Do the Word

In Transformational Giving (TG), we use the term “champions” to describe individuals who are being coached to full maturity in Christ in relation to the cause. We use the term “partners” to refer to churches and organizations that we’re coaching along the same path.

Tomorrow we’ll have a real-life blueprint from an organization on the edge of the TG partner development frontier.

Today we’re going to take a look at a real-life champion development blueprint, from Spencer Cowan, new development manager at Dare2Share Ministries.

I’ve had the great honor of working with Spencer and D2S  on TG for the last two years, and every monthly meeting we have , in addition to being hard work on the edge of TG, is just plain fun.

Take it away, Spence!

The Purpose of the Development Department is to further THE Cause by coaching Champions to understand and carry out what Scripture calls them to do as it relates to THE Cause.

Six Foundational Principles

1. We are not pastors, friends or simply fundraisers to our adult Champions. A friendship can develop along the way but that is not our primary focus.  Our ministry is to inspire, coach and unleash Champions to fulfill their God given responsibility in the Great Commission as it relates to mobilizing Christian teenagers.  We are God’s gift to the Champion, to help them walk in their ministry as it relates to THE Cause, not to take their ministry away from them.

2. Our role is to appreciate the convictions and values that are already important to the Champion while challenging them to embrace their Biblical responsibility regarding THE Cause (even what might not be appealing to them).  As Jesus did with the rich young ruler after hearing how he ‘kept all the commands since his youth’ Jesus responded with the words, “You still lack one thing…”  If we are faithful in prayer for each conversation and effectively use Scripture with the Champion the Holy Spirit can convict them and bring them to maturity, that is His job.  Our job is to communicate the message clearly as well as to model THE Cause in our own lives.

3. We will focus on those that are being called.  Practically that means we will give ourselves more fully to those that are “of us.”  Like Jesus describes in the parable of the sower we will be faithful to scatter the seed (i.e. engage all people in conversation about THE Cause) but will seek out and focus on those that Jesus called “good soil where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”  Our takeaway is to coach those who will understand THE Cause, personalize it and recruit others who will follow their example.  In finding and focusing on these people THE Cause will accelerate much quicker.

4. Our fundraising strategy will be transformational not transactional.  The end goal is not to ‘cultivate the donor so we can receive income to do ministry’ but is to see a greater number of adult Champions completely transformed by THE Cause.  When this is done right the resources will come and will be a testimony to God’s faithfulness to HIS Cause.  This attitude will help us keep the motives of our heart directed toward furthering THE Cause THROUGH Champions instead of raising the money to do it ourselves.  The example here is the way Jesus ‘coached’ His disciples knowing He would be gone and it would be in their hands (i.e. “feed my sheep”).

5. Even though the way we do fundraising is not transactional we will not be afraid to ask the Champion for a transformational gift.  Generous giving towards THE Cause is a key defining mark of a true Champion.  We will continue to work together to develop the way we communicate this.

6. Full Networking is a priority.  Over the next year we are going to attempt to understand and implement this idea.  A full network is one in which Champions are talking to each other, as well as to us.  For example, if a Champion mentions a barrier that another Champion has successfully overcame help them connect, instead of helping them yourself.

All of our communication to Champions will become more and more discipleship focused as it relates to THE Cause.  As we identify these Champions we are adding them to our ‘team’ (i.e. our notify list) and engaging them in a coaching relationship.  An easy formula to remember in personal communication are the following steps (see the Coaching Diagnostic for more detail):

1. Get behind the ‘why’ of their giving

2. Begin a dialogue on THE Cause

3. Get permission to begin a coaching relationship with them

The Participation/Engagement/Ownership architecture runs on sanctification software.

That is, absent a robust theology of sanctification, it doesn’t make any sense to talk about growing champions comprehensively in the likeness of Christ.

That’s particularly challenging for us in a day and age when no small portion of contemporary evangelical Christianity refers to the term “works” only perjoratively , in conjunction with the term “righteousness”.

Christianity today has a surprisingly hard time distinguishing between sanctification and works righteousness.

