Grasping a gospel opportunity – why you should ask people for money for ministry

This is the second of a series for planters and gospel workers on keeping going through the financial stresses that often accompany ministry. If there is one mind-set change that I’m encouraging its this – support raising is not a precursor to gospel ministry but a necessary and valuable expression of gospel ministry. In other words financial stress is an opportunity to learn and live the gospel.

Few planters see support raising as gospel ministry (don’t we all just want to get on with preaching and evangelism?) and because we don’t see the opportunity for growth that comes to us through it  we simply wish our financial pressures away. But what if God wants to keep us humbly dependent on him as individuals and churches?  What if financial need is one of the ways God wants to grow us up in the gospel? That’s the shift in thinking I want to encourage.

One of the biggest challenges in embracing support-raising is a fear factor that comes from asking for money. Perhaps, like me, you have always found seeking support for ministry a little awkward, embarrassing or inappropriate. What would it take to persuade you that rather than an embarrassing request what you are offering is an open-door to gospel growth in the life of the person you are seeking support from?

Here is where we need to see what it means that the gospel transforms our understanding of what we are inviting people to do when asking them to partner with us financially. Through the lens of the gospel what we begin to see is that our attitude can and should be different because what we are inviting people to do is transformed by the gospel.

To help us understand how this works we will look at Philippians 4v15-20 and Paul’s words of thanks to the church in Philippi in light of the gifts that they have given to him. Here we will learn why we have unique gospel reasons in asking for support and in taking those  reasons to heart enables us to ask boldly.

1. Support-raising is an invitation to share in giving and receiving

In v.15 (NIV) Paul writes that ‘not one church shared [ESV partnered] with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only.’ The key idea for us to grasp here is that support raising is an invitation to partner  in ministry rather than simply give to ministry. We naturally think asking for money is one-way traffic. That we are asking for something at the expense of someone i.e. our gain is their loss but if they have enough Christian love they might just be prepared to sacrifice what they have for us. But Paul says it is not all one way traffic. The blessing flows both ways. It is a two-way street in which the giver actually receives and the receiver gives.

Now doesn’t that change the very nature of the request? No longer do we need to think that we are merely asking for something from a donor rather in our invitation we are asking for an opportunity to give something the person we are writing too. In essence Paul is saying that giving to gospel ministry is a way of receiving and receiving money for gospel ministry is a way of giving.

How does that work?

2. Support-raising is an invitation to receive eternal reward.

Only a Christian with an eternal perspective can say what Paul says in v.17. He desires not what might be credited to his account (the money he receives from them) but Paul can say to the Philippians ‘what I desire is that more be credited to your account.’In other words when the Philippians gave to him their own eternal bank-account was being credited. Fee writes ‘their gift to him has the effect of accumulating ‘interest’ toward their eschatological reward.’

Now it’s crucial that we grasp this because it means that Christian motives in fund-raising are altogether different from those used by the world. Only the Christian can appeal to eternity as a motive for generous giving. Only Christians can genuinely say that a decision to give is a two-way street because only the Christian can appeal to a motivation of reward in the light of the gospel for those who give generously of the resources God has given them now.

The result is that in support-raising we are offering people an investment opportunity rather than seeking to deprive them of their resourses. We are actually seeking to bless them! Many Christians have received a great deal from God and an invitation to support a gospel-work is an opportunity to put more of their money to eternal use.

Paul is affirming the words of Christ that ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Support raising is an opportunity, through pointing people to the gospel as their reason to give, to turn reluctant, occasional givers into joyful, generous, sacrificial givers who will share in a greater reward.

3. Support-raising is an invitation to experience God’s blessing now

Finally, Paul points out that those who give experience God’s blessing now as well as in the future. Paul writes in v.19-20 that ‘the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.’ When we ask people to support our ministry we are giving people an opportunity to experience God’s blessing in his provision both now and in the future.

So don’t be embarrassed to use gospel-reasons to promote gospel-giving. You wouldn’t be embarrassed to bless people through prayer so why be embarrassed to bless people through an opportunity to give. Givers who give because of the gospel grow through the gospel – let’s make our motives and our method an opportunity for them to do just that.

Keeping going through financial stress – church planting and fund raising in gospel perspective

At the Planting for Christ Conference held in May I lead a workshop entitled ‘Keep going…through the financial stress’.

