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Marv was a dynamic 41 year old visionary who took the challenge of a lifetime when he left a young, vibrant mission agency to take the helm of a larger, decades-old ministry stuck in the past. As he got to know the staff the first few months, he jotted down a number of unhealthy attitudes and issues he sensed had formed and hardened over the years. He was tempted to pull out a jackhammer, break it all apart and start over, but he wisely took a deep breath, bowed and prayed, “Oh God, only You can re-create the DNA of […]

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After failing to deter a young woman from aborting her baby, Rebecca decided to launch a problem pregnancy ministry in a huge west coast city. The vision had started small, but now, ten years later, it had grown into numerous branches with over 30 full-time workers. From the very beginning she had determined to model to her staff exactly what she was asking them to do. Consequently, Rebecca raised every penny of her own personal support and trained all of her staff to do the same. That worked fine in the early stages, but over time she became more and […]

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Baxter was a fun-loving visionary who attracted all kinds of sharp and gifted people to him and his ministry. He not only made them feel like they had a unique contribution to make, but also that they would forever be his best friend! Early on, Baxter decided to draw upon his vast number of successful business friends to fund all his organization’s needs. This allowed him to recruit impressive staff and develop exciting programs until, after about ten years, he suddenly hit “the wall.” Marathoners know full well the sinking feeling of being halfway through the race when a bomb […]

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The leaders of Campus Challenge* were so anxious to get their new staff to their ministry assignments that they held an emergency meeting on how they could bypass the sometimes long and laborious support raising process. The President (who was on salary) proposed the re-routing of a recent 150K gift to go instead toward subsidizing new staff salaries. The HR director (also on salary) quickly calculated the percentages and yelled excitedly, “We can cover 60% of their first year salary, 30% of the second, and by the third they should all be at full support!” A Regional Director (who’s never […]

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While parenting sons who now are 18, 19, and 20, I’ve seen the value of “tough love.” Over the years, creating firm family policies have given us a sense of direction, stability, even protection. I’ve got a long way to go in leading our family and ministry, but I have experienced the benefit of forming (and enforcing) basic practices that help everyone succeed. Most ministries don’t create this brand of organizational DNA at their founding. I have seen a few groups attempt to “re-create” their DNA after struggling for years, but there is a price to pay. You, as a […]

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1. Ministries do support raising just like they do their witnessing. Those that are not willing or able to ask people to receive Christ in their personal ministry are usually not willing or able to ask people to give during their support raising appointments. We may blame our support failures on lack of contacts, lack of experience, etc…but that’s usually just a smokescreen to hide our fears. The groups that have broken through the faith (and fear) barriers of consistently doing personal evangelism not only attract more staff, but will usually get them to full support much quicker.    2. […]

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The arena was pitch black except for the spotlight on the man performing amazing feats 100 feet above the crowd. We gasped as he let go of one trapeze, do multiple flips, then blindly fly towards a second trapeze he believed would be there. Hoping his hands were not as sweaty as mine, he finally, at the last split second, grabbed the swinging metal bar and made it safely back to the platform. To any rational human being, this high flying spectacle appears as pure lunacy. In the same way, newly accepted Christian workers who deliberately walk away from their […]

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Scenario 1: Brad is a 25 year old dynamo who was recently accepted onto the staff of an agency reaching out to Muslims. He received support raising training, and is now working on it full time, but four months into his efforts, he hit a wall. Person after person he meets with seem to be hesitant to come on his team. When he probes a little deeper, some of his contacts have responded, “Now, isn’t your wife a CPA for the big accounting firm downtown?” How is Brad to respond?    Scenario 2: Sarah is an energetic 32 year old […]

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Backbone. I know we all have one–it’s just hard to find sometimes! Jesus was full of “grace and truth”, but most of us choose grace over truth more than we’d like to admit. Even though exercising tough love with our staff may inhibit some of the close emotional bonding we all yearn for, it’s usually the right path to take. All this to say: you will be doing your staff a huge favor if you do not let them report to their ministry assignment until they have at least 100% of their monthly budget raised (not just pledged). I know […]

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