Springfield Church Builds for Mission

by Don Harkey

Six years ago, a Springfield community church asked the question, "why are we here?". Messiah Lutheran Church, located on Seminole street just west of St. John's Hospital, was a 44 year old congregation with a history of being a steady family church. The church was strong, but its members new it could be stronger.

Over the next several years, the congregation spent thousands of hours using hundreds of members to answer this simple question. The answer came out in the form of a mission statement that most members of the church can recite from memory. "Guided by the Gospel we: Welcome All to Worship, Make Disciples, Hunger for Ministry, Nurture Youth, Gather Resources for Growing Ministries, and Offer Healing and Care to All in Need. These are just words... right?

When the process was begun, the church saw an annual income of around $400,000 and attendance right around 80% of its seating capacity. Members knew that the capacity was keeping the church from growing, so they had been talking for many years about expanding the church or moving to a new site. Once the church's mission had been defined, the newly focused congregation began to plan to grow on its existing site.

The subsequent capital funds campaign raised a whopping $1,000,000 over the next 3 years and collected almost every penny of what was pledged (despite the downturn in the economy). With these pledges, the congregation launched a $2.7MM building project that is nearly completed.

This Sunday, barring any significant construction issues, the congregation will worship in its new sanctuary for the first time, within a few months of its 50th Anniversary.

Yes, the congregation is in debt now, but this past Spring, the congregation launched a 2nd capital funds campaign that has already received almost $675,000 in pledges over the next 3 years, which will easily make payments on the loan and pay down principle.

In the past month, the congregation is talking more and more about its vision for what Sunday morning will look like in the newly expanded church. Visitors in the fall should expect to enter Mission Hall and be greeted with opportunities to worship, learn, or just hang out and eat breakfast or drink coffee. Messiah is truly an exciting place!

The point of this story is to show how any organization can transform itself by becoming focused on its core purpose. Messiah was a strong congregation before, but becoming more focused has only made it stronger and more energized. The building project is only the beginning. This fall, the church will host the Lighthouse Daycare Ministry.

Is your organization energized? Do you know why you exist?

The Economic Engine of a Church

by Don Harkey

I want to use my "Free For All Friday" to talk about a few important concepts we have learned in our Vision and Mission journey at Messiah Lutheran Church. We began our journey almost 6 years ago and are continuing today (its a continuous process!).

This week, we talked about what drives an organization. Is it profit or passion? The real answer is both. Great organizations know their passion and understand what drives profits. However, profits is not really the right word here. The right word is resources. Great organizations know their passion and understand what drives resources to their organization. This is true for profit companies and for non-profits.

So what drives resources to a church? The old model is that members of a church will give "X". To get more money, you need to get more members. If you ask for money for something new, you'll need to take away from something old. When money runs low, you ask the congregation for more. If you can keep pressure on the responsibility of being a good congregant, your members will keep giving.

The new model is that members will give when they see a need. To get more money, you show the members the need and get them to buy into it (or not). If you ask for money for something new, you will get extra money as long as the congregation agrees and sees the need. When money runs low, you show the congregation all of needs being filled by the budget or collect enlist most of their involvement in determining the needs to be filled and how to fill them. If you maintain a focus on the mission of the church, your members will keep giving.

This is a subtle, but extremely important difference. If your congregation is spending its time talking about internal power struggles or trivial issues, the church isn't communicating the need for funds and resources will be driven away. If your church spends its time talking about its mission and how it will fulfill its mission, the church will get the resources it needs.

The best example I can give is at Messiah Lutheran Church. 6 Years ago, the annual budget for the congregation was just under $400,000 per year. The church had paid off its mortgage and had just started its mission process. The church was full and knew it needed to expand to grow, but the congregational leadership wasn't sure how to do it. How do you get the resources to grow with a $400K budget already stretched tight?

Once the Vision and Mission of Messiah was defined, the path became clearer. Growing the church was necessary not only to serve our existing congregation, but to serve others and support all of the existing and new ministry opportunities. The congregation charted a course toward growing the church at its existing site, not just to grow, but to fulfill its mission. More than 80% of the congregation voted in favor of the project.

