Watching the numbers

Most blogs, including this one, have a reporting feature that allows you to see how many people have viewed any particular post and when they did so. It can be a useful tool for determining which topics are resonating with your audience and which aren't.

These reports can tend to produce a rather euphoric condition when some posts get significantly more web traffic than average, but the opposite is also true: if there are less page views than normal, it can be a temptation to want to throw in the towel altogether.

Watching your ministry "fund balance" is similar. For many fundraisers, there is one or perhaps a few times each year when your fund balance begins to climb. (This is often around the end of the year, but it may also happen when annual donors send in gifts.) It seems like much of the year, however, the trend is generally downward.

This may be a sign that you need to raise additional support. It may mean that you have delinquent donors to follow up with. Or it may just be that most of your funding comes in spurts, so naturally the rest of the year tends to trend downward. (All three of those things are true of me right now!)

Rather than thinking rationally about those possibilities, however, I usually just react emotionally the moment I see the latest report. If my fund balance is heading upward at that moment, I'm tempted to put my feet up and stop fundraising altogether. "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry!" (Luke 12:19) If it's trending downward, however, I immediately assume that the world is ending. The trajectory will no doubt continue to plummet and I'll end up living in a cardboard box. I'll say to myself, "God has surely forsaken me! Woe, woe to me! I'm going to go from zero to box in 2.7 weeks! All is lost!"

But maybe you're holier than I am. If so, you can move on with your day now. If you ride the same emotional roller-coaster I do, however, let's look together at three Biblical truths that can help us:

You'll never have enough

Billionaire John D. Rockefeller was once asked, "How much money is enough?" He responded, "Just one dollar more." How true! How many page views would truly satisfy me? At what point would I know I had enough funding? Even if I had a truly viral post or received a $1M gift, I'd still keep looking to the next one because the results wouldn't last.

The truth is that deep within all of us is a God-given longing for something more. The question to ask ourselves is, what is that something? Unless your answer is "Jesus Christ", you'll always be left unsatisfied. You'll never have enough.

God loves the rebound

I don't claim to understand this completely, but God loves the rebound. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's turning an upward trend downward or turning a downward trend upward - the Bible is full of God doing both.

Perhaps it's because God is so opposed to the proud but so gracious to the humble (James 4:6) that He causes the strong to be brought low. Perhaps it's because He is glorified when weak men demonstrate His power (1 Cor 1:26-2:5). Perhaps it's because our favorite Bible stories are of the very low skyrocketing to fame, like the armor-less shepherd slaying the giant with a stone or of the unarmed slaves escaping countless Egyptian chariots through a wall of water. Whatever the reason, God loves turning things around. So it shouldn't surprise us when He rebounds our blogging influence or our financial security.

Your value is not in the numbers

"Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32) Did you catch that? Jesus emphasizes that the flock was not large but the reward could not be greater. God does not give proportionally as we might expect. That's because our value is not in what we have or what we create or even how many of us there are. Our worth is in His sovereign choice to love us. He decided this before we had anything at all - yes, before we were even born.

The impact of this blog and the state of my fundraising is already known to the Lord and He will accomplish exactly what He wants in exactly the way He wants at exactly the time He wants.  My degree of euphoria or depression as a result of watching the numbers while this take place makes no difference whatsoever.


These are wonderful truths worth considering regularly. May we all have a response of faith to trust in Him next time we see our reports, regardless of which direction they're trending.

Unless this blog entry doesn't go viral. Then I'll throw in the towel ;)

Calling delinquent donors: Part 1 - Recognizing fears

Calling referrals is scary. Cold calling is worse. But nothing paralyzes more quickly than needing to call delinquent donors.

That's my experience, at least.

Why is it so paralyzing? Because all my worst (and completely rational, I assure you) fears come crashing in when it comes to calling delinquent donors. I've logically concluded that one or more of the following must be true:

They hate me.

And why shouldn't they? I'm sure all the other missionaries they support are much better at staying in touch, at remembering the details of their lives, at winning souls, and basically at all of life. Like Sam. Yeah, they're comparing me to Sam The Super-Missionary and have become so disappointed that they cut off my support. In fact, they're just waiting for me to call and ask about it so that they can show me the error of my ways. They've been keeping a list of them, you know. And with every day that passes without me calling, they add 3-5 more things to the list.

