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Your Turn 4: Generous Missional Giving
You all had some great ideas on buildings. I’m excited to hear more from you today.
You’ve been leading your church for 10 years. God has given you a larger and more significant ministry than you ever dreamed possible.
(I know some of you don’t like large churches. Too bad. You lead one now.)
Because you’ve been faithful and God has blessed you, you now have $1 million a year to give somewhere outside your church.
What are you going to do with $1 million each year to make a difference?
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i’m probably asking myself what percentage does $1mm represent of our budget then continue to strive to increase our missional giving to 50% if possible.
i would concentrate the majority in our community through need-initiatives and some established…dhs, shelters, food banks…but also new outreach. i think our goal should be to meet needs in terms of food, shelter, and helping people reconnect with society.
i am currently talking to children’s hunger fund about efforts in okc, so i would allocate resource there as well.
I think I would pour that money into ministries targeted at at-rick children and families. Statistics show that the earlier we reach somebody, the better. What would it be like to raise up hundreds of Christian fostercare families? What would it be like to make sure that a village in Africa had a free school?
YIPPEE! My favorite topic–if I had a million, how would I use it!! I think I would follow the scripture “What does the Lord require of you? Only to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”
I would try to evenly split the funds between causes of justice (battered women’s shelters, abused children–see love146.org, and the like) and causes mercy (medical clinics, homeless shelters, etc.).
I guess all that’s left is to start praying for 2 million for next year!
Wow.. One million dollars. That could save countless families through out the world. That would be so much fun to be able to actually change someones world. We would pray and see where God leads. I would like to start in one village at a time.. provide whatever they need…water, food, shelter, safety, clothing, and Jesus. One location at a time.. “A million dollars a year to reach over a million lives in our lifetime.” That would be our slogan.
Niger. We have recently been supporting a ministry in Niger. Niger is the least developed country in the world (according to the UN) and this ministry is headed by a local Nigerien man. He has a ministry that is reach many people through medical, water wells, job training, hygiene, agriculture, food banks and of course evangelism. $1 million would make a huge difference, not just for that ministry, but the entire country. A country that is 80% muslim. I know I’m biased because I’m emotionally wrapped up in it, but you’ve gotta go with your passions!
Misions:
*International
*Local Micromissions
Ministries:
*Inner City Youth
*Prison Ministry
*Church Plants
“jerusalem” - $250,000.00
“judea” - $250,000.00 ACTS 1:8
“samaria” - $250,000.00
“the ends of the earth” - $250,000.00
ask the Lord to give the leadership wisdom in what the specific ministries would be.
I am assuming this is just a “giving” budget, and over and above budgeted ministries lke church planting, local missions etc… etc…
750,000 Overseas…
(China, Asia, and Africa to support the churches in those sections of the world who are poor, and lack resources, but that God is doing tremendous things through to provide bibles, churches,schools, and fresh water)
The rest for local missions, like feeding the homeless, single mothers, and the widowed…(you can do a lot with 250,000)
I would use the full million to reach an unreached peoples group in Indonesia. With Indonesians as our missionaries.
Great Question, and I always like to answer questions with questions. Are we talking about one million dollars for missions, or for missions and ministries outside the four walls of the church? If we are talking just missions, I would invest it in fulfilling the Great Commission. I would set up training for church memebers and those in the mission target area on how to evangelize, disciple and to start new reproducing churches that would not be dependent on the million dollars. The key word is invest, not spend. What would be like a seed and would continue to grow, even after the seed is gond. As you can tell, my heart is toward investing in the Kingdom, which will go further than just the million dollars. Start new reproducable churches. That is what I would do.
Our church is partnering with a ministry that reaches AIDS orphans in Swaziland, Africa. The nation is so devasted by AIDS that it will be gone in 20-40 years unless something is done! For $1,000,000 we can reach over 10 communities with a new church - with many ministries, 2 orphanages, staff for both and it would self-sustaining in 2 years! This is incredible!!! We are planting our first one this spring - I can’t wait to see what God will do!
