A Giving Initiative Is Like An X-Ray

Jim: Hello friends, welcome to another episode of the Next Sunday podcast. Right here in Johns Creek, Georgia, I've got the unbelievable Frank Beer sitting right across from me.

Frank: You know what? Lots of people say I'm unbelievable. They mean it not as a 'you should listen to that guy,' so I don't know if I believe anything he says.

Jim: I sort of feel like that sometimes when I say something and somebody says, "That was amazing." Because it could be amazingly stupid. Or it could be amazingly, "Wow, that was really good." And sometimes I'm never sure what it means, Frank. I just say thank you, nod, and go on.

Frank: Or just say, "You're too kind." And they're like, "Oh gosh, he didn't get it. That was never what I meant by that. That was not kind. That was intended to be a shot fired. Oh my gosh, he received it as a positive."

Jim: So, here we are back today and this is something that I have actually said for a long time and ironically I've never written about it and never done a podcast episode on it.

Frank: That's wild to me.

Jim: And I remember when I said it to you, you did a double take and I was like, "Why did you do a double take, Frank? Everybody knows this." And you looked at me like, "No, they don't."

Frank: That's exactly right. I haven't heard you say that. Tell me more about that.

Jim: So, I guess that's why you put this on a podcast episode.

Frank: Absolutely.

Jim: And the topic, you're kind of our executive producer behind the scenes.

Frank: So, executive producer, that's just where I just get my name in the credits. I don't really do much. Is that what you're saying?

Jim: Well, I mean, there is that. There's something to that, too. In this episode, we're talking about... What did I say that grabbed your attention? At least that's a lead-in here.

Frank: You said a giving initiative is like an X-ray. It reveals what's already there. And it was just a powerful thought to go, okay, that makes sense. It's a magnifier to compare it to something negative. During COVID, I think most people agree organizations when COVID hit, it revealed their strengths and their weaknesses, right? So it magnified, it accelerated the good, it accelerated the bad, and it really showed the weak spots just popped up. We're not going to plan our lives around another pandemic happening, but we do want to grow and get better. And so, the reality is we know a giving initiative is like an X-ray. It reveals what's there. So, unpack why that's a good thing and where that may be a complication. We'll get to that a little later, but let's start with why that's a good thing.

Jim: All right, so let's back the tape up just a little bit and make sure there's a couple of things we need to say before we get into that. The first one is that if you do enough giving initiatives over the year, what you realize is that giving initiatives are never really about money. They're about people. They're about trust. They're about clarity. They're about alignment. They're about spiritual maturity. They're really about those things more than anything else. Right? And once you understand that, then you understand that a giving initiative reveals how well you're doing in those areas. Right? So the thing about an X-ray, you know, your son Isaac had an X-ray not too long ago. An X-ray tells you where bones are strong.

Frank: It tells you where bones are broken.

Jim: Same thing happens in a giving initiative. When you're done, it tells you where the bones are strong and it shows you where the bones are broken and it reveals itself. Because a lot of times what happens is we're not really sure where people are. We think we know. Do a giving initiative, bro. You'll find out. The good stuff rises to the top. The not-so-good stuff surfaces itself over here. I had a pastor say some years ago. He said, "You know, the Lord talked about sheep and goats, right?" And I said, "Right." He said, "It's really easy to tell the difference." I said, "Really? How's that?" He said, "Well, sheep go baa and goats go baa, but that's pretty funny."

Frank: That is worth nothing. That is not going to change anything in your church next Sunday. That's a freebie. It's corny. It's a laughable moment.

Jim: That's exactly right. But that's what we're saying there is that the X-ray is like that. It just gives you this clarity. It's one of the things that I like to do when I'm finished with a giving initiative. I do a debrief session with the pastor and with the executive leadership team. I'm like, "What did we learn here?" What kind of good stuff did we learn here? Man, our people are more resilient than we thought we are. They're more bought into our vision than we thought they were. Or, our people are not as bought into our vision. Whatever that might be. What are the things that we learned here? And that's the thing I love about giving initiatives is it gives us this opportunity to lean in on all the things that make church work, which is a whole another topic. We've written on that. People think it's the economy when their giving goes up or down. It is rarely the economy. It's usually things like this, the things that get revealed in a giving initiative.

