in context we can begin to engage the audience at an equipping level that helps them know what to do with all their info. Most everyone has info, not everyone knows what to do with it.

So as you are moving someone forward in Transformational Giving and they say, “Why are you serving in that region, the information I read is that they all are evangelized?” You now have the opportunity to provide the context for the information.

The information a champion knows is not a threat to us, but an asset. First it shows they care enough to be informed, so jump on that and go on the journey with them to give context. Then help them act on what they know.

Transformed Philanthropy

“Russ wanted the Russell Berrie Foundation to make a difference, to make his philanthropy count,” said Angelica Berrie, president of the Russell Berrie Foundation. “Giving is not just about writing a check. It is a relationship between those who have the means to touch people’s lives and the causes that inspire their generosity. In the process, we are transformed by acts of loving-kindness.”

The above quote is from the Russell Berrie Foundation and their focus on transformational giving. Not bad stuff. However, let me challenge this statement by laying the Christian principles of TG on top of this.

I am not saying the quote from Ms. Berrie is wrong; I just want to tweak it. So let's look at it phrase by phrase.

• "Russ wanted the Russell Berrie Foundation to make a difference, to make his philanthropy count,” Good point, no one wants to think their giving was a waste of resources.
  


• “Giving is not just about writing a check.” Amen. More people need to hear this and believe it.
  


• “It is a relationship between those who have the means…” Here is where I would like to ‘beef up’ the thoughts of the RBFoundation’s idea of transformational giving. “It is a relationship”, I love that part. The statement about ‘people with means’ can be taken wrong if we are not careful. We all have means, not just the wealthy. Not the same amount to be sure, but if giving is not just about writing a check then transformation giving is for. Everyone has something to GIVE. (Check out When Helping Hurts to see that everyone has something to give.)
  


• “to touch people’s lives and the causes that inspire their generosity.” As this blog looks at TG we look at the Christina view point of giving being part of following Christ, so this portion of the quote takes a different turn when thinking of giving being part of our stewardship. What if we said, “to touch people’s lives in ways to communicate and inspire their generosity as an act of obedience to the teachings of Christ.” Giving is Christlike, therefore giving changes the giver in that it is a result of the character of Christ breaking into a fallen world. Also by looking at our generosity as an act of obedience it takes the focus off us and puts the focus on what God is saying and doing.
  


• “In the process, we are transformed by acts of loving-kindness.” So true, but as followers of Christ both giving and teaching about giving flow from God changing givers as a result of obedience. Loving-kindness is from God. This is why the act of giving is transformational.

Time Spent

You know how the Beatitudes seem to turn everything upside down: blessed are the poor, the meek and so on? Well, the biblical roots of Transformation Giving do the same.

One part of TG that seems to be the reverse from the norm is how we spend our time. We often think our time should be spent with the crowds and a lot of big meetings. In fact for missionary who travel to churches, often get discouraged when the crowd is small.

And what about those fund-raising dinners? We always want the numbers for these to be high. That’s ok. We want our church services and banquets all well attending: nothing wrong with that sort of thinking. But if that is where our thinking ends, then we probably are not doing very well fund-raising and we certainly are not being transformational.

I know missionaries who Sunday after Sunday have a full schedule of meetings with good crowds and yet they are under-funded. So the solution is...better find more meetings? WRONG.

Look at how Jesus spent His time. Did he spend time with the crowds? Of course he did. Did the crowds produce followers? Yes. But look at the time spent with the crowds versus the time spent with the disciples. And look at the time spent with the 12 and see how he even took more time to spend with the three, Peter, James and John.

The lesson here is not to ignore the crowds, but rather if the message is to go beyond the ‘wow’ of the public presentation, discipleship in smaller groups must happen. Jesus spent time developing a few to influence the many.

There is a lesson in this for TG. If all we do is focus on the crowds and meetings and never work to develop individuals in their journey we risk failing to be ministers to the giver, and become just offering takers.

I had one missionary couple tell me that the last time they were in the states to do fund-raising they only had a few Sundays off for the whole year and they did not get their budget raised. They asked for a new way to reach the champion this time home. We talked about TG. So in their first four months home from the field they focused on pouring their lives into 4 local churches that support them. They attend prayer meetings and lead small groups for these churches. As a result of their investing time in a ministry of discipleship they told me they have pick up over $400 of new monthly support. They have also had friends from the churches give them more personal referrals for new contacts than they had the entire time they were home last time.

Passion

I have not met many people who say, “I love to raise funds!” However, we all work among people who must raise funds. Fund-raising is often seen as the necessary evil. Many wish we could just skip it and get straight to our ‘call’. But God has not allowed me or most of you to find gold in the backyard, so we fund-raise.
What I love to do is communicate God’s Word. What a thrill to see the Word of God enter the heart and mind of someone and watch God use it to transform them into His character. In fact, when given the chance to share I do it with passion, because God is doing so many great things.

Here is an observation I received from a champion regarding passion and funding.

When I listen to the passion of a ministry presentation my heart is stirred. The presenter communicated so well what God is doing and I was on fire. Then they asked for assistance to help fund it and I was ready to get on board. But as they spoke about money, all the passion left and they became ‘squirrely’ and apologetic. I did not give. I thought to myself that if they cannot be passionate enough about my role in giving and are embarrassed by it, maybe God has another direction for the burden in my heart.

After hearing this I thought to myself, “Am I apologetic when talking about funds?” I shouldn’t be. Why? It is because God has called all of us to give. Giving is like any other spiritual discipline, it needs to be taught and presented with passion. Spiritual disciplines bring us closer to Christ. Giving is not any different.

I do not love fund-raising. I do love to communicate God’s Word. So I don’t fund-raise. I communicate God’s Word. God’s Word commands His followers to be givers. So I communicate the need for this spiritual discipline to be part of the believers walk. I can do this with passion. No ‘squirrely’ or apologetic presentations, but passion about the believer following the commands of Christ.