Here is our plan - http://www.clcdayton.com/300070.ihtml
Well,
I’m going for…
700,000 overseas
250,000 invest in local community projects - in my area of the UK this would cover the complete running of a project that does valuable work within the community.
50,000 emergency ministry fund. accessible so the Church could be a blessing when/if an emergency happens around the world. I’m thinking back to the Tsunami and our church being able to give a large amount of cash to help projects.
I would find 9 church planters and send them for the best training we could find.($90,000)
I would then send them out to plant a church ($810,000).
I would also find 9 churches in 3rd world countries and set up a fund to help them over a period of years.(90,000) Not sure how far $10,000 goes in a third world country, but I’m thinking it would be like $100,000 here.
I would create a program to help people get the training and help they need to get a quality job to get them off the streets and out of poverty …also help with basic medical, dental, emotional, child care, resume needs.
I would create a center that would allow people to work and create experiences that translate into job skills which would catapult them into a new level of self worth and freedom by them ultimately obtaining a quality job… all in the name of God!
ok - i am 23 years old. i have no idea what a million dollars looks like. i can’t comprehend that.
that being said - i think i would use half on local missions:
soup kitchens
food pantries
homeless shelters
teen pregnancy centers
and the rest internationally (mainly africa)
building wells
buying vaccines
educated children
In the spirit of Acts 1:8…
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
…I would divide that amount evenly among: an organization/ministry that is local; one that is in the U.S.; and, one that is overseas (likely in India or central Africa).
Hope everyone is remembering to check-out flowerdust.net, ragamuffinsoul.com and other blogs of folks in Uganda now with Compassion.
$900,000 into the development of a community center in our city that merges biblical life with career training. I would love to be able to help single mothers get a new start on life by offering them career/college training a place where they could come and bring their child and learn online and get their college degree.
$100,000 into missions in India.
My first thought is “Man Lord, I gotta pray!” (I have this crazy idea of being a good steward). Then it would be moving into action. Our church has several of our folks who are working in Brazil, Liberia, and Haiti. I would check to see what their “dreams” are for their mission. I also believe the local ministries like CPC, Hannah House (Bloomington, IN that houses pregnant women and new moms) and carefully screened “works” should receive some. I would also set aside some for local benevolence work our church does (building ramps, etc) for the community. I have set percentage I am thinking about for any of this just the plan to give it all away. Doe sending the pastor & his wife to Alaska count as a mission trip?
Off the top of my head, I would give it all to Blood:Water Mission - a great organization that is able to provide clean water for one person for an entire year for $1. It is an awesome group, but has not received significant giving yet, so it would be awesome to be able to give them a significant donation. But then again, that may just be me dreaming because my church is raising money during Lent to give to Blood:Water Mission, and my dream would be if we could raise enough money to build a well (which they tell me is about $3,000). My basic math skills tell me that 1,000,000 would fund 333 wells with some change to spare! That would be awesome.
2 things:
1. Firm up or start-up significant ministries to orphans and widows (mostly internationally).
2. Use the funds to leverage almost every person in the church on foreign soil to look orphans and widows in the eye.
3. Figure out what to do with all the money the people would give when their lives are captured by #2 :>
–repeat–
Wow - all of you guys are absolutely amazing!
With all the criticism of Christians and Christianity today - then I read your heart’s mission in your comments and am reminded that Jesus’ shed His blood to make people just like you the people you are! warriors every one. I’m blessed to read every one of the words you each have contributed.
ARC! ARC would start 30 churches with it that each give 10% to missions the first year (say $30,000 ea). That adds up to $900,000 for missions. This thing gets exponential almost immediately, then Jesus comes.
First off PRAY!!!!!
THEN GO SLOW, don’t worry about spending it all in one night… or one elders or other board meeting.
Then using Acts 1:8 as a model…Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the remotest parts of the world would get an equal $250,000 each.
Then look at the following criteria:
1) The least reach people groups in each of the Acts 1:8 areas…
2) Find the poorest
3) Those most in need of the Kingdom of God
Invest the $250,000 for each area to where those criteria are met.
Invest it - don’t spend it!!
I think God expects us not to just give it away to things that make us feel good - but give to things that actually make an eternal difference and bring a return on investment (Parable of the Talents).
