Make it Transformational: A Blog for Champion Discipleship

As I embark on my summer vacation, to the beaches of Southern California, I have been spending time thinking about the type of board I need to have as I prepare to hit the water. I want the best one I can get in order to make my trip as enjoyable as possible. Would a surfboard be okay? What about a boogie or body board? I wasn’t sure which one would be best suited for me.

Instead of beating my head and trying to come up with an answer, or getting one of each and seeing which one works, I decided to connect with my cousin who lives by the beach and is a surfer.

But, as I was talking with him about his surfboards, he went on to explain that it’s not as simple as selecting a board and going for it. He reminded me that they come in different shapes and sizes, are made from different materials, have a variety of parts and they are not all created equally. He also said that what you can handle or what you want to do should often determine the type of board you select.

I found there is much more to think about than simply saying I want a board.

At Mission Increase Foundation we would say that your organization must understand that there is much more to selecting a board (for your organization) than just saying you want a good one. There are many things you will need to think about when putting together a group of individuals to guide your organization to making its greatest impact.

Frank Martinelli, from The Center for Public Skills Training, says there are many ingredients to consider when developing a board….some of which would hinder board effectiveness. He also says that building a more effective board is a process.

The group Lead Like Jesus, started by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, recently stated in an online devotional, “We must help develop leadership skills in others and then at the proper time commission them for their role.”

Whatever your thought process is, or wherever you are in your board development, September’s Mission Increase Foundation workshop is one event you will want to attend. And do not fail to bring some of your current or future board members with you as well.

The workshop is titled: THE BOARDS GREATEST GIFT “From Bored Boards to Engaged Champions.”

In this workshop we will be answering many questions that will help you develop a board that will have impact in relation to your cause and organization. You will also hear about the essential principles, key responsibilities, and relationships that need to be in place in order for your board to be effective.

If you haven’t already registered sign up today!

Simply go to our workshop registration page and register through your MIF account. If you don’t have an MIF account it should only take a minute or two to set one up.

Remember, register those board members who can attend as well….and don’t delay as some of our workshops are already full.

Several months ago, I came across a headline in the Chronicle of Philanthropy that caught my eye:  “Parents Play Biggest Role in Encouraging Teenagers To Give, Study Finds.”  As a parent with two pre-teens at home, I was intrigued and jumped into the article:

“Teenagers report that their parents are the biggest influence on whether they give to nonprofit groups -- but many parents are not raising their children in a way that seems to encourage philanthropy and volunteerism, according to a study released today.”

The comprehensive findings of the study cite specific parenting practices, such as talking to kids about charity, explaining why one gives, and explaining the potential impact of giving.  Sounds pretty straightforward, huh?  So I was really quite surprised the other day when my ten year old, Lindsay, and I took a walk in our new neighborhood and stumbled upon what seemed to be an easy giving opportunity.   

As we were exploring a few blocks from our house, we wandered into a garage sale.  I started chatting with Glenn, a 50ish year old gardener selling dozens of potted plants and trees in an attempt to raise money to visit his mom in Tennessee.  Turns out his mom was in the care of hospice.  After two heart attacks, she had stopped eating and decided she’d had enough.    

I poked around for a few minutes, asking questions about the plants, and Lindsay played with his frisky Husky, Umpqua.  Fifteen minutes later, we said goodbye to Glenn with several plants in hand and the mention of a possible return for a potted Redwood.  As we walked home, Lindsay and I talked about Glenn and why he needed money. 

Once home, we told my husband about our adventure and our encounter with Glenn.  I felt convicted to help somehow and Karl immediately encouraged us to act on this conviction.   ‘How much would you two like to give him?’ my husband asked.   I mentioned a figure which seemed appropriate in my mind.  That’s when it got interesting. 

Karl’s reply?  He asked me why I’d picked that amount.  Well, it was generous but ‘safe.’  Then he challenged me to give 5X as much.  I gasped.  What if it’s a scam?, I asked.  What if Glenn thinks I’m crazy?  What if Lindsay thinks I’m crazy? 

When I asked Lindsay for her opinion, she said ‘Well, you were asking him questions.  He didn’t come out and tell you anything about his mom until you asked.’  She picked a figure that was half way between her dad’s and my suggestion.   Ugh.  The learning experience was underway and God, as well as my husband and daughter, were challenging me to make a decision to demonstrate and profess my faith.   

