An Open Letter to the Christian Family about Generosity to Our Missionaries

Co-authored by Tim Howington and Chris Haas I (Tim) had a world-changing meeting at Cracker Barrell recently. I was privileged to sit down with a young couple committed to reaching college students for Christ. I got to hear about what God is doing as He expands His kingdom in and through these missionaries. Like many other missionaries, God has called them to spread the gospel in a specific part of our world, and they are in the process of raising their personal support. By that, I mean that they are working full time in their ministry and are looking to […]

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The Price of Effectiveness: What Organizational Change Actually Costs

In 1919, Texas Baptists began a ministry for college students. Our first Baptist Student Ministries (BSM) was planted at Texas A&M and UT, but soon included most of the major campuses in Texas. God has done so much in these past 101 years within Texas BSM, so we have a lot to celebrate! While our methods of ministry have changed with the times, our model of funding (until recently) has not. The path from a traditional model of funding into a support-based model has not been easy, but because of our embrace of support raising, we are better equipped to […]

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Setting Your Focus

What to do about what you can’t control for you and your team My wife homeschooled our children for a few years. She did a great job motivating our kids. She set an end of the year reward for the kids to go to an amusement park if they hit their weekly and semester goals. The kids hit their goals and the day trip was planned. One of my children had their heart set on riding one particular ride for months.  The day came and the excitement grew as we stood in line to buy tickets. The gates opened and […]

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Is Your MPD Culture Healthy? Time for a Check Up!

Your MPD culture is healthy if… Your cultural values are consistently and clearly communicated. Imagine you’re a new missionary candidate captivated by the vision of a particular sending agency. When asked about raising support, the recruiter says, “God always provides for those He calls. Don’t worry about the money.” The HR team says, “We’ll train you and coach you in the process, but you should expect it to take 3-9 months of dedicated hard work to reach full funding.” The field leader says, “You can live on a lot less than what those guys are telling you. The important thing […]

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Organizational Resurrection: Where to Start When Your MPD Culture is Broken

Looking back at my personal history of starting new things versus finishing those same things, I am absolutely convinced it is part of our innate human nature to receive greater enjoyment from the excitement of birthing new things. Whether it’s the “honeymoon” phase of a marriage, the exhilaration of a baby being born, or the nervous energy that accompanies starting a new job—we can probably all relate to the unbridled optimism of starting something new. The same holds true of the birth of an organization: when God gives a clear vision to a leader or group of leaders to launch […]

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How Our Asking Has Evolved Through a Contextualized Approach

  In 1 Chronicles is a detailed account of the mighty men who joined David in order to “turn Saul’s kingdom over to him, as the Lord had said.” It mentions a small group of men from Issachar, “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do–200 chiefs, with all their relatives under their command” (1 Chronicles 12:32). One of the challenges we face as Partnership Development professionals is prayerfully seeking wisdom to understand the times. We must stay aware of the context in which we live and minister, discerning how it affects our relationships with those we are […]

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Navigating Müller’s Theology

The Man George Müller was born in 1805 to a family of modest wealth. His father was a tax collector and government official. By the time George was ten he was frequently stealing money from his father’s tax collections. He referred to his adolescent and teenage years as “days in much sin.” George’s father wanted him to prepare for ministry “because of the comfortable, professional future the ministry would afford.” Things didn’t go well in his clerical education, as George drank heavily and lived beyond his means. Despite not having a personal faith, he went on to university to study […]

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Creating a Culture of Thankfulness

As a leader, are you confident your staff and ministry demonstrate timely thankfulness to giving partners? Perhaps you have not given this question much thought, but as a leader I’m sure you realize that both thanklessness and thankfulness are contagious. Here are three benchmarks to help you lead: Do you (and your organization) say thank you immediately? Recently my wife, Alma, and I received an appeal from a mid-career friend who was joining a ministry. We gladly agreed to support her monthly and sent our first gift, then a second, and a third. But neither our friend nor her organization […]

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Support Raising Organizational Health: Culture + Structure + Training + Coaching

After training over 10,000+ ministry workers from over 1,200 organizations how to raise their support through our SRS Bootcamps, and seeing myriads of them get fully funded in months rather than years, our ministry has often become synonymous with this two-day training event. Yes, even though we’ve done hundreds of these Bootcamps in cities all over America for the last 16 years, I need to let you know—we’re no “one trick pony!” I admit, SRS has mainly focused on the support training piece over the years, and not adequately addressed vital aspects of the ongoing coaching required to insure new […]

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WHY HEALTH TRUMPS EVERYTHING

Why Health Trumps Everything from Support Raising Solutions on Vimeo. Our leadership team worked through a great book by Patrick Lencioni recently. The premise is that a healthy team will always accomplish more than a gifted team. If the leaders know how to live a balanced life and then humbly align around a commonly agreed on mission, there is nothing they cannot accomplish! I believe the three bases support raisers must run to have a well-rounded mission are: 1) getting spiritually healthy, 2) becoming vision driven, and 3) reaching full support. And in that order! Most workers we train in […]

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