Getting Others to Invest into the Kingdom

   Hope will not pay the bills even though we should have hope it cannot be placed in finances, it must be placed in God. Prayer will not pay your salary although you should certainly pray for God's provision for your salary. You need to be doing what the Bible says that you should be doing. You need to count the cost, and you need to plan before you build.    

 Bill Henard wrote in an article about the importance of buy-in in your congregation. You must have buy-in for the process to move forward. Buy-in is the beginning point of revitalization and is the ending point. The reason is that it does not matter how well a church's leadership plans and strategies for revitalization, if the church is not on board and ready to learn to embrace the changes necessary to give them and keep them on a growth plane, all the work will be in vain. This coming on board and embracing the changes requires funding from the church and its members. We spend our money on what our hearts love the most. If we are truly committed to the revitalization of our church and our community then we must be willing to open our wallets, checkbooks, and debit cards to the cause of reaching lost people.

           Some will ask where is the return on my investment? Your return is knowing that the work of the Kingdom is being done and done in such a way that last souls are being brought into the Kingdom. How is buy-in and investment in the Kingdom achieved? The following steps will help us to navigate the treacherous waters of finances.

·       Talk with people. Dealing with emotions and people’s pocketbooks can be a tricky area to try to navigate. Talk to the people involved in the investment that you want them to make. Caring for them as if they're part of your immediate family. Avoid speaking to them with speeches and have a real dialogue with them. Think through the following guidelines for healthy conversations:

·        Quantity – give enough information but do not inundate people. Leave them filling informed.

·        Quality - be completely genuine and honest and do not embellish the information.

·        Relational - be relevant and communicate how the change will affect people personally and what will be expected of them.

·        Manner - be clear, brief, and logical; avoid being vague, ambiguous, and wordy.

People are more likely to invest in the ministry and the efforts of the church if they feel that they are fully informed and have a significant role to play in the outcomes.

·       Address the emotions in the room. Work to understand how church members and leaders are feeling about the investment that they are being asked to put their money into. Emotions and hesitation are often triggered by lack of information, new expectations, a lack of structure or certainty, feeling threatened, and being comfortable with the status quo, and not wanting to change. Create acceptance, commitment, hope, and trust by letting people deal with their hesitations and questions, not just facts. For example, people know that the church is declining. Those are the facts. The emotion, however, is a sense of guilt or a fear of the unknown and the future. They need to be able to work through these uncertainties and with your help and guidance and patience they can become a great asset for the investment in the Kingdom. Sometimes it just takes time.

·       Communicate, repeat, communicate, repeat. The leaders who create the need for change fail to understand the frequency of communication that is necessary for people to understand it emotionally, intellectually, and in this case financially. As people deal with their emotions, they are less receptive to believing what they hear. Consistency and repetition are key to helping people to fight the anxiety that goes along with finances.

·       Vary the medium of communication. When people hear the same message from multiple directions, it has a better chance of being heard and remembered, on both intellectual and emotional levels. So, as we stand in pulpits, we need to reiterate the importance of funding the mission. In our newsletters and bulletins, we need to be showing and printing the needed work and the needed funds to accomplish that work. In our board meetings and our informal conversations, one on one, we need to be talking about the mission and what is needed to help carry that mission forward.

Adapted from Bill Henard , How to Create Buy-In for Church Revitalization, Buy-in is the beginning point for revitalization, and buy-in is the ending point, June 11, 2018.