Something terrible has happened to them and I'll have no idea what to say.

What do you mean, this is a selfish perspective? Sure, there's a huge ministry opportunity there and so far most of their friends have avoided calling or just patly assured them that, "God is in control." Sure, they're hurting and could really use someone to talk to. And yeah, I even suppose that sharing some of what God is doing in my ministry could possibly encourage them and build their faith... but what if it's awkward? I should probably just hope that things get better and they'll start giving again on their own. After all, God is in control!

They're too busy

Their time is valuable, you see. Lots going on. All four kids are involved in six different activities, each of which is increasing in cost exponentially every year. The husband is changing jobs and likely making something like half of what he was before. Plus the wife is caring for her sick mother while maintaining a blog that daily encourages pastors' wives around the world. So, if I were to call, wouldn't that just be arrogance on my part? In the midst of all that's happening, why should I think my ministry is a priority? It'd be rude, really. I've got other things I have to focus on anyway. It's not that I don't want to call... it's just that my time is valuable, you see.

They don't care

They don't. And won't. Nothing I can do, so why bother? And come to think of it, most of the rest of my support team probably doesn't care either. I should probably just stop making calls tonight. Better luck tomorrow. Wait, what? I'm the one who doesn't care? Nonsense!!


Okay, so maybe that's not all completely rational.

A much more rational perspective is... coming tomorrow (including the Biblical encouragement part!)

In the meantime, consider these questions and leave a comment to share your thoughts:

1. For what other reasons are you scared of calling delinquent donors?
2. Have you ever tried writing out your thought process (as I did above)? What difference has it made in your thinking?

The slippery slope

Right now I'm in a period of trying to raise some additional funds.  We don't need a whole lot more, but it's enough where I can't just hope that a few people will randomly increase and we'll be done.  (Is that ever the case, really?)

Because we don't have a lot to raise, I've generally felt pretty happy about the state of our fundraising.  I made some plans to raise the extra I needed, but I wasn't stressing about it at all.  Everything seemed just fine!

Until about three weeks ago.

In rapid-fire succession, one donor lost her job and dropped $100/mo.  Another donor told us that he felt called to assist a friend going out onto the missions field and is transferring support there.  Another donor had a family crisis and will likely be dropping in the near future.

Suddenly I felt as if I were on a very slippery slope.  What if others also drop?  How much more am I going to have to raise?  Is this the beginning of the end?  Should I polish up my resume?

Sound overly dramatic?  It is.  But it's what goes through my mind whenever that kinda thing happens.

The truth is that I was indeed on a slippery slope, but the slippery slope wasn't that of money.  It was that I was trusting in the money rather than the Lord.  Somewhere along the line I'd gone from depending on Him for every dollar coming in to assuming I had it all under control.  "Thanks for that initial boost, Jesus, but I can take it from here.  You might want to go check out some of those other fundraisers who still need You, though."  I'd never actually say that, but it was how I was acting.  I maybe even fooled myself into thinking that I was still depending on Him, but I wasn't fooling Him.

And so I consider this drop in support as an act of mercy.  That's because I need a regular reminder that He's saved me from the most slippery of all slopes.  The book of Titus says it well:

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7 ESV, emphasis mine)

I tend to think about the words "save" and "savior" too lightly.  I easily forget what the words mean because I don't often feel like I need to be saved from anything.  But if you've ever been sliding down a truly slippery slope, falling with no hope of stopping until you smash into something at the bottom, the words take on fresh meaning.  And that's what it sounds like in the passage above.  We were so totally far gone, beyond hope, foolishly and disobediently flying head-first down the slope to hell - and all the while we were led astray such that we didn't even know there was a problem.

It's off that slippery slope that God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Savior, saved us.  Jesus did this willingly by sacrificing Himself for you, for me, and for all those He's going to use us to reach as a result of our fundraising.

So let's remember that slippery slope He's pulled us from.  In comparison, these dips in support aren't that big of a deal.  Rather, consider them a gracious means by which He is reminding us to cling more tightly to Him than to our support levels.  If He's saved us from the most slippery of all slopes, He'll certainly help us out through every other slope we'll encounter (Romans 8:32).