Ten minutes later, we were back at Glenn’s house under the auspices of another purchase.  After a couple minutes of browsing, I asked ‘so how close are you to raising the money you need to visit your mom?’  He looked at me and said, ‘I have faith in God...’ and then his voice broke and he paused and looked down. 

Turns out he was planning to rent a truck to drive to Tennessee, see his mom, and pack up her things upon her passing.  He’d figured out fuel and driving costs, arranged to stay with several friends along the way, had received money from a niece and an offer of a $700 loan from a friend.  The careful planning was what I needed to hear, I guess. 

I told him that I also have faith in God, that I’m a Christian, and that our family has been blessed by God and we regularly looked for ways to bless others by helping them.  I told him we’d like to help him by giving him some money if he would be open to it.  He looked at me and nodded.  I think we both started to cry when I told him we wanted to give him the amount my husband had originally suggested.

What mattered most to me, however, was when Glenn told me that he was ‘coming back to God’ and that the Christian couple caring for his mom had been encouraging him that God would provide the means for him to somehow see his mom again.  ‘They keep telling me that God is in the details,’ Glenn said, as he thanked me.  My hope was that the gift would be another snapshot to Glenn of God’s love and attention to important details. 

As Lindsay and I said goodbye a second time, he asked us to stop by in the future, to say hello.  I’m unsure if we’ll see him again but that’s OK.  Lindsay learned something more about why we give and how it can impact people, even strangers.  And most importantly, I was reminded once again that giving is learned and I – not just my pre-teens - have a lot of learning still to do.   

Next week is MIF’s webinar titled Giving Circles: One of the Most Important Trends in Fundraising You’ve Never Heard Of.

I can say with assurance that you won’t be disappointed by this webinar. Our great Matt Bates is a tremendous presenter and an incredibly insightful practitioner of Transformational Giving. He’s seizing the opportunity with this webinar to take on one of the most distasteful fundraising trends you’ve certainly heard of or witnessed firsthand-the professionalization of ministry. This disturbing trend is evident in philanthropy as well as churches and is arguably at least partially to blame for the anemia of today’s Christians.

But there’s hope for overcoming that anemia. Of course we have hope because we know God designed us for the robust living described in Ephesians 4. But there’s also encouragement in new trends like the emergence of giving circles. I trust you’ll tune in on August 11th to reap the rewards of Matt’s study but until then I have some homework for you. Check out the book The Power of Half written by Kevin and Hannah Salwen about their very own giving circle. It was started when Hannah, the Salwen’s teenage daughter, set out to do something about homelessness in their hometown of Atlanta. The book chronicles their family’s journey beginning with downsizing their home and culminating with a trip to Ghana in their effort to fight global hunger. They walked through an incredibly transformational experience and the story is both inspiring and intriguing. While most of us won’t sell our homes in order to give half the proceeds to charity (yes, that’s what they did) the Salwen’s story is a great example of ordinary people seeking a greater level involvement in the causes they care about. The Salwens eschewed today’s thinking that ministry is best left to the professionals and “took matters into their own hands.” Only it wasn’t only their own hands; they collaborated with The Hunger Project- a non-profit organization who understands the importance of giving their champions the reigns in the form of direct involvement in the cause. Reading the book will give you eyes to see the giving circles emerging all around you and whet your appetite for next week’s webinar.

Which brings me to another way you can prepare for next week’s webinar; consider your own giving circle experience. Chances are you’ve participated in a giving circle even if you didn’t call it a giving circle. I’ve thought of several I’ve been a part of. First; there’s our home fellowship. We began to collect spare change with the expectation that God would eventually show us what to do with the funds. Soon we learned that one of the young women in our group was bound for Uganda and while God had supplied the necessary funding, she still needed several hundred dollars to pay for the required vaccinations. Everyone agreed that God was calling us to participate with Mikeah on her journey to Africa. Or there was our family’s summer beach week five years ago. Not long before we were scheduled to leave our then five year old daughter came to me while I was preparing dinner to report that she was “staaaarrrrvingg”. This hyperbolic expression happened to land on a day when our newspaper ran a front page story about famine in Africa. I promptly responded to Sophie saying that she while she may be hungry she wasn’t starving and showed her the picture of the truly starving African child complete with bugs in his ears. A little while later she came to me and asked what we could do to help the starving boy. I explained that some people send money to help.  A bit more time passed and she proudly came to me with a hand crafted, folded, stapled and taped paper container created for collecting money for the starving boy. She wanted to ask others to join her. So we replaced her creation with a Ziploc bag, took it to the beach, set it in the window sill and watched while other family members added to the collection.  Her action prompted many meaningful discussions about our extended family’s giving experiences including how and why they chose to give where they did. Not long after we returned from our vacation, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. We felt led to send our money to New Orleans and asked our newly formed giving circle for permission to redirect the money. While it wasn’t the monetary equivalent of half the proceeds of a home sale, the process our family went through was not dissimilar from the Salwen’s in that we operated as a group and were transformed in the process.