Over the past 20 years of ministry I’ve gone through different phases of support and fund-raising from raising an entire salary through support for 3 years, to supplementing a church income and then seeking to lead a church for the past 15 years in which we are constantly seeking to raise new funds through the generous giving of members of the congregation.

Starting and growing a church plant without the necessary financial resources is one of the most significant challenges planters face. From the pressure of raising a family to the realities of an under-resourced plant, from feelings of inadequacy in fund-raising to a general uneasiness in asking others for money, the planter faces the daily challenge of leading a church by inviting people to embrace financial uncertainty. As plants become growing churches, or churches seeking to plant again so the need to keep raising funds over many years brings a different set of challenges and opportunities.

If you want to know the secret of keeping going through the financial stress then here it is:

Only a gospel mind-set that embraces financial pressures as a gospel opportunity for spiritual growth will get us going and keep us going.

How can we learn to rejoice rather than resent ministering in a context that requires us to give a disproportionate amount of time and energy to finances?  As planters, with so many pressures on our time, we need to recognise the gospel opportunities inherent in leading a church through periods of financial stress.

In future posts I will be addressing issues such as ‘what is the impact of living in this way for you as a church-planting family?’, ‘how do you keep going as a family’, ‘what are the challenges and opportunities for the church plant when it comes to financial stress?’ and ‘how do we keep a church going and growing when we are constantly asking members for money?’

In this post I want to simply ask ourselves as church planters

Is depending on others for an uncertain income a good thing or bad thing?

Which church-planter doesn’t simply want someone to write a big cheque to bank-role the plant? But not only is that unlikely to happen but it might just be not very good for us. Perhaps a new mind-set shaped much more by the gospel than expediency or convenience can not only get us through the challenges but produce in us a much healthlier gospel-driven attitude to financing the church not just in a start up phase but for the long ter,

See support-raising as a ministry. It is often the last thing a planter wants to think about but as William Dillon suggests ‘support raising is a ministry. It is not begging people for money. Rather, it is an opportunity for you to share your vision. Support-raising provides opportunity for blessing to those who give to you. And God gives them credit for your fruit.’

Here are a couple of gospel reasons as to why we shouldn’t resent the pressure of living financially dependent on the Lord

1. It is biblical

• The Lord Jesus chose to depend on the generosity of others for his ministry on earth – Luke 8:1-3. It is truly remarkable that the same man who turned water into wine and multiplied the loaves and fishes deliberately decided to live in dependence not just on his father in heaven but on his father’s provision through the support of others.
• The Lord Jesus sent his disciples out depending on God to provide through others – Luke 9:3-4.
• The apostle Paul urged Christians to demonstrate the reality of their faith through partnership in mission – 2 Corinthians 8-9
• The apostle Paul highlighted the spiritual blessings that flowed to those who give generously to gospel work – Philippians 4:17-19

2. It is spiritually health-giving

DL Moody said ‘I show my faith when I go to men and state to them the needs of the Lord’s work and ask them to give it.’

• Raising financial support stretches your faith as you rely on God
• Raising financial support sharpens your vision for the plant as you set it forth to others
• Raising financial support trains and equips you to go on raising support for the plant

In the next post we will consider how the gospel enables us to ask boldly those we would like to partner with us in gospel ministry through financial support.

A life of its own – how a city movement multiplies churches

At our 2020birmingham conference last week I outlined 14 different reasons why UK cities would benefit from city-wide church planting movements and in an earlier post I outlined the first 7 reasons. Here we look at reasons 8-14.

8. The quickest way to reach a city is through a church planting movement of self-reproducing churches.

Churches typically plant churches in isolation, although some churches or networks may be able to plant small organic networks within a city.  To reach a city requires a church-planting movement that can only be created by concerted collaboration between churches and networks over a period of time.

Reaching a city requires a self-sustaining movement of church-planting churches, something that has a life of its own. Movement dynamics are only generated and sustained when plants are happening in sufficient number which generates a tipping-point for planting.  To change the metaphor what is needed is a concerted effort to generate enough ‘heat’ to sustain a movement.  In most UK cities that won’t happen unless we reach outside of existing partnerships to work together. Momentum develops as a city network accelerates church-planting and creates a culture of planting across the churches that becomes infectious and as churches plant, share resources, ideas, recruit planters, train interns most quickly through a vibrant city-network.

