A lot of the Christian ministries I'm familiar with fall in the category of faith-supported missions, where the missionaries are responsible for raising (or, as the Conservative Baptist movement puts it, discovering) their support. This can become a joyful training for the missionaries to trust in God even when they are stuck at a percentage of their support. But then, it can be discouraging and the missionaries may give up.
One resource for those who need to raise support is "The God Ask: A Fresh, Biblical, Approach to Personal Support Raising" by Steve Shadrach. This book has a lot of great ideas. One is seeing support-raising as a triangle, with God at the top, the ministry-worker looking to God for support on one corner, and the supporter seeking God's supply and blessing in the other.
The strongest point is to see this as a partnership. Shadrach encourages those who receive support to pray for the donors, have regular communication with them, learn their birthdays and anniversaries, and develop your relationship with them. This is what I despise about multi-level direct sales: That approach makes it seem like that getting you to buy into their business is more important than cultivating a friendship.
However, there were many things in this book that made me cringe. It took me three months to get through "The God Ask," because Shadrach's aggressive "The Wrong Way or My Way" approach consistently made me uncomfortable. Early on, he gives the impression that it's possible to raise 100% of your support in 100 days, but by the time I ended, he made it sound like the reality is it's a never-ending process.
Two impressions he gave is his approach is 1) Biblical and 2) not high pressure sales. Unfortunately, he didn't convince me on either point.
- I will admit - I do not consider his views unbiblical (condemned by Scripture), but I don't see a strong in-context and consistent mandate. There are two points where his theory is at odds with Scripture. First, 3 John 7 applauds workers who take nothing from the Gentiles (unbelievers), while Shadrach says there's times to ask non-Christians to support a Christian ministry. Second, Shadrach discourages working to help provide for your support (like the tent-maker model, following the example of Paul) but to put all your time in fundraising.
- As far as resembling the high pressure direct sales impression, he suggests asking for specific amounts. With a professional double income family, he strongly suggests the monthly amount asked for should be at least $100, and Shadrach stated he felt insulted when a person seeking support asked for only $35 a month. It sounds like he's promoting asking everybody you know to be a supporter, and if you have a person who has been giving a large amount regularly, ask him to give more.
I'm giving this book a 3 star review. I would without hesitation recommend this book for anyone who needs to raise financial support for their ministry, but I also would emphasize it's one person's theory, and encourage them to modify their application to their personal convictions.