Invest in Church Planting - investing in new churches that will give even more to missions - it multiplies your missions dollar.
Like Leadership - then you affect hundreds of others that they touch - not just one person at a time (I call it top down ministry - not bottom up).
We will have to give an account to God (He’s an accountant). He wants bottom line results.
I’m all about ROI, so here’s my 3 choices:
1. 1040 Window - no where in the world can reach as many people with a certain amount of $ (at least that’s what I hear) because of the great percentage of people that don’t have a relationship with Jesus.
2. Church Planting - it’s the single greatest way to reach out to the unchurched in America
3. Build Wells for Clean Water - a well can be built for $3,000 - If you were to divide this money into thirds, then you could build a well for clean water for 111 towns. Let’s shoot small and say that there are only 100 people in each town. That gives you the ability to reach out and impact 11,100. And that is shooting extremely low as far as people go.
i agree with jon. A hunk would go to a missions group who supports indigenous missinaries so we can skip all the money it takes to send Americans to other countries. Just use the locals, I say. Y’all are the best!
a moment of clarification…non-English speaking counties. Send all the Americans you want to England!
You know what I’m sayin’, right?
Find matching funds and start locally. Don’t just give to ‘insert favorite cause’, create a fund base for ‘insert favorite cause’. Then go state wide, nationally then globally.
The easy way out is to find 100 of the most generous givers that you know and give them 10K each and tell them to spend it for God.
I would use the million dollars to fund a place for homeless people to come, spend the night when it’s cold, and have local churches donate food to feed them. It would be a tangible way to reach far beyond our community with the needy, but hopefully be a way to unify the body of Christ in the community.
Another idea would be to provide a place where free health care would be provided. I’m sure there are Christ-following doctors, nurses, and administrative assistants. I would love to have a place for people to come and be provided with free health care.
Hi Craig
No doubt you would have heard of ‘THE KINGDOM ASSIGNMENT’ (http://kingdomassignment.com) where a church gave out money to individuals in the congregation.
They had to use the money in what ever wat they could to serve the community and expand the kingdom.
We copied the idea but gave $100 to each of our small groups. The results were fantastic… One group used the money to serve the homeless. Another used it to raise $1000 to get prostitutes off the street. Another served kids in a hospital. Another ran an event for the local high school chaplain…etc.
Benefits…
> It really raised the value of generosity
> It really raised the value of compassion
> It brought our small group members together
> It is not run top down which means little administration, and massive amount of ownership.
> It inspired people to do stuff above and beyond the activity
Therefore - to answer your question, I would allocate some of the money to give to small groups every six months for what we call the ‘$100 project’. We have just done this with our budget.
Mark
I love hearing your ideas! Thank you!
I pray many of you are blessed with such an opportunity one day!
(It is interesting to me that we had more discussion on how to invest $25k than on how to give $1 million. Just thinking out loud…)
Not sure exactly how I would use all of it, but my prayer is that in a church that size would be calling out many to serve Him in fields all around the world. That being the case I would completely support as many as I can. What a joy would it be to have a missionary come home on furlough and actually rest and be involved in the ministry of their home/sending church not spending all there time traveling.
Sponsor 2604 kids at Compassion International.
Supporting church planting movements in the unreached/least reached places of the world would be my priority as well as raising up strong indigenous leadership. There are huge numbers of people in our generation that have little to no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In most of these places, the people live off of less than $2 a day. The poorest of the poor and the most spiritually needy. (see http://www.joshuaproject.net) Go for the “red” and “yellow” areas.
I do disagree in part with Natalie. Sometimes the “locals” aren’t necessarily the best and other times there aren’t any/many local believers/leaders yet, so missionaries from other lands must carry the torch until local leadership can be raised up.
I agree with everyone who says that the planting and multiplying of churches is the priority. Everything flows from that. Great topic.
Rwanda, The Paramore area of Orlando, Rwanda, Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala and, oh yes, Rwanda!
here’s what it’s causing me to think about.
In what ways do I separate the mission from everything else.
