Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

Every day I hear about wonderful ministries doing remarkable things.  So what does it take to get my attention and get me involved?  Genuine cause coaching – someone taking the time to educate me about a Biblical cause and providing me meaningful ways to engage in it.

Gary Haugen, president and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM), gets this.  When he visited my church last month, he delivered, hands-down, one of the best presentations on a particular cause I’ve ever heard.  Why was I so impressed?  Instead of talking about what IJM was doing to stop human trafficking, Haugen focused on what he clearly sees is his real job – engaging God’s people in the Biblical cause of justice and liberty.  While most nonprofit leaders still confuse their organization for their cause, Haugen took the time to educate and equip me about the cause of justice – rarely even speaking the name of IJM.  He looked at Biblical examples and language for each Christian’s role seeking justice and liberty for the oppressed.

What Haugen and IJM did equally well was the follow-up.  After he spoke, there was an IJM table filled with meaningful opportunities for me to get immediately involved.  Right on the spot, I was able to sign a prepared postcard to my representative in Congress urging support of The Child Protection Compact Act.   I also bought Haugen’s book, Good News About Injustice, that had a wealth of information in the appendices alone to help readers learn, explore and engage in the cause – everything from tools for developing a simple action plan to advice to students considering a career in international human rights. 

This experience prompted me to discuss the cause with Justin Hime, MIF’s GTO in Raleigh, North Carolina, who’d recently encountered the cause in a new way as well.  Don’t let this slip by you – because of our recent encounters with this cause – two ministry professionals, whose jobs involve daily contact with Christian ministries, were prompted to begin spreading the cause in their own spheres of influence.  Justin observed that by comparison those involved in the cause of justice have mastered the art of articulating their cause. We noticed how well we, as relatively new champions, had been prepped with the causal language that allowed us to have a spirited and meaningful discussion.   Because a Cause Coach had worked with Justin, I learned from him that the three biggest commodities in the world are guns, drugs and women.   Because of Gary Haugen’s visit to my church, I was able to fill in some opportunities for action.  Staggering information that incites action; I want to do something. And isn’t that what IJM wants? More importantly, isn’t that what God wants?

Hats off to Gary Haugen and IJM for being a shining example of cause coaching!

This month MIF is offering workshops on Fundraising Banquets. While executing an effective banquet is the main focus of the workshop, a Big Idea this month is the fact that every speaker at every event your organization holds should be a coach for your cause. Even if you don’t have a banquet on your calendar, the workshop will help you and any of your champions become coaches for your cause. Register here today.

Can you guess what the number one human fear is?  The dark?  No, that’s #12.  Dying?  No, that’s #7.  Heights?  No, that’s #2.  The number one fear is... public speaking!!

Of course, trying to find the source of this survey is difficult and it’s questionable as to how scientific it was when taken (for example, my greatest fear is running out of peanut M&M’s, but I digress...), so we need to take it with a grain of salt.

Yet, regardless of whether or not public speaking is the #1 fear, I think we can all agree it IS pretty high on the list.  Even when someone agrees to speak publicly about something there is a natural fear going into it, and a question about how effective one will be when they speak.  And this gets to what I want to talk to you about...

Public speaking at your events!  Too many times I have seen ministries recruit volunteer speakers to share their story, to talk about their involvement in the cause, to make an ask, or even to MC the event, only to have it be a very stressful experience where they are only half as effective as they could have been with a little prep work.

Because of that, my next few blog posts are going to be dedicated to helping you and your volunteer speakers to be the best you can be when on the stage.

First off, we have to address this fear.  Hear me...having fear is OKAY so embrace it!  Ian Tyson, a stand-up comedian, said “The body’s reaction to fear and excitement is the same...so it becomes a mental decision: am I afraid or am I excited?”   Address your fear directly and early on and decide how you’re going to channel it.

Second, practice your speech, then practice some more, and of course, practice.  Frankly, if I asked people how important practice was, 100% would say VERY important.  YET, we don’t do it nearly enough (if at all!).  I like Scott Berkun’s take on why he practices his speeches.  In his book Confessions of a Public Speaker, he says “I don’t practice to make perfect, and I don’t memorize...my intent is simply to know my material so well that I’m very comfortable with it. Confidence, not perfection, is the goal.”  (Side note: this is a great book you need to read!)

And that leads into the third point we need to discuss, which is WHAT is it that your practicing?? To have confidence in a message that is confusing and convoluted is not good!  But, you’ll have to wait until next time to learn about "shaping the message.”

(BTW, for July, MIF is presenting a free workshop on Fundraising Banquets where we’ll be talking about speaker effectiveness, so check that out to expand on what I’m sharing here.)

I recently heard Greg Boyle speak at my niece’s graduation from a fairly-elite, fairly-wealthy Christian school.  Boyle, in his keynote address, challenged the graduates to venture from their comfortable suburban existence to carry the Gospel to dark and forgotten places. 

The key to real transformation, he said, is not in service, but in kinship.  To paraphrase: “Service of the poor is obvious, it’s to be expected.  But service is just a hallway that leads to the great banquet hall of kinship.”

Service, as important as it is, can keep us at arm’s length. Service can underscore and even perpetuate the classifications of us and them, after all, they need us, and we have the goods to deliver.

Most ministry leaders I work with at Mission Increase Foundation recognize that in their ministry, they need to go beyond service to kinship.  They need to relate to their clients on common footing as humans, and all us of happen to be in desperate need of a Savior, whether rich or poor, male or female, Jew or Greek. Kinship is key.  

Yet how many of these same leaders seek to share this same common ground with their donors?

The Biblical expectation for the nonprofit organization is to actually prefer the needs of the donor above its own.  In Philippians 2:3-4, Paul challenges the Philippians to humbly consider others better than themselves, and to look after the interests of others as well as if they were their own.  Kinship.

But most nonprofits are hard wired to look after their own needs, not the needs of the nonprofit down the street, not the needs of the local church, and certainly not the needs of their donors. Paul models this kinship when, in chapter 4, his interest is in what can be credited to the account of the Philippians in their giving to him.  His concern for them supersedes his concern for his own well-being, though he was writing from prison.

And so it must be for us.  Our concern for our donors—for their spiritual well-being—must supersede our concern for our own ministry needs, for our hopes and dreams and even budgets.