Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Moving Forward

We see that Transformational Giving has a discipleship element to it as the giver grows in her relationship to God. Any move of obedience deepens our walk with Christ, giving does this as well.

In TG we see there is progression in this discipleship journey. In the next few posts we will touch on a possible way for the institution to track and strategize with the giver to actually disciple him in giving.

For those who are regular readers of Eric Foley’s blog these next few posts may be review.

At WGM we define the movement of the giver, or champion as we call them, in three stages. The first stage is what is called a PARTICIPANT, or simply “P” level. This is the champion who usually works with you at the follow level:

- Project level
- Short term
- High touch/High yield
- Understandable without knowing you or the agency.

An example is the Christmas Shoebox Project you may do at Christmas. My church does these and the large majority do not even know that Samaritans’ Purse is behind this. It is a single project that is very short-term. It is easy to do with high involvement from the champion.

Another example may be a mission agency’s work team member. They go do a project. It is short-term, maybe two weeks. The project is very high touch and high yield as well. And a team member can go to a mission field and help missionaries without really knowing much about the agency they work with.

Every ministry needs “P” level activities to engage champions. Everybody has a role they can play and the “P” level activities are great levels to get involvement. TG will not happen without involvement that goes beyond check writing.

Perhaps a good exercise is to identify the “P” activities you offer the champion.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Practice what we preach?

As those who work with helping mobilize the Church to give, we must always be willing to practice what we preach. Are we givers? Are we good stewards? These questions need to be answered and not just personally, but as a local church, mission agency, relief agency etc. In other words, are the instiutions we serve good stewards and givers.

Do we give back or are we always receiving? Does your church give to missions, local groups whatever? Does your agency give to help others, or is it all just receiving?

Hear what Ravi Zacharias says in his book, The Grand Weaver. He has a small but power section on giving in the chapter titled Your Worship Matters (pgs 148-149). But this one quote from that section needs to be heard by all who raise funds.

“Spending more and more on ourselves and giving less and less to the world in need may be the very reason few take our mission seriously.”

We should not teach Transformational Giving if we are not helping our ministry lead the way in giving. Zacharias is right about more and more spending weakens our message. The Church spends far too much on itself before addressing the needs around us. The good news is, every time I hear a testimony that reflects a body of believers who does not fall into this category, I see a thriving outreach for God.

It would be a blessing for us to hear more testimonies of institutions and churches who lead the way in giving. If you have one, by all means post it here for the readers.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

More than once

Well our friend Eric Foley never fails to bring a “I wonder” moment to my mind. Check out this blog entry he has about random acts of kindness.

So here is what I wonder after reading the above blog entry… Are onetime givers or what I call the ‘onetime gifter’, falling into the same potential pitfall the random act of kindness may create. As Eric so ably states,

"You will no more become a kinder person through random acts of kindness than you will become a physically fit person through random acts of exercise."


Apply this to missions,or any type of outreach. The onetime gifter is no more mission minded after this gift than I am physically fit after one trip to the gym. The recurring gift is not just important to your account, it is also important to the spiritual journey of the champion.

The job then for us as we disciple others, is to help the onetime gifter actually become a champion. But mind you, if we do this only for our bottom line we are being fake. However if our heart is to help the champion become ‘mission fit’, then recurring giving could be a start to their mission health.