Consider Hannah Salwen’s words, “One night at dinner I brought up a school assembly speaker who had described the genocide in Darfur. My parents didn’t try to educate me immediately on what was going on there; instead, my mom quickly grabbed a story about Darfur that she had seen in the newspaper that morning and read a bit to all of us. Joe threw in what he knew about Darfur, and suddenly we were talking-really talking. I think we stayed at the table at least fifteen minutes longer than usual that night because we felt connected.” Or Kevin Salwen’s thoughts, “The result was a remarkable family adventure. Around our dinner table, we spent hours discussing the world’s problems and how we might help. We made very decision in our two-year journey collectively, with kids having just as much say as parents. But this book is more than just the tale of a family trying to turn the good life into a life of good. It’s about unintended consequences, like the way inventors stumbled across penicillin or Post-it notes or Flubber. Yes, we’re helping the world a bit. But in the process we are transforming our relationships with one another.”

That’s our real message about giving circles. They are emerging as an expression of ordinary people’s desire to collaboratively participate in making a difference in the world. If your organization reserves that right for the “ministry professionals” you are denying your champions the adventure of engaging with you and your cause and limiting potential transformation for all of you.

Tune in next week for more on Giving Circles and consider reading The Power of Half by Kevin and Hannah Salwen.

Today’s blog post is a continuation of my post from July 6th about how to be an effective and confident speaker.

Let me start with sharing a little fact that astounded me about speaking in general... Michael Erard, author of Um, found that when we speak, “(mistakes) occur on average once every ten words...Next time you say something listen to yourself carefully.  You st-st-stutter; you forget the words, you swotch the sounds (and when you type, you reverse the lttres--and prhps omit thm too). The bulk of these go unnoticed or brushed aside, but they’re all fascinating, as much as for why they’re ignored as why they’re noticed.”

Hopefully reading that doesn’t make you more self-conscious!  Instead let it encourage you in that we all make mistakes in our speech (even after much practice), and more importantly, they mostly go unnoticed (whew!)

Now, last time I mentioned the need to practice your speech to build confidence, but having confidence in a poorly shaped story that lacks a strong message does you and your audience no good!

In talking about shaping your message, a great book to check out is Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath.  They lay out some helpful principles to develop a message that is “sticky,” or in other words, memorable and effective.  I won’t get into those here (just read the book!), but I will share what the Heath brothers call villains to a “sticky” message because  I see these making their way into so many speeches at ministry events I attend.

1. We often “bury the lead” of our story amidst a sea of information.  We want to share every bit of information we have at the cost of suffocating the most powerful and inspirational part of the story!  It’s probably safe to say you can cut at least 50% of your story without losing a thing.

2. We tend to focus on the presentation rather than the message.  Keep in mind it’s not about memorizing your script, it’s about knowing the key idea you want to convey and staying focused on getting that across.  What’s the big picture people need to see?  What one idea do you want them to remember after they hear you?  Bring that out strong and clear.

3. We force our audience into decision paralysis, meaning we share too many different and new ideas at one time. This often happens when we’re inviting people to get involved.  We invite them to give financially, we invite them to volunteer, we invite them to sign up for our newsletter, we invite them to come take a tour, and on and on and on.  Present ONE message, ONE idea, ONE call to action.

4.  Finally, we all have to contend with the Curse of Knowledge.  This is when you know things that others don’t know and you forget what it’s like to not know it!  I encounter this often when I hear people share their mission statement.  It’s so generic and broad that I haven't a clue what they really do on a day to day basis, or how to connect to it in any meaningful way.  Go back to the basics when you first learned about how your organization tackled the cause.  How did you explain it to your spouse or friend?  Talk to people outside of your organization, how are they talking about what you do?

If you begin to conquer these villains, you'll be well on your way to developing a great message that audiences WANT and NEED to hear. And that’s something to be confident about!  If you have a story about coming up against one of these villains, do share!