I say “surprisingly” because although some branches of the Protestant family tree may talk about sanctification more than others, all branches–whether Lutheran, Calvinist, Wesleyan, Anabaptist, or Anglican–have always historically affirmed that Christ not only frees us from the penalty of sin, but that He also progressively frees us from the power of sin.

In say “Christianity today” because I was absolutely shocked by Mark Galli’s article, We’ve Won the Lottery–Now What?, on Christianity Today’s website at the end of July.

Galli begins with a fair question:

Why does the evangelical community end up with sinners like Governor Mark Sanford (adultery) and Ted Haggard (immorality) and CEO Kenneth Lay (fraud) and evangelist Jim Baker [sic] (licentiousness)—to take but a very few examples!

His analysis?

What has gone wrong? The first answer seems to be that we are not thinking right or doing enough. Some put their chips on redefining the gospel in social terms; they assume the problem is individualism. Others bet on spiritual formation; the problem is that we’re lazy and spiritual disciplines point the way to a more godly future. Some say we need the dynamism of the Holy Spirit; the problem is formalism. Others plea for more accountability groups or more thoughtful worship music or more time in prayer or more of some other magic bullet. If we only do something more, things will improve.

We’ve tried all these, and tried them time and again. The lamentable conclusion seems to be that while the gates of Hades will never prevail against the church, the spirit of moral mediocrity has pretty much won the day. This is not to deny those wonderful moments when the church really acts like the church, when outsiders notice Jesus Christ as a result! Such moments are pure gifts, signs of the coming kingdom. But history suggests they are intermittent. The usual reality is that the church, from corrupt Corinth to amoral America, remains a sinful institution, full of sinful people.

Perhaps it’s time we try a new approach, and do less.

Inexplicably setting aside two-thirds of what the Apostle Paul actually wrote, Galli asserts:

The primary issue for Paul was not striving for transformation but resting in forgiveness. That he continued to sin, and sin woefully, was not as important to him as the fact that no sin he could commit was beyond God’s desire to forgive—nothing, not even his ongoing sinfulness, could separate him from the love of God in Christ! No wonder he lived in gratitude—doing less!

Since when did a robust theology and practice of sanctification become antithetical to justification by faith? Certainly not in either the New Testament, the Protestant Reformation, or orthodox Christianity through the ages.

It’s hard to get less controversial a resource than The New Bible Dictionary, which ticks off without hesitation the abundance of New Testament passages relating to the essential and praiseworthy nature of works in the Christian life:

The believer also demonstrates by his good works the divine activity within him (Mt. 5:16; Jn. 6:28; 14:12). Conversely, the man who has no faith demonstrates by his evil works his separation from God (Jn. 3:19; Col. 1:21; Eph. 5:11; 2 Pet. 2:8, etc.). Good works are therefore the evidence of living faith, as James emphasizes in opposition to those who claim to be saved by faith alone without works (Jas. 2:14-26). James is in harmony with Paul, who also repeatedly declared the necessity for works, i.e. for behaviour appropriate to the new life in Christ following our entry into it by faith alone (Eph. 2:8-10; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:16-26, etc.). The works rejected by Paul are those which men claim as earning God’s favour and securing their discharge from the guilt of sin (Rom. 4:1-5; Eph. 2:8-9; Tit. 3:5). Since salvation is given by God in grace, no degree of works can merit it. The good works of the heathen are therefore unavailing as a means of salvation, since the man himself relies on the flesh and not on the grace of God (Rom. 8:7-8).

Wood, D. R. W. ; Marshall, I. Howard: New Bible Dictionary. 3rd ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1996, S. 1249

Do we really want to submit Sanford, Haggard, Lay, and Bakker–and by extension adultery, immorality, fraud, and licentiousness among Christians–as evidence that we Christians have taken spiritual disciplines, accountability groups, and moral training too seriously?

Or is it possible that the church has, by and large, simply lost the ability to disciple Christians and that Apple Computer does a better job in this arena than we do?

Participation/Engagement/Ownership should never be diminutively understood as an organizational fundraising strategy. It is nothing less than an effort to restore works to their rightful place in the Christian life, in the context of a robust theology of sanctification that arises not in opposition to justification and forgiveness but rather as its boon companion, like thunder follows lightning.

