Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Fundraising is Easy!


That was just a title intended to draw you in. Fundraising isn't easy at all. One of the main facets of what I'm doing these days preparing to launch this new church is raising money. It takes money to launch churches and lots of it!

Raising money's not for me, but someone has to do it and initially it better be me as Lead Pastor. If I'm not able to communicate a clear and compelling enough vision to raise a few dollars, I'm definitely not going to be able to recruit and raise a launch team, and I'm certainly not going to be able to give the new church enough direction and focus to reach it's community for Jesus! Bottom line, if I can't raise the dollars, I can't start and lead this church!

So, for me, a few lessons I've learned in the fundraising trenches (at it a whole 4-weeks!):

1) face-to-face is definitely the way to go
2) make your stuff simple and sharp (if you're talking about starting a great church don't give out crappy informational material)
3) you have to own-it (own the vision! own the task of raising the dollars! if you don't care about what you're doing don't expect others to)
4) think big! (people give big gifts to big vision)
5) don't act desperate (invite people to partner, if they do -great, if they don't - great)
6) get 'er done! (stop tweaking the material, stop planning and strategizing, stop fretting, make the call, set up the meeting, get 'er done!)

God, you never cease to amaze me - help me to trust you, think big, and get 'er done!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The God of Real-Estate

God is a lot of things, one more thing He is... He is the God of Real-Estate. It's all His, right?! He moves it, keeps it, preserves it, and spends it any way He wants. God is up to something big and going to blow us away with what He has planned. He blew me away when HE sold our house in 5-days!!! (They offered our asking price!) Who are we kidding? God is the God of ALL things, including Real-Estate!

Spying out the land...
I also just got back from spending a great couple days in the metro Detroit area. I spent some time driving around and driving around and driving around some more (thanks Jim and Kevin!). Here's what I came away with... THERE ARE SOOO MANY PEOPLE AND THEY NEED JESUS! There are a lot of great places for a church in the Metro Detroit Area, please pray that as God sold our real-estate in 5-days He would point us to the real-estate (ie - community of people) He wants to reach and change for Jesus.

God is up to something and He's going to blow us away!

Friday, July 06, 2007

2nd email subscription test




2nd email test, first one didn't go through

Thursday, July 05, 2007