9. We can work strategically to reach the whole city when we work in collaboration

Reaching new communities and thinking how to reach more challenging communities can best be done together.  In Birmingham the challenge of establishing  gospel-communities for every section of society and every people-group seems too big for us as busy churches and pastors – creative collaboration helps overcome inertia when it comes to the bigger challenges.

10. City networks invite and promote partnership with non-Church planting churches

Churches that would not identify themselves as church-planting churches have a role to play in a city network.

• Adopting a church-plant: prayer, giving, sending, training leaders

It also helps partner churches consider whether they might be able to church plant themselves.

11. Working together in cities is a powerful witness to the gospel

Jesus prayed in John 17:20 ‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’

12. Working together develops a healthy gospel mind-set that trains your congregation to live with gospel priorities

Working with churches that differ from you on secondary issues requires three gospel qualities.

A generosity of spirit – working wherever we can with gospel churches

‘Invisibility’ – City movements do not ‘own’ the church-plants but instead bless and work alongside planters and their plants. That is something that happens quietly and behind the scenes. Members of the plant may not even be very aware of the support and help the planter is receiving. In Birmingham the ‘2020’ label does not appear

Kingdom mind-set – We must get the gospel out and rather than seeing other churches as unwelcome rivals we rejoice in the work the Lord is doing through planting across a city.

13. Working together is a massive encouragement to our congregations

Our experience in Birmingham has been that congregations thrive when churches work together. Many Christians long for greater unity across the churches and

14. Working at a city level allows for local, flexible expressions of partnership

City movement will need to look different from one city to the next. The model for such movements allow for a high degree of flexibility.

The most effective way to reach your city for Christ

Three 2020 planters share their experiences at the conference

On Tuesday 2020birmingham held its annual conference with over 100 people representing 40 different churches and organisations – thinking, praying and planning to reach our cities for Christ. As part of a workshop for city leaders and catalysts I gave the following introduction to what we had discovered over the past 5 years.

Three gospel principles that compel us to partnership

Gospel partnership is borne out of gospel need – the size and scale of the task in reaching a city for Christ compels gospel churches to work together in planting. c.f. Romans 15:23-33

Gospel partnership builds healthier churches – working across denominations, being generous in giving-away resources (finances,people, training-time) to churches that don’t belong to our own organic networks, all demonstrate a kingdom-mindedness that honours Christ. Such sacrificial service of other individuals, plants and churches creates a culture that in turn builds a healthy local church. c.f. 2 Corinthians 8-9.

Gospel partnership blesses gospel churches – Christ honours those who display the unity for which he too prays and each church is encouraged and blessed by the fruit of working together. c.f. Philippians 4:14-19

So here, in bullet-form, are the first seven of at least 14 reasons why city movements are the best way to reach our cities for Christ.

1. Churches planted with local support have a better chance of succeeding

Better ‘real-time’ support, coaching and mentoring through regular meeting, prayer, etc. with fellow planters working alongside. In 2020 a new planter meets every 2 weeks with fellow planters in the city for the first 2 years.

The likelihood of a church survivability increases by 135 percent when the church planter meets at least monthly with a group of church planting peers. Ed Stetzer.

The 2020 Planters Forum

2. Working alongside other planters in a city gives you a real head-start in contextualisation

The challenges and needs of a particular city/community can be discussed, understood and worked through more closely and with greater understanding with the local knowledge that is available in a city network than that offered by national church-planting movements.

3. A church-planting movement in a city is best equipped to reach out into the neighbouring satellite communities.

A village or town of say 10,000-20,000 is unlikely to be the focus of a national network but often that town is relationally networked to a larger city and can be best reached as an extension of that network. It is an easier ask to persuade a planter and team to go into these communities that border a city than for someone to come from outside the area.

4. Working together enables speedy learning and quick responses

Along with meeting regularly with other planters, seeing what they are doing by visiting enables speedy learning.

5. It complements rather than competes with national denominates or networks

A city movement is not an alternative to being part of a national initiative but a natural complement. National initiatives will be best equipped to provide assessment, theological training, financial support, resources and people from outside of the city.

