Investment! (But not the kind you're thinking of!) |
Sep 29, 2009 |
It’s time for Mission Increase’s Transformational Giving Principle #4.
God has entrusted you with donors (or champions as we like to say). So today’s question is… Do you have a vision for your champions?
Or do you simply see your people as walking dollar signs and ATM machines and, frankly, that’s about it.
Listen to me. God has entrusted you with champions and you are called by Him to invest in their lives, not merely invest their dollars into other people’s lives.
I recently attended a conference and heard Pastor Rick Warren share about Saddleback’s intentional investment process. He described it like this:
"When individuals walk through the front doors of our church, they are in the place of “come and see.” They are there on a surface level to simply see what’s going on. We, though, aren’t called to leave people in that place; we ultimately want to lead people to the place of “come and die.” I’m talking, here, about full surrender to Christ, which means dying to oneself every day and seeking and doing the Lord’s will. So, in a nutshell, our job as a church (and the job of every church) is to lead people from “come and see” to “come and die.” That takes an intentional process."
Can you imagine if Saddleback Church’s goal was to simply get money from people, AND THAT WAS IT?
No focus on the person.
No focus on the journey.
No discipleship.
No helping people move toward Christ-likeness.
That would be unbelievable and unbiblical.
Whoops.
Can you say, “Many of today’s CHRISTIAN non-profits”?
Biblical development is not about squeezing money from people. Biblical development is about recognizing that God blesses us with wonderful people and that we, as development professionals, are called to invest in their lives and lead them somewhere intentionally.
This takes us back to my initial question: Do you have a vision for your champions?
That’s all for now.
I encourage you to think about this concept in preparation for my next post on Tuesday, October 13th. We’ll pick it up then and talk about what we call at the Mission Increase Foundation, the P-E-O process.
Here’s TG #4:
Biblical development is champion development, not fund development.
