Midas Church

I have spent several years in professional ministry and lay volunteer ministry at several different evangelical churches. Though I have been a member at a couple of "megachurches", the lion's share of my intense involvement has been with smaller churches that always seem to struggle. At the latter, we had staffs who loved God, loved people, and worked hard, just like in the larger churches, but our hard work was rarely rewarded with success. I know that word really irks some ministry people, as focusing on "success" can lead to quantifying ministry in ways that it was never meant to be quantified and turning a creative, joyful work into an endless checklist.

But I think in our heart of hearts, we always wanted the "Midas touch" that those larger churches always seemed to have. Everything these "Midas churches" did turned to gold. Every event blew away expectations. Volunteers were numerous, talented, and energized. The attendees have a great time and are touched with the love of Christ. In the smaller churches, it often felt like we were happy if everyone survived. I always wondered, "why can't we have what they have?"

Last month, my church hosted a 5K run to raise money for the International Justice Mission, called the "Run:4Justice". It was amazing event that not only brought the whole church together but raised a ton of cash for IJM...it was their biggest single-event fundraiser ever! Here's what, from my perspective, made this "Midas event" turn to gold:

• Innovation - what church does 5Ks? People couldn't believe this was hosted by a church. One runner said with surprise, "it wasn't even cheesy!" To draw people into a vision, we've got to innovate and do things outside of the box.
• Big Vision - the entire leadership team never thought we could make it to 1000 runners and $100,000. We all thought we'd come up short, but the big leader, Local Mission Pastor Amy Nobles, kept pushing us toward that huge goal. The result? 1355 runners, $133,000. We were blown away! Big goals inspire people...sometimes "realism" is a copout.
• Commitment to Excellence - it was made clear to us that every single aspect of the run was to be done with complete and total dedication to excellence. We wanted not just to make it through the event, but to put on an event that people would be wowed by. Many runners told us it was the best 5K they've ever participated in...that's because we weren't allowed to compromise on quality. Be proud of your product, your vision, your event, or whatever you're doing and be willing to sacrifice the blood, sweat, tears, and cash it'll take to make it awesome.
• Planning ahead - 18 months of total planning, 5 months of intense planning, and one month of I'm-doing-nothing-else-in-my-life-but-the-Run planning was put into this event. Our leaders had us convinced that they had done the work to plan this sucker to a TEE. Planning inspires confidence in volunteers and increases ownership.
• Money - yeah, this part is tough. You gotta spend the cash to get the impact a lot of times. But with this event, the premise was so cool, the planning was so perfect, the people were so pumped, that the money came rolling in right on time. If you don't have the cash flow to make it go well, do something that you DO have the cash to do right...we can't compromise quality just because we don't have gobs of money.
• Advertisement - we used as many different avenues as possible to get the word out. If people don't hear about it, they won't come. Online, word of mouth, whatever...if the vision is compelling, people will show up when they hear about it.
• Sustained spiritual energy and positivity - our leaders were encouragers and kept us going, even when we (and they) wanted to quit.
• Leaders were the most committed - I knew that no matter how hard I was working, my leaders were working harder to get this done...that's incredibly inspirational!
• Involved the entire church - from babies to baby boomers, the whole church got in on the Run. A 9 year-old boy even published a children's book about the cause!

Amazing event, amazing church. Now that I'm rested up, I'm looking forward to what's next!