Our Mission Increase Foundation free workshop/lab sequence for August/September is Marketing Your Ministry. (If you haven’t attended yet, do make sure to sign up now.)

One of the core concepts of the workshop is that in Transformational Giving, marketing is actually not the work of the nonprofit. Instead, it’s something we mentor our O-level champions to do as they spread the cause in their sphere of influence, recruiting new P-level champions for the cause.

The Signature Participation Project is the vehicle for that to happen. Typically we (the nonprofit) create it as a tool for our O-level champions, but they’re the ones who execute it largely on their own.

For a fuller explanation of what a Signature Participation Project is, and to learn about my former favorite Signature Participation Project, click here.

But let me tell you about my new favorite Signature Participation Project:

Secret Church.

The brainchild of David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, Secret Church received a nice send-up in a Christianity Today post this week.

It’s well worth letting Pastor Platt set this up at length:

We have severely dumbed down the Word, and shown a lack of trust in the sufficiency of the Word in the way we preach. We find it necessary to supplement it with entertaining stories and quips or good practical advice for living the Christian life that are not based in the Word. This deficiency transfers into people content with a little “Word for the Day,” in a devotional book at best, as opposed to deep knowledge of Scripture.

We’re trying to hit at the problem from a variety of angles at Brook Hills. First of all, in worship we’re quoting the Word, singing the Word, and engaging in intensive study. We’ll study 55 minutes to an hour. We try to really saturate the community of faith with the Word when we gather together.

I go to other places, such as house churches in Asia, and they study for 11 or 12 hours, knowing they risk their lives. They’ll dive in deep. We came back and tried to do something similar here. We call it secret church and do it a couple times a year. We gather together for intensive study with no frills, nothing flashy, no entertainment value. The first time, about 1,000 showed up. We studied Old Testament overview from 6 p.m. to midnight, but usually it goes longer, supplemented by times in prayer for the persecuted church. It’s all ages, but the predominant demographic is college students and young singles. It’s grown to the point where we need to offer tickets at $5 for reservations and the cost of a study guide. We’ll do it again in October with 2,500 folks. It’s theological in nature. We’ve done a night on the Atonement, another on the doctrine of God. This time we’re doing spiritual warfare. It’s one of my favorite sights as a pastor to look out at 12:30 a.m. and see a room full of 2,500 people, their Bibles open, soaking it in.

Think of it like this:

How do you grow people in the cause of Hebrews 13:3, “Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering”?

Obviously it’s helpful to hear and read the testimonies of persecuted Christians. But Secret Church takes things one step further.

Through Secret Church–the simple act of gathering under cover of darkness for extended Bible study, punctuated by periods of prayer for the Persecuted Church around the world–participants participate in an act of solidarity with the Persecuted Church, namely, gathering together for intensive study and prayer.

From the Secret Church website:

When we think of “church” in America, we think of going to meet at a building, singing, praying and hearing a message from a Pastor or teacher. But in many places around the world, “church” meets in a home, an apartment, even in secret. These small groups of Christ-followers often meet for many hours in study, prayer and fellowship, as it is dangerous to travel to “church” and they want to make the most of their time together.

Best of all, though the Secret Church webpage credits Open Doors, one of the largest and most prominent nonprofits associated with ministry to the Persecuted Church, Secret Church is clearly not an event to promote Open Doors. In fact, the site links to a total of nine Persecuted Church ministries (the only one missing there is Seoul USA!).

Sum it up and say:

• Here’s a Signature Participation Project (SPP) that beautifully and brilliantly advances the cause and gives people a real sense of participation in it.
• The church is an Owner of the cause of Persecuted Church ministry. They’re doing this SPP. All the nonprofits related to Persecuted Church Ministry are part of the stage…not the actors.
• The SPP itself is a deepening of, not a deviation from the church’s core ministry of taking the Word seriously and engaging with it deeply.
• The whole thing is about fidelity to scripture, not just creative marketing.

An absolutely flawless SPP, with the church at the center of it all. Imagine!