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This concludes a series of posts on the top three challenges I faced in my first year of planting Calvary Fellowship. The 3rd is...
Making the big ask -When we started the church I had to learn to ask for help. I did step out of my comfort zone initially and ask our friends, family and other churches (softly) to help with the start-up costs of our church. All together we raised $20,000 to cover the basic costs of launching the church (a paltry sum by most current standards). We probably should have done a better job of being more assertive, but honestly I was just uncomfortable making the big ask (don't misread that, I am very good at making a big something else of myself). This did a couple of things; a) It kept the church budget extremely lean and b) it kept me from being focused solely on the development of the church because I had to work an outside job (I received no compensation from the church for the first year).
At the one-year mark a friend told me I really needed to go fulltime at the church to take it to the next level. He was right, and he also had a plan. He showed me a letter that he had written sharing the vision of the church, our mission field, and our current need. He told me that with my blessing he intended to send that to all of his family and friends to ask them to help fund my salary for the next year. I was very moved. Not just emotionally, I was also moved into action! After all, if he could be bold enough to ask his network for help, than how could I not do the same? He contacted everyone he could think of and I contacted everyone I could think of. Together we raised enough money and monthly commitments for me to quit my job and go fulltime with Calvary. That led to me having more time to prepare for the weekend services and to work on the big picture issues of the church, which soon led to more rapid church growth. At present we have 3 fulltime staff people and 1 parttime staff person all funded internally. I am convinced to this day that had I not learned to make the big ask, we would have remained stuck in gear.
Here are some things I learned about making the big ask:
- I thought I was showing humility by not asking for financial help; I now believe it was a form of pride that I had to work through.
- Those that gave financially didn't see themselves as philanthropists, they saw themselves as investors. Many that gave began to pray for us regularly too. To this day people that gave at our early stage tell me how thrilled they were to invest in something that through their partnership is having a great return for God's kingdom.
- People are more generous than you think; by asking I gave them an opportunity to express that.
- The provision won't always come from where you expect. -In some cases, people I never thought would give were generous, and others I assumed would give large didn't do much of anything (in fact even though some commitments where made but never came through we were OK because the resources still came from unexpected places).
- Where God guides, God provides -this ties to the prior point, but I'd like to make a footnote on this one. It's God's job to provide, but He does it through people. Therefore it's not wrong to ask people to help and then trust God for Him to touch the hearts of those He would like to funnel His treasures to you through (I had to learn this because that thinking went against some of what I had learned in some circles.)
I truly hope these lessons I learned the hard way are helpful to anyone doing the challenging but rewarding work of planting a church!
In case you missed them:
Pt. 1 -"Maintaing Life Balance"
Pt. 2-"Managing Expectations"
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