Do the Word

Take 2 minutes to click this link and read Peter Deitz’ transcript of his Australian conference presentation on what he calls action-oriented short term web volunteer opportunities. (AOSTWVOs?)

Catchy title there. I wish we would have thought of it instead of our much clunkier moniker, ‘Signature Participation Projects’, or SPPs.

(You can read more about SPPs on this post.)

Peter’s article is much catchier than his name for these kind of opportunities. In fact, his focus is on (what we would call) SPP’s  that can be done in 20 minutes or less.

These are all secular examples, of course, but quite instructive and eminently applicable.

The most intriguing one to me is an outfit called The Extraordinaries, a downloadable app for your cell phone that enables you to volunteer 20 minutes rather than whiling away the time playing Tetris. Peter leaves the link to the Extraordinaries out of his presentaton, but I’ve tracked it down and have it for you here, to save you another minute or two.

As Christians, should we be striving for SPPs that take 20 minutes or less?

By my read, most of the SPPs Jesus did (for Jesus, his SPPs were his miracles, always intended to move the participant to kingdom engagement) would have easily fit within that time limit.

My favorite 5 minute Christian SPP?

World Gospel Mission’s 30-day Concert of Prayer, in which readers of WGM’s magazine, The Call, gather groups of friends to call in on a toll-free number for a daily 5-minute prayer call each day for 30 days, with the prayer led by a missionary in each of WGM’s 30 fields and potential fields. The COP runs from mid-September through mid-October, so you can subscribe for free to The Call now and get in on the action come this fall.

As we ready for our San Francisco Transformational Giving seminar today, our thanks go out to SFO’s Giving and Training Officer Tracy Tucker for tipping us off to a new study on giving circles that casts a whole new flashing blue light on Transformational Giving principle #7 (click here for the whole TG Ten list). Principle #7 reads:

The relationship between champion and champion is as important as the relationship between champion and organization.

And the giving circle study (from such development luminaries as the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, and The University of Nebraska at Omaha) concludes:

1. Giving circles influence members to give more.
2. Giving circles influence members to give more strategically.
3. Giving circles members give to a wide array of organizations.
4. Giving circle members are highly engaged in the community.
5. Giving circles increase members’ knowledge about philanthropy, nonprofits, and the community.
6. Giving circles have a mixed influence on members’ attitudes about philanthropy, nonprofit and government roles, and political/social abilities and values.

In other words, want your champions to give more? Then spare the address labels and the heart tugs, pick up your coach’s whistle, and pull them together to get to know each other and help them learn how together they can mutually have a far more pronounced impact on the cause.

It’s definitely a question that demands to be answered, as I’ve been asked it twice in the last 24 hours! First, my buddy John Lee at World Gospel Mission inquired on behalf of a missionary who’s asking this question after nearly two decades in the field. And then at our Colorado Springs seminar this past Friday, a similarly tenured missionary asked the same question.

In short, the question is this:

I’ve been doing development according to the traditional/transactional principles for the better part of my ministry. In so doing I’ve acquired some tremendous ‘supporters’ who tell me that it doesn’t matter if I’m doing ministry in Timbuktu or Toronto, or whether I’m doing evangelism or crisis pregnancy; they’re going to support me no matter what. They support me because they love me and trust me. So do I go back to them now and say, ‘It’s not enough for you to love me and trust me. It’s time for you to become a champion’?

Short answer:

Yes. Absolutely.

Transformational Giving Principle #5 (click here for the whole list, or click here to register for the seminars this week in San Francisco or LA and I’ll run down the whole list for you myself) says:

A Transformational Giving relationship between a champion and an organization is primarily a peer-level accountability relationship, not merely a friendship or a support relationship.

In traditional/transactional development, there are typically two prime determinants in the relationship between donor and organization. The first is what the donor feels comfortable/passionate/able to do. The second is what the organization/missionary needs. Add a dollop of friendship in there and you have a pretty good donation sandwich.

In Transformational Giving, however, the measurement is different. The parameters of the relationship are not defined by the donor’s passion nor the organization’s need. Instead, they’re defined by the scriptures. We ask:

1. What does the Bible call my ministry? In other words, what are the words and concepts the Bible uses to define what God has called me to do?
2. What does the Bible call all Christians to do in relation to this cause?

A Transformational Giving relationship is thus an accountability relationship, in which the champion and the organization hold each other accountable to grow into the fullness of Christ in relation to the cause they share, as defined by the scriptures.

It can’t be coincidence that I was reading Acts 18 yesterday. In it, Luke gives kudos to Apollos for being learned, well-spoken, and teaching about Jesus accurately…and then he mentions that Priscilla and Aquila pull him aside to ‘explain to him the way of God more adequately’. And then later in the chapter, Paul runs into the same thing in Ephesus: believers who hadn’t quite yet heard the part about the Holy Spirit.

In both cases, the correction that’s brought (by Prescilla/Aquila and Paul) is brought gently but clearly to Christians who were clearly committed and sincere. I think it lays out a great model for us to follow as we share Transformational Giving with our ‘supporters’, who we now realize are called to be ‘champions’.

After all, I doubt that Apollos responded to Prescilla and Aquila’s correction by saying, ‘OK, I’ll try to get it right from now on.’ I imagine his first reaction was to try to find a way to share these new insights with everyone he’d previously taught.

So we should not think, ‘Well, with my best/longest-term/friendliest supporters, I’ll let them continue to be supporters. But I’ll start this champion thing with everyone from now on.’

Instead, we need to go back to our best/longest-term/friendliest folks and share Transformational Giving with them. Heck, send them a link to this blog. Bring ’em to a Mission Increase Foundation training event. Show ’em the Coach Your Champions book (you could even study a chapter a week with a group of them via conference call) or watch the TG video together.

After all, as we’ve been teaching in the Transformational Giving seminars this month, Development isn’t something you do to champions. It’s something you do with them.

So say to your supporters-cum-champions:

For twenty years you’ve supported me. Who could ask for more?

Would you believe: The Bible?

I’ve been reading and studying about how God calls all Christians to be involved in missions. It’s exhilirating. It’s exciting. It terrifies me. It grabs me.

I want to share it with you.

God has more for you–more that He wants to give you, as well as more that’s He’s holding you accountable for–than simply being the best supporter of my ministry that I could ever ask for.

I feel like Apollos in the book of Acts 18. I’ve learned the way of God between a missionary and a supporter more completely. And I’d like to talk about it–and walk in it fully–with you.

Is it the world’s easiest conversation? No.

Is it possible the supporter will misunderstand, and their love will turn to hate, with them cancelling the auto-deposit? Possible, perhaps.

But God never sent us supporters. He sent us champions. We’re the ones who converted them into supporters.

It’s time to convert them back. And God is holding us accountable now that we know.