6. A city network facilitates fund-raising especially for plants that would otherwise go overlooked

• Being part of a local network can open up new contacts. One particular trust fund has now given to 4 of the 2020 plants who would never have known it existed. The trust fund, familiar with the aims and objectives of 2020 is keen to receive further applications and there is a mutual understanding that exists because of the previous applications.
• City patrons. Working together we can encourage greater generosity from those who are committed to the city of Birmingham as a whole rather than an individual community or national network/denomination
• Fund-raising together – 2020 Church Planters Fund is a pot of money available to planters from within the city movement itself. Churches in the city have given generously along with donors and we are in the process of fund-raising from other parts of the UK and wider afield.

7. It facilitates further expressions of gospel partnership as it builds relationships of trust between churches in a city

Working together in one area (church-planting) facilitates the relationships that encourage partnership elsewhere. For us that has included a number of plants working to establish a Christians Against Poverty Centre.

Birmingham the second best city in Western Europe to invest in.

US Analyst puts Birmingham only behind Barcelona when it comes to cities to invest in across Western Europe.

1. Barcelona

2. Birmingham

3. Dublin

4. Madrid

5. London

What if you’re not really having the time of your life?

A very helpful article on life in your 20′s.

(HT: Ash Cunningham)

All you need to know about how to spend your money

Want to know what to do with your money? Randy Alcorn in his book The Treasure Principle highlights 6 keys to shape our attitude to wealth and giving. 

Key 1: God owns everything. I’m His money manager. (We are the managers of the assets God has entrusted – not given – to us.)

Key 2: My heart always goes where I put God’s money. (Watch what happens when you reallocate your money from temporal things to eternal things.)

Key 3: Heaven, not earth, is my home. (We are citizens of ‘a better country – a heavenly one.” Hebrews 11:16)

Key 4: I should live not for the dot but for the line. (From the dot – our present life on earth – extends a line that goes on forever, which is eternity in heaven.)

Key 5: Giving is the only antidote to materialism. (Giving is the joyful surrender to a greater Person and a greater agenda. It dethrones me and exalts Him.)

Key 6: God prospers me not to raise my standard of living but to raise my standard of giving. (God gives us more money than we need so we can give – generously.)

Learn the true way of coming to peace

In my reading this morning I came across this section from a sermon on 1 John 1:1-4 by Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843). M’Cheyne is perhaps best known for his advice in a letter he wrote that the key to transformation in the Christian life is ‘For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ’. The extract from the sermon on 1 John 1:1-4 applies this call to consider Christ to the daily battle many of us face in fighting our fears and anxieties.

Learn the true way of coming to peace.-It is by looking to manifested Jesus. Some of you think you will come to peace by looking in to your own heart. Your eye is riveted there. You watch every change there. If you could only see a glimpse of light there, oh, what joy it would give you! If you could only see a melting of your stony heart, if you could only see your heart turning to God, if you could only see a glimpse of the image of Jesus in your heart, you would be at peace; but you cannot,-all is dark within. Oh, dear souls, it is not there you will find peace! You must avert the eye from your bosom altogether. You must look to a declared Christ. Spread out the record of God concerning His Son. The Gospels are the narrative of the heart of Jesus. Spread them out before the eye of your mind, till they fill your eye. Cry for the Spirit to breathe over the page, to make a manifested Christ stand out plainly before you; and the moment that you are willing to believe all that is there spoken concerning Jesus, that moment you will wipe away your tears, and change your sighs for a new song of praise.”

For an introduction to M’Cheyne you might like to listen to John Piper’s lecture and for more on how looking to Christ helps us to live for him this blog post is really helpful.

The unstoppable gospel – China is about to become the world’s most Christian country

China already has more Christians than members of the ruling Communist Party according to the Economist. Now its set to become the world’s most Christian nation and all in a country that severely represses the church.

Is Richard Dawkins leading people to Jesus?

Fascinating article on the Telegraph web site on the intellectual bankruptcy of the new atheism espoused by Dawkins.

Worth a reading this weekend is this Spectator article on the inability of atheism to provide a foundation for morality and ethics. In Douglas Murray’s piece ‘Can human life be sacred in a post-Christian world?’ his honest answer is ‘it’s disturbingly hard to say so.’

(HT: Tony Watkins)