They (whoever “they” is!) say that “necessity is the mother of invention”. And when you feel so burdened by a ministry calling God has given you, you will do whatever it takes to find the resources to get fully funded and launch into that ministry assignment. In other words: Vision begets urgency, urgency begets creativity, and creativity begets breakthroughs. To affirm that, we used to say, “That’ll preach!” Now we say, “That’ll tweet!”

I am in the process of helping my three-year-old grandson move from babyhood (i.e. diapers) to boyhood (i.e. pants) and it can be a tedious, frustrating experience. If you’ve helped a little one do this, maybe you can see the support raising parallel of what it means to trust God, walk toward your fears, toil like a coal miner on a 12-hour shift, and be forced to (as we say in the South) “put on your big boy pants!” It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but below are real-life accounts of five people who persevered and weathered the storms of support raising and grew up in the process:

1. Jeffery is a campus worker who was getting married in 59 days. He had set a goal of being at 130% support by the day he would be leaving and cleaving. That meant raising an additional $2,200 of monthly support—certainly no small amount. He shared, “As a man, I knew it was my responsibility before God to make sure we were fully provided for. So, I began to pray and beg the Lord to allow me to raise those funds.”When he told me he had acquired the alumni list of his fraternity and he was individually cold calling hundreds of them for appointments, I sensed he was willing to go anywhere and talk to anyone who would listen about his burden to reach students and his deadline to get fully funded. He got a lot of rejections to his requests to meet, but he also got numerous “yeses”—and a load of new ministry partners. No wonder he was beaming like the bright sun as he watched his bride walk down the aisle that day; not only was she stunningly beautiful, but he was praising God for blessing his radical fundraising—and getting to full support.
2. Allison is a missionary in Asia and was scheduled to leave in two weeks. She felt like she had exhausted all her contacts, but was determined to do whatever was necessary to get full funding to be ready for takeoff. So, she got permission from her grandmother to come to her town and neighborhood to go door-to-door asking people to help her complete her support team. Most did not know her grandmother, but Allison introduced herself and shared, “I will be leaving in two weeks to spend 18 months as a missionary in India and I would love to sit down with you for just 10 minutes and share how you can help.”Allison shared her vision and burden to reach Hindus for Christ, showed the neighbors a chart of the levels of gifts she still needed to get to full budget, and asked them to invest. About half of the people she approached supported her in some way which got her to the 100% mark in only two days! She reported back that these people were so impressed with how bold but personal she was, that they were more willing to give her referrals (i.e. point her to other neighbors) than any of her previous appointments!
3. Sean is a mobilizer who got married and later had a child, but was still trying to subsist on a single man’s salary. It wasn’t working! So, after six years of being underfunded, he decided it was time to take action, bear full responsibility for his family and ministry, and get his support (and marriage!) healthy. He had a few key supporters in another state who really bought into Sean’s ministry vision and agreed to help him. He asked each of them to provide 15 names who could be potential appointments for Sean—they came up with 41! He then divided his week into seven days, each with seven 120 minute blocks of time—49 potential appointment slots in all.He decided to call all 41 people the Saturday before he flew out, admitting to me, “I didn’t feel like it, but I picked up that ten-pound phone to set up face-to-face appointments. You get into a rhythm, though, when you’re making back-to-back calls. Conversations starts to smooth out, your nerves settle, and you more clearly articulate your vision the more you repeat it.” He secured 23 appointments that day!
   Sean had no idea how each person would respond, but determined, he was going to ask big. He had given six years of his life to this ministry, and if he didn’t believe in his ministry vision, he had no business asking others to invest significantly! While there, he worked hard, sometimes putting in 14-hour days, starting early in the morning, and finishing at 10 p.m. God was at work and Sean was singing His praise. After all the appointments, and follow-up calls for decisions, the final tally came in: $3,250.00 per month in new support!  It was obvious the Lord honored Sean’s seven days of radical intercession, hard work, planning, and asking.
4. Carissa is a family ministry director who is brutally honest when she shares, “I use to hate support raising. I never thought I could be fully funded and stay there.” But, after years of being underfunded, she stood up at a ministry retreat and made a public commitment to the rest of the staff that she would get to 100% support—and remain there. She called it her “D-Day” and it has set the course for her life and ministry. Yes, she prayed, worked and persevered to get to full support (and ongoing buffer in her account) but she had even bigger motives in mind. Now she had the confidence and credibility to help others get to full funding too. “I asked God to help me get to full support so I could lead other women well. I’ve come to enjoy support raising and I love coaching and mentoring other staff women who struggle with it too.” Carissa started a monthly meeting for all the staff women where they discuss the what, why, and how of raising support. There is a lot of sharing, praying, bible study, and encouragement. They have set a goal of all being at full support by September 1^st and even have a group text to pray for each other as they are walking into
   appointments.
   Carissa’s approach to helping these staff women? “We committed to making this full of optimism and hope. We CAN do this. We won’t always do it perfectly. We will make mistakes and learn from them. But we’ll do it together, never give up, and discover VAST new riches of God’s character through the process.” Wow.
5. You are our fifth story today! Why not? Why can’t your support raising story be like one of these I’ve described? I know each of these four individuals and they have questions, fears and obstacles—just like you and I do! They do not have any extra gifts, blessings or advantages. Each of the four is just an ordinary person who finally embraced an extraordinary God. What if you, once and for all, were to throw your excuses away? What if you were to start smiling at the future and believing that you and your ministry are truly “worthy of the wage” like Jesus says you are in Luke 10:7? And what if you were to begin praying, working and initiating with the kind of urgency and creativity my four friends above have? Would it make a difference?

Friend, God is for you. He isn’t against you. The Lord wants to get you to the ministry assignment He has called you to as quickly as possible. He also delights in providing you with all the resources you need to maximize the fruitfulness of the family and ministry He has given you. You have a radical, vision-driven God who desires to use this whole support raising challenge to develop those same characteristics in you. Will you let Him?

**When you have a radical, vision-driven “God story”, write it out and send it to us at info@supportraisingsolutions.org. Your support raising experience might just be the hope and encouragement others need to make it up the mountain!