Thoughts and insights on all things 'Gathering'.

I’ve been reading more stories about teaching philanthropy to kids by handing them funds to give away.  One article had a well-meaning foundation settling $100,000 on a group of college students and challenging them to figure out the best way to dispense the money.  The amounts are all over the map but the assumption is the same: If we give kids our money and help create a structure they will learn to give.  For instance,

Students in a new philanthropy course in the University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy awarded $100,000 in grants to seven Charlottesville-area nonprofits.The grant funding was provided by the Once Upon A Time Foundation to encourage students to think about philanthropy, said the course instructor, Paul Martin, Batten's director of professional development and a former chair of the City of Charlottesville's Community Development Block Grant Task Force. The 28 students, representing 17 majors from across the University, spent the semester deciding how to award this $100,000 – acting, in effect, like a miniature private philanthropic foundation, Martin said. Starting on the first day of class with 46 letters of inquiry from local charities, the students did research, site visits, interviews and other due diligence to whittle the field to seven organizations that work on poverty alleviation and youth development. "We quickly all learned that giving away money is difficult," said Mary Kate Steinbeck, a fourth-year sociology major in in the College of Arts & Sciences. "Especially when you have 30 different voices of passion coming into the class with different ideas of how best to spend it."

I would suggest what the foundation taught the students was not how to be personal givers but how to be what we call a “philanthropoid”  – and those are two different skills.  That is why I always argue for parents and well-intentioned people to match the giving of kids and students rather than give them their money to, as the article says, “spend”.  Unfortunately and sadly, this kind of giving almost inevitably ends up teaching more spending habits than giving skills.

A local acquaintance made a very large donation to a worthy non-profit a couple of years ago and I attended the dinner honoring him and his wife.  This was not their first major contribution but it was far more public and caught everyone by surprise.  While everything was done with great taste to honor them and they were extremely appreciative, there were a number of whispered comments.

“I had no idea they had that kind of money.”

“We’re going to see if we can get them interested in our project.”

“Did they do this spontaneously or had someone been working on them for a while?”

The evening concluded with the usual plaques and comments and we went home.  My friends stayed and talked with many of the people attending for another hour or so.  I’ve never seen them happier.  They were new to this and I could see they were genuinely moved by the gratitude.

I had not seen them for some time – probably a year.  Even though this is a small town it is a busy town so we had not bumped into each other at church or at meetings.  I was anxious to hear how their new venture in philanthropy was working out. I should not have been surprised but I was.

This time it was they who were whispering as if they did not want anyone to hear them.  “We feel hunted.  Is this normal? We can hardly go to the grocery store without people taking us aside to talk to us about an immediate need or a project that merits our support.  We don’t want to be ungrateful or prideful – especially with our old friends - but we would like our life back.”

Of course, it’s easy to say they don’t really have problems like many people in the world who are less fortunate.  “What are they complaining about?”

That’s too easy.  It is a mistake making celebrities of well-intentioned and often naïve people who have never wanted to be famous or recognized in order to be worked over. It is unfortunate that people cannot make gifts without having to worry about the inevitable rush of requests.  It’s not like they bought lottery tickets for years hoping to get lucky and be rich.  These people worked hard their whole lives and want to give to the community that has blessed them.  And now they are targets hiding from people.  They don’t want to be “anonymous” or hire staff and they don’t want to separate themselves from organizations they admire and have supported for many years.  They simply want to be generous without it taking over their lives. Any advice? 

My last piece on entrepreneur church leaders reminded me of a dinner I had one night with a number of Wal-Mart executives in Rogers, Arkansas.  I was seated next to a man whose responsibilities were doing site selections for new stores - especially Sam's Clubs.  Being naturally curious, I asked him what process he used to select sites.  I wanted to know how he started with the broadest general survey of the whole country (those stores were relatively new then) and narrowed the options down to a particular site in a local community.  Needless to say, it was a science he had perfected.  Of course, it was not just him but he had a whole set of peers at K-Mart, Target, Kohls, Best Buy who had been doing this for years.  That was all they did.  They analyzed information for placing stores where they would be most valuable and generate the highest revenue.  He told me about weather patterns, traffic flow, demographics, residential and commercial building, infrastructure, city government, population growth projections and overall economic forecasts.  In one man I had found an encyclopedia of information about where to put a "big box". 