My initial response was, everything is and must be missional. To separate mission from any other part of the church is to do an injustice to the gospel. (imo)
Everything is missional to me means, that everything we do is for people outside of us. It is for their benefit, not ours. In other words, I’m personally having trouble thinking about seperating being missional, from staff, building and advertising. I think to compartmentalize it might teach something to people I might not want them to learn.
Also, I’ve never been a fan of hiring a missions pastor, because every pastor is a missions pastor, or at least in my mind they ought to be.
All this is nice in theory and it causing me to think through the process in which people are brought into staffing relationships and motives for buying buildings etc.
Probably split it 5 ways. $200,000 each.
1. Local outreach helping single moms with housing.
2. Orphanages in Africa.
3. Planting churches in the states.
4. Developing leaders foreign countries.
5. Mission projects all the way from church planting to digging wells. Read that more people die from lack of water than aids.
I would split the money up the same way we are now sending our church tithe. 25% International, 25% National, 25% Local ministries and 25% Individuals that are from our church that are doing mission work wherever.
Send as many of our families on a short term mission trip in the following way:
Pray about a destination, say introductory mission trip to Cozumel. Ask for an entire family to go together. This is as much about a family developing a Kingdom mindset as it is missions. Then pay for the whole family to go.
Ask for as many families that are willing to go during:
1) Spring Break (emphasis on prayer and preparing the location)
2) Summer (emphasis on Evangelism)
3) Fall (emphasis on discipling the new believers and equipping them)
4) Winter (emphasis on building or renovating and finding a church facility)
The great thing is, in one year, hopefully all families have seized an opportunity to participate in missions and grow much closer together as a family with their church Family and planted a church to boot!
After an introductory place like cozumel or cancun (101 level) other trips can be taking place on a 201-401 level to other places that normally wouldn’t have appealed to families but now that the missional bug has bitten them and finances are not an issue, every family every year can be part of a movement.
But what if it worked in one church? And now 100 churches are sending out multiple teams each year? Within 20 years, there would be no unreached people group or country left unreached!
And now the early church plants are reaching their native folks with hopefully the same missional dna instilled in them.
Lastly, I’d set up partnership with Christian Colleges, Seminaries, and churches to help train the pastors God raises and train them in sermon prep, small groups, leadership, and equipment use (how cool would it be if each new church plant pastor could be connected via internet so churches around the world can give to each other as any had need?)
Call me an idealist but, this is my vision and part of the dna I’m trying to instill in our new church.
I would invest it in a ministry called MANNA Worldwide. You can find out more about it at http://www.mannaworldwide.com
The thing I wonder about when I see dollar amounts going to anything is, how much money it takes in admin cost to give away a million dollars. People on salary to plan/oversee, get people to and from sites, food, possibly boarding.
This is one of the reasons I like that we pay a portion of our way to micro missions and other trips. And, by the way, I’m glad we started car-pooling instead of taking those big buses to mission sites.
I’m certainly not trying to rain on the parade of giving away a ton of money, just wondering what cost there is. Talking about such things lets us analyze how to “do more for less.” I’m loving the themes I’m hearing this year. Its a good time to be a Christ follower.
I’m leaving for Liberia and Sierra Leone tomorrow morning to carry the cross with Keith Wheeler (out of Tulsa, OK). If you’ll give us the $1 Million, I’m sure we can find plenty of wonderful things to do with it! :o)
As I read all 41 comments before mine, I am filled with joy to see so many wonderful brothers and sisters with visions and plans to reach and serve the world.
Let’s all start praying for a million bucks…
Here’s what I’m wondering–if Craig had said $10,000 rather than a million, would your answer change?
Prayerfully give towards drug and alchohol outreach programs. Commit to bringing individuals in that can not afford treatment. And of course…campus development.
I wouldn’t let it burn a hole in my pocket for sure!
1. Meet local needs by partnering with local agencies/ministries
2. ARC for local churches in the states
3. Overseas/missions
To an organization that is planting churches among unreached people groups.
[...] Craig Groeschel on “Generous Missional Giving.” [...]
plant other churches here and across the ocean
build tons of water wells in africa
give to the poor, homeless, orphans of my community