A capital funds campaign was launched to collect 3 year pledges. The congregation, with an annual budget of just over $400K per year at the time, collected almost $1,000,000 in pledges. Over the next 3 years, the church would collect almost every dime. The construction on the $2.7MM expansion was begun and is scheduled to be completed by early summer. The discussion in the church continues to be about fulfilling our mission using these gifts. What happened to our church budget (giving)? It swelled to over $500K per year! The congregation gave more to the project AND more to the operations budget!

While the economy is down, our giving increase slowed a bit, but the congregation continues to stay focused on its mission. The congregational leadership took several steps to control the budget to show good stewardship, but in the midst of what could have been a crises, the congregation continues to stay focused on its mission. This lead the church to the Lighthouse Ministry (read the blog from 3/18/09 for info). This is a $250K ministry that the church is taking on... and the church continues to find the resources to fulfill the mission!

The "economic engine" of the church is when its members have a common mission or purpose. A friend once asked me during our first campaign (we are currently launching a 2nd campaign to pay our debt from the project) how we ask members for money. I told him that we don't ask for money, we ask for mission.

There is a lot to be learned from this experience and I pray that other churches take this to heart. I also pray that businesses look at the lessons learned here. Passion is truly productive!

Scooby Snacks

by Don Harkey

Its 3:20PM and I am running home. I want to get home in time to grab a cupcake for a snack and catch Scooby Doo at 3:30PM. By the way, I'm in the 3rd Grade... or at least I was.

I used to really love Scooby Doo. I would try to guess who the villain was before he or she was unmasked at the end by those "meddling kids". Hanna-Barbera certainly had a formula and within that formula was always a scene where "the gang" needed Scooby to do something dangerous or scary. Scooby would always refuse until someone whipped out the conveniently branded "Scooby Snacks". "Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?" "Would you do it for two Scooby Snacks?" Eventually, Scooby (and sometime Shaggy) would find their price point and decide to take on the task in exchange for the Scooby Snacks.

Many people believe that in business, the "worker" works for their own form of Scooby Snacks. A management professor told me once that his students thought that the only two ways of getting a worker to do something was to "reward them or punish them". No one wants to be the bad guy, so management prefers the reward. If you can hit your targets, I'll give you a bonus.

Many people also believe that profit is what drives a company. It's time to launch that new product line. Would you do it for a Scooby Snack? Would you do it for $140,000 in revenue? So companies and people have a lot in common with Scooby Doo. They trip through life looking just looking for a snack. (Hint: I am being sarcastic here!)

What about non-profits?

The very existence of non-profit organizations challenges our "Scooby Doo View" of people and organizations. Yes, some people get paid to work for a non-profit, but often times the pay is significantly less than they could get doing similar work for a "for profit" company. Churches do most of their work using volunteer labor working for nothing more than a cup of coffee on Sunday morning. What's going on here?

The fact is that while people can be motivated by money, money is a poor motivator. While this may seem counterintuitive within our TV society, it is actually very intuitive if you apply it to your life. What is truly most important to you? If you could do anything right now, what would it be? Are you saying this because of the money you would make?

Consider a person who is paid $50,000 to change diapers, clean up puke, and wait hand and foot on another human being who cannot take care of themselves. Now consider a parent who does the job for nothing (actually at a significant financial cost). What is the difference?

The difference is that people want to have a purpose. The 3 needs that drive motivation are competence, autonomy, and relatedness. The first two are common for people in their jobs. You were probably hired because somebody thought you were capable. Hopefully, you know that you have a choice to go to work or not. However, how do you relate what you do with the others around you and with your core purpose?

"For-Profit" business can learn a lot by looking at Non-Profits. Many of these organizations have low budgets and struggle continuously for resources. However, these same organizations have a clear vision (like Erica at Lighthouse or the great folks at Messiah Lutheran Church) and do amazing things. People are willing to bend over backward when they feel "called" to do so.

The challenge for businesses is to find this purpose. What is higher mission (higher than profits) that makes them special. The story of Pixar is a great example. The people at Pixar have a great passion for making great movies out of great stories. They have a remarkable track record of success. The reason is that they are focused on great stories rather than target markets and projected profits.

Find your purpose and your profits will come!