Bryan works for a large mission organization and spends some of his days in a small dark room making copies of DVD’s. Imagine Bryan on a support appointment:
Prospective partner: Bryan, tell me what you do in your ministry.
Bryan: I sit in a small dark room and make DVD’s for Jesus.
Prospective partner: Hmm, I see.
Bryan: Would you support my ministry?
It is not hard to imagine the outcome of that conversation. The odds of this person joining Bryan’s ministry are pretty slim. However, imagine if Bryan’s conversation went something like this:
Prospective partner: Bryan, tell me what you do in your ministry.
Bryan: There are many good ministries to which you can give. A good question to ask is why should consider supporting my ministry.
It is my job to make media tools to reach the world for Christ. The JESUS Film has three evangelistic films, (the JESUS Film, Magdalena and My Last Day) and three discipleship films. When you invest in us, you leverage 26,000 custom DVD’s per year, and that equals 3.7 million people per year who come to Christ.
Revelation 7:9 says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” The JESUS film has been translated into 1200 languages, and we are working on another 865. If the Lord tells us in Rev. 7:9 every language will be represented before the throne, don’t you think the JESUS film is part of God’s heart and He wants us to get the job done?
Prospective partner: That’s awesome!
Bryan: Would you join with me as a partner in my ministry with a gift of $X per month as we take the Gospel to the remaining unreached people groups?”
Gerry Buchholz, the support raising coach for the JESUS Film calls this leveraging. Your objective is to cast a vision to your prospective partners to help them understand why investing in your ministry will exponentially leverage results for the kingdom.
Perhaps you are saying, “My ministry does not have the sizzle of the JESUS Film? My ministry does not have numbers like that.” If the goal of your ministry is to help fulfill the Great Commission, to help take the Gospel to every nook and cranny on this planet (even if your ministry specializes in a certain kind of “nook and cranny”), then the ripple effect of your ministry is greater than you may realize.
All Christian workers (front lines or behind the scenes) who raise support need to take care they do not cast an anemic vision. We must not view our ministry through our limited peripheral vision, but through the expansive lens of God’s eye.
Perhaps this might be a good time to evaluate your support raising presentation. Here are some practical steps to take:
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- Schedule a day with the Lord to re-write your support presentation.
- Grab a colleague who does a good job raising his/her personal support and who will provide you with honest feedback. Role-play your current presentation with your colleague and video it with your mobile device or computer. With your colleague watch the video and ask him/her to point out the strengths and weaknesses of your presentation. Take notes.
- The next step is to write down your answers to the following questions:
- What do I do to help fulfill the Great Commission?
- Why do I do what I do?
- How does my ministry specifically impact the kingdom?
- What would not happen if I did not do my ministry?
- When someone supports my ministry, how does that leverage me for kingdom impact?
- Your colleague’s feedback from your role-play, along with your answers to these questions, will give you new insight and help shape your new “Leveraging Presentation”. Be sure to include what you do, why you do it, and what the kingdom impact will be when someone supports your ministry.
- Ask your colleague to come back after you have written your new presentation and role-play with him again. Video it and get his feedback.
Is it worth all of this pain-staking effort? Absolutely, for our goal is to mobilize people and their resources to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
