Do the Word

World Gospel Missionary Kelly Hallahan  does a nice job sharing Transformational Giving (TG) with her champions on her blog this week.

Building the piece on Elijah’s encounter with the widow in 1 Kings 17:8-16, Kelly notes how God might be seeking to fund His work in the current recession:

How humbling and scary for Elijah to ask this poor, starving widow for food. And at times, I confess, I am not eager to ask people to support missions financially. But as I was studying the Word this morning, and seeking God’s heart in prayer, He opened to me the upside-down equations of the kingdom! There is nothing logical about asking a widow for material support. But God delights in using the weak things of this world to put the strong to shame. And in an economic crisis it does not make any sense to ask people to give above and beyond their tithe to foreign missions. Except for the fact that God doesn’t change- His call to us remains the same- His faithful provision remains the same. And in the upside-down kingdom kind of way, Elijah calls the widow to give him food first, and then survive on the rest. What faith!

What I appreciate about Kelly’s approach is that she’s coaching her champions in TG principles outside of the context of a specific ask.

More than once (!) I’ve had a ministry leader say to me, “Oh, we tried talking about Transformational Giving in our last appeal letter, but it didn’t work for us.”

Here’s a big clue that your approach to TG is on the wrong track:

You’re trying to introduce TG to your champions in an appeal letter.

That’s a no-no.

TG is not an appeal letter theme. It’s an unconditional commitment to support your champions as the Holy Spirit grows them comprehensively in the likeness of Christ in relation to the cause to which God has called you both. It’ll impact–dramatically–what you write, to whom you send it, and what you ask the recipient to do.

And…

The more your relationships with your champions explicitly discuss and embrace Transformational Giving (TG), the more successful and impactful those relationships will be according to every measure.

That being said, I would not advocate that you recruit champions by talking to them about TG either. Scripturally, recruitment happens best through P- (Participation-) level projects. Explicit discussions of TG are best done at the E- (Engagement) level.

(Note that this is a significant difference from the “Christian Stewardship” movement approach, which begins with the general concept of stewardship and works from that into specific causes. In TG lingo, we would call that a passing strange move from E back to P.)

When you share TG like Kelly has in her post, you’re installing (or updating) the “software” on which your E-level champion relationships runs.

Unless you and your champions both have that software installed and updated, you’re not going to get much past P…

My bookshelf is now happily recharged with three copies of Alan Gotthardt’s The Eternity Portfolio.

If you haven’t read it yet, good heavens–please do. I can’t recommend it highly enough. And you can typically buy used copies through amazon.com for under a buck. So I buy 2 or 3 at a time and then recharge my bookshelf after I give them away, which occurs most of the time I run across someone in person who hasn’t yet read the book.

Truthfully, I’m not sure the inner sleeve of the book, the amazon.com reviews, or even the Eternity Portfolio website really do justice to what I think is truly revolutionary about the book’s content.

What the inner sleeve/amazon/website verbiage communicates is a series of overused phrases like “maximize your giving”…”ultimate results”…”biblical reasons to give”–all the things you’d expect from a book by a Christian financial planner. Hardly the reason to pack this one on your next trip to a deserted island. Even the “eternity calculator” (available to those with the key ring decoder on the Generous Giving website) which actually computes the eternal financial return on Kingdom investments according to the interest rates Jesus quotes is novel, but not the reason I recommend giving the book out to each (yes, each–it’s less than a buck a copy in most cases, y’know) of your E- and O-level champions.

The real power of Gotthardt’s work is Chapter 6, God’s Asset Allocation.

There, Gotthardt fleshes out the reality that biblical stewardship calls us to do more than to give to areas of our passion, or even areas of genuine need. Just as a healthy financial portfolio contains a mixture of stocks, bonds,  and cash, a healthy giving portfolio must likewise contain a mixture of giving to different causes to match the range of areas in which God calls us to invest.

Gotthardt proposes a variety of overlays on our giving:

1. The Jerusalem, Judea, and The World overlay, in which we selfconsciously build a giving portfolio consisting of local, regional, and global giving in correspondence to the calling God lays out for all Christians in scripture. It’s not enough, in other words, to say, “I really feel called to give to North Korea projects.” Great!…but that doesn’t absolve you of building a giving portfolio that comprehends local and regional projects as well.

2. The Evangelism, Discipleship, and Mercy overlay, in which we selfconsciously build a giving portfolio consisting of investments made in each of those three areas, in fidelity to what the Bible calls us to do. Gotthardt suggests subdivisions for each area (such as church planting, bible translation/distribution, group/event focus under evangelism), but he does so modestly, allowing that other subdivisions are possible. The important thing, he stresses, is that we’re consciously giving in each of the three areas.

