We’ve spent more than half a month now on posts detailing the Engagement level of Transformational Giving (TG). And E deserves every bit of the attention–it truly is the heart of TG.
I’m going to give the subject a rest for now until we teach it in even greater detail in our free January Mission Increase Foundation workshop, after this concluding post courtesy of World Gospel Mission‘s Tim Rickel which details one of the most vital and yet least well known P to E moves in US history:
Stephen Mather got 15 wealthy industrialists together—prominent publishers, politicians, industry leaders, and railroad builders—and took them on a long camping trip in the wilderness out west and called it The Mather Mountain Party. They stood before stunning beauty and reflected on the amazing treasure God has given us in our wilderness places. They saw where people had trashed an area camping out, and Stephen had them work together to clean it up. They dined on 5 star cuisine prepared by top chefs and served on linen tablecloths under a canopy of trees or next to a beautiful wilderness view throughout the whole trip. At the end he gathered them together. He told them that now they owned this cause. That this wasn’t the end, it was the beginning, of using their influence to move congress to preserve these spaces for generations to come. In the commentary on the series, one man says, “He didn’t preach to the choir, he took people who didn’t even go to the church and showed them the wilderness beauty and urged them to take up the cause.”Talk about CMS [Champion Migration Strategy–WGM’s term for Transformational Giving] in action. There’s some reference material for you, no charge. Does CMS work? Go to a national park!
The perfect P to E move, Tim–thanks for a fitting conclusion to our Notes in the key of E series. May the Lord bless you with a vacant RV space during your next camping trip!