Friday, December 14, 2007

Call To Repentance

What do we Want?

"Hello, this is Tim Rickel with World Gospel Mission calling. The purpose of my call today is simply to thank you for your involvement with WGM in missions."

This has been a common beginning to many phone conversations this fall as my coworkers and I have been calling all of our donors simply to thank them for engaging in missions with us. People have been surprised and grateful. But there was one reaction I personally wasn't expecting.

One of my coworkers was on the phone with an elderly donor. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm 81 years old and have given all I can this year."

"Oh, ma'am," he replied, "I am only calling to say thank you!"

And then, the lady broke down and cried.

This, then is the result of years of marketing research in the Christian non-profit fundraising sector. A dear saint, upon receiving a call from us, can only imagine that we are calling for a donation.

And she isn't alone. The most common reaction to our calls has been the hesitant question as the call winds down, "Aren't you going to ask for money?"

What kind of relationship has resulted in this situation. Certainly not a Biblical relationship. I am reminded of how Paul writes the Philippians in chapter four. This is from The Message.

" 4:1 My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride. Don't waver. Stay on track, steady in God."

And then these verses

10-14I'm glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you're again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don't have a sense of needing anything personally. I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don't mean that your help didn't mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.


Paul's total communication about their giving is about how it benefits them, not Paul. His joy is in what is happening in their lives.

I think a good season of repentance is in order for activities that have created a reaction of dread rather than delight when people receive a call from the agency that they partner with in ministry. May God help us to value our partners and to call them because we want to know them better and to delight in what God is doing in their lives rather than to "update" them on our activities and "make the ask" to supply our needs.

This doesn't mean we will never ask them to be involved in ministry through a financial gift, but that should only happen based on what God is doing in them rather than what we are doing in our ministries. And that knowledge only comes through genuine authentic relationship.

What do you think. Am I overreacting, or do I have a point?

3 comments:

Tim and Laurie said...

Thanks John Lee for pointing out that I had anonymous comments turned off on comments. Now anyone can post a comment. We'll see what happens!

Z said...

Thanks, Tim. I am very glad that you at headquarters are doing this and that it is going so well. Once again, I appreciate the heart of WGM; you all keep confirming to me that I have gotten in to a good group of people.

Really, I do not know how to properly express to those people that make missions possible how much they mean to me. I say thank you and I write thank you notes, but I do not think that they ever see what kind of heroes they are to me. In their eyes, I am this strange, amazing person who is setting off into the unknown, et cetera, et cetera. In my eyes, they are the oddly fantastic ones.

They are the ones who have to faith without sight. They give and give and give to people that they do not know, for projects that they’ve never seen, in places that are nigh unpronounceable and in return they get missionary newsletters and opportunity for more faith. Isn’t there something vastly heroic about living through your own day to day struggles and hardships, but having a heart that has been so opened and is so filled with love that the struggles and hardships of some stranger on the other side of the globe matter, really matter. They matter enough to think about, pray about, meet about, and to give about. They have families and jobs and plenty of worries that most would say excuse them from caring so sacrificially, and, yet, here I am on the opposite side of the planet being sustained because of them.

Sometimes things are rough on HMA, but, for the most part, we missionaries get put up on a pedestal when we speak at churches. People say things like, “Oh, I could never do what you are doing.” If only those people knew that I am traveling to another country with the goal of being like them: faithful, peaceful, gentle, generous, kind, normal, winsome: beautiful. I see Jesus in them. That is the reason their hearts are so big. That’s why they care. I want to be like that.

(Sometimes I wonder if the emphasis of my calling in relation to what I do deemphasizes the extraordinary nature of what they do. Sometimes it seems like missionary rhetoric is like a nose trying to convince the body that it is the most needful part of the body, instead of emphasizing the body-ness of the body. Just a thought.)

I grew up in Little Country Church. I got to see many missionaries in my life, and that is part of the reason I am here in Japan right now. However, probably an even bigger part of why I am here is because I got to see a few people who loved missionaries and just loved people consistently, faithfully, sacrificially – and never stopped. That is something incredible. The way they loved me was great, but the way the showed me how big and powerful love can be when it is extended as far as it will reach changed my life. How do I say thank you for that? How do I let them know that they are giants in my eyes? They are too normal, balanced, and full of humility to ever see themselves that way.



So, thank you for thanking people just because. It is a good thing, and it probably carries a little more meaning coming from headquarters than a note from me – the obvious beneficiary of their gift. I am so grateful that HQ staff was willing to do this, because I imagine there are lots of awkward and frustrating calls as well, and plenty of other things to do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, it is 3:00 am and Becky wants me to bake cookies tomorrow; another wild day in Japan.

Zach

Z said...

Wow, that's long.