After a couple of hours of his sharing his storehouse of process and wisdom about site selection I asked him a simple question.  "Have you ever considered sharing how you do what you do with church planters?  I know you cannot share the information about actual sites but could you share the process you use for winnowing down the options and placing a store with reasonable certainty it will be profitable?"  His face went blank so I re-phrased the question.  Nothing.  I waited thinking maybe he was trying to compose an adequate answer given everything he knew.

"Why would anyone in the ministry want to hear from me?  I'm not even ordained.  I don't know about churches.  I cannot imagine there being any value for them in what I do."  Now I went blank and silent.  Was he kidding?  I knew several hundred church planters who would sit with him for however long it took to learn the process for figuring out where to plant a church in a community.  I pushed back at him but it was useless.  He could not connect the dots and I'm sure now that I didn't know how to get him there.  I might today but not then.

Dinner was over and we both left frustrated. He was confused about how I could see any application for his priceless skills and I was frustrated that this kind of resource was getting away!

I learned something that night.  It's not enough to see the talent in people.  You have to help them see it as well...and they don't.  Figure out how to help them connect the dots between what they do and a different application.  It takes patience and creativity and knowing how to get inside their world, their language and their own self-imposed limitations but it is worth the effort.  I still think about that guy walking away with all that!

A friend in Dallas asked me last week, “What’s the reason for megachurches?”  That’s an easy one to answer!  Since I worked for twelve years with megachurches as President of Leadership Network in what some consider to be the period of largest growth for these churches, I’ve been thinking about his question.  Coincidentally, I was with Bob Buford, the founder of Leadership Network, a couple of weeks ago and he told me that while there had been 300 megachurches when we started in 1984 there are now over 3,000 in the United States alone.  That’s quite a growth curve.

However, I don’t think my friend was looking for a history lesson as much as a perspective on why we need large churches at all.  What makes us grow churches instead of being content with small churches? I started thinking about all the different models we had talked through over those twelve years.  For a few years it was the “mall” built on a couple of anchor ministries (worship/music  and preaching) with a wide variety of other ministries in between.  Later, it was the “big box/category killer” model ala Best Buy or Lowes with hundreds of offerings at commodity prices.  Then it was all about small groups – but as many small groups as possible.  The form was never fixed but the desire to be big and expanding was a consistent thread. They took whatever form was current and grew it to its limits. Of course, now a new generation is moving church growth toward an Amazon or Facebook model with connecting being the primary value.  The pressing challenge is how to use a convening model in a connecting culture.

Some experts say the next generation is not going to value big but I disagree.  They may not value a particular model of church but entrepreneurs will always work toward big.  It’s in their nature and while the next generation’s “megachurch” will be far different in form than those we witnessed twenty years ago, they will still be big and expanding.  They may not invest in buildings or large campuses but whatever form they find they will grow it to the limit and find another. Churches focused on being “missional” will be big missional.  Churches focused on small groups will have huge numbers of small groups.  Churches focused on investing people and resources outside the country will scale up as fast as they can.  It is the nature of the entrepreneur.  Trust me on this one.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” John 10:13-14

This was the lesson assignment on Sunday and, frankly, I was not too enthusiastic about teaching it.  A good part of that is residue from the wars over Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” and I did not want to get into a big (or small) discussion about who goes to hell. 

As you know, the version of the passage in Luke begins with the question, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” That question could have come from one who was interested in making sure heaven is exclusive enough for them instead of an interest in knowing there is enough grace.  It could have been one of my own Sunday School teachers when I was a kid in church and being taught that only 144,000 were going to be in heaven. My guess is it was someone wanting to be certain of their own status.

Whatever the motivation and the intent of the question the response is the same.  “Narrow is the gate”.  In my mind, I see the questioner saying to himself, “Whew, that works for me.  I know how to do narrow!”  Of course, Jesus then turns it into what Eugene Peterson calls “The Great Reversal” and says, in effect, the gate is narrow but the kingdom is more diverse and broader than you realize.

It started me thinking that indeed the gate is narrow but that doesn’t mean the people are narrow once they are in.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  Those who turn away from the narrow door become turned in on themselves.  “For a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself.” (C.S. Lewis) Those who make it through the narrow door not only find life but a life that is expansive and broad.  They find a life of confidence even in the midst of uncertainty and a life able to handle complexity without retreat into defensiveness. They realize that while the way is narrow – the people of God are not.