3. The Local Church overlay, which Gotthardt divides into Personal Mission, Spontaneous Opportunities, and The Poor. I especially like the way Gotthardt develops this section, since too often in books of this type church giving is simply undifferentiated, viewed as Obligatory Instititutional Support. He also speaks passionately about giving related to the poor; sadly, this area gets far too little direct attention in evangelical circles, where the burden of proof is far too often on the poor to demonstrate their worthiness.

As regards Transformational Giving (TG), there is a limitaton to Gotthardt’s book, namely, that it’s directed purely at financial giving rather than comprehensive involvement in the cause. That’s no fault of the book, however: Gotthardt didn’t set out to write a text on comprehensive discipleship. Further, the Chapter 6 framework that Gotthardt lays out lends itself quite nicely to a P/E/O chart, particularly one done with a pastor or in conjunction with one’s local church wherein one is thinking through discipleship comprehensively, not only in relation to one specific cause.

In any case, the book is a revelation to me each time I read it. Plunk down 54 cents today with amazon.com and land yourself an extra copy or three to apply to your own life and to share with your champions.

A post in Get Religion this week made me realize it’s time for you and I to have That Talk.

Get Religion links to a piece from Bob Allen at Associated Baptist Press that points out that:

One in eight background checks conducted on volunteers or prospective employees through Lifeway Christian Resources found a criminal history that might have kept an individual from working or volunteering at a church.

While most screenings returned clean records or only minor traffic offenses, Lifeway said, 80 found serious felony offenses and more than 600 had some type of criminal history that may have disqualified them from volunteering or working at a church.

While not a statistically representative sample, 450 churches is 1 percent of the 44,848 Southern Baptist congregations claimed in Lifeway’s most recent Annual Church Profile. Projected onto the other 99 percent of Southern Baptist churches, that would add up to 8,000 serious felony offenses and more than 60,000 people with some sort of checkered past in churches across the convention.

Given that Transformational Giving thinks in terms of “all-in” champions being comprehensively coached to advance the cause within their sphere of influence (as opposed to donors just writing checks), does that mean that we should run background checks on all of our champions?

Doing that kind of screening on people at the Participant level would seem to be impractical, but a case might be made for including a background check as part of the explicit covenant you make with champions transitioning from P to E, or for O-level champions whose activity has a more direct bearing on or connection with your organization. I think this is at least worth a serious discussion on a ministry-by-ministry basis, but I’m not so sure it would be my first move in every case.

Reason, which Bob shares in his article:

The Centers for Disease Control say background checks are only one tool in screening and selection of church workers. By themselves, they can be counterproductive, creating a false sense of security.

They recommend guidelines on interactions between individuals, such as a “6/2 rule”, a policy that states anyone working with children or youth must be an active member of your church for at least six months before assuming a position of leadership and that there must be at least two non-related adults in the room with minors at all times.

Other safeguards include monitoring and supervision, ensuring safe environments for children, having a plan in place to respond to inappropriate behavior and training about prevention of child sexual abuse.

A few notes about this:

• This is not an added burden a ministry acquires when it decides to take a Transformational Giving (TG) approach instead of a traditional/transactional fundraising (ttf) approach. Even the most ttf ministry absolutely must have systems like this in place.
• The CDC advice is telegraphed to churches and prevention of child sexual abuse, but it can (and should) be broadened in our understanding and application to include all Christian nonprofits and all causes where vulnerability of individuals is an issue. That includes everything from dealing with individuals with marital problems to rape cases to ministry to the homeless to virtually every cause that deals with people, frankly.
• When we approach the matter biblically, we’re not just looking at a negative duty to prevent harm but also a positive duty to ensure healthy relationships and coach for growth in the likeness of Christ. We’re not just dealing with issues that a background search would turn up (though don’t discount the usefulness and necessity of such tools in your situation). We’re also talking here about emotional and spiritual issues that arise anytime an individual becomes passionate about a cause.

Case in point: I’m helping a ministry deal with a challenging discipleship situation at the moment involving a champion who came on strong as a veritable bundle of passion related to the cause. No sacrifice was too great, no involvement opportunity too taxing, no donation too much to give.

Sounds perfect, right?

Now, a year in, the champion is struggling with severe issues of anxiety and depression. The champion confessed channeling all donations to the nonprofit, canceling other donation commitments including any to the local church. In the process of being “all in”, the champion got burnt “all out”.

Would such a thing show up on a background check? Unlikely.

Does the ministry have a responsibility to know these things about individuals ahead of time? Unfair.

But can a ministry set up processes and safeguards such that champions are limited for their own good from being overwhelmed by their passion and overcommitting to the cause?

This is where cooperation with the local church–in the form of champion-consented “pastor checks” (or even informal consultations) on individuals seeking to make major commitments of time, energy, and even financial resources to your cause and through your organization–may be the most essential background check we can ever make.