Frank: That's so good.

Jim: And I thought everybody knew that and when you gave me the look that you gave, I was like, well, that's kind of like the episode we did on tax policy, from tax deduction to discipleship. I think that was last week's episode. I thought everybody knew that and you're like, "Jim, everybody doesn't know that." Because I'm thinking if I know it, lots of people have to know it. But sometimes what happens is it's not book smarts. This is not about being academically intelligent. This is about being observationally intelligent. And there's something about just sitting out here and watching this process unfold over and over again that teaches me things about giving development in a church that people who only do this every now and then wouldn't see.

Frank: I think that specific phrasing of calling it an X-ray is just so clear, so pointed. So, let me ask you this. You've been doing this 30 years or so, three decades plus, whatever it may be. Early on, when did it start to click with you? When did you see this truth? You may not use the X-ray language at that point, but early on when you were doing this work, how did you see it start to show up in the church you were serving three, three and a half decades ago that it was true then and you just continue to see that pattern today?

Jim: Wow, that's a great question, bro.

Frank: Thanks.

Jim: Out of the kindness of God, I would say probably the first seven or eight big giving initiatives that I led early in my career all went well by God's grace and kindness. I needed that because I was new in this work. I'd been a corporate executive so I was starting all over. I needed to establish some bona fides here, some credentials. And then I had one that didn't go well.

Frank: Okay.

Jim: It got my attention and the X-ray thing hadn't hit me yet, but what had hit me was I need to scratch around in the dirt and find out what's wrong here. Something's wrong here. Outwardly this church didn't have the look and feel of a church that would have struggled in something like this. Their multiple as a number of times of income was not a crazy one. It was not the one like y'all are trying something that's just absolutely nuts and if you get there God bless you but I haven't seen it happen. It wasn't one of those. And it was frustrating, man, because it's like every layer, we're doing the first layer with the faithful givers, we call them pacesetters now. Back in the day, we called it something different, but it was running that motion. And maybe half of those people got on board.

And then we move into our leaders and we're doing the home meetings. Back in the day, we did a lot of home meetings and we weren't really getting traction there. And so for me, it was surprising to the leadership of the church. Wait a second, y'all should know the answer to this stuff. You're here every day. I'm not. I'm saying, what's going on here? Why are your people not buying into this? I won't tell the longer story because it takes a little while to explain. But I think eventually I understood why things didn't go well there. Maybe not 100%, but I think I understood directionally why things didn't go well. So that was my first experience at seeing that giving initiatives do surface things that are under the surface not going well and nobody's really acknowledging that.

I think in this leadership team, I don't know what they said after I was gone and finished with the debrief and the excavation piece. I hope they at least said to themselves, "Wow, we missed that." I hope they weren't in denial that they just observationally missed it. But the giving initiative surfaced it.

Frank: Man, that's so...

Jim: It's probably five to eight years in that I realized it was like that. There's something going on in here. I remember the first time somebody asked me a very frequent question, not so much in a one fund anymore, but in a traditional capital campaign where we're doing an over and above. "Hey, Jim. Let me ask you this question. If we have this really successful capital campaign, what's going to happen to our ongoing tithes and offerings giving?" Early on, I didn't know the answer to that. I'd say, "Well, I don't think they're going to suffer." But I didn't have a lot of evidence to that. I do now. If you're a healthy church and you're running a good traditional capital campaign over and above, it probably not only won't go down, it might well go up. Why is that? Because you're now focusing on alignment, trust, and clarity, and all these things that matter. You're doing that over here in the capital campaign environment, but they're the same group of people. There's a spillover effect that happens over here and they become more committed on that side as well. It's what I call God's math, not our math, because God's math is always one and one is three even when we think it's sometimes two or one and a half. That was the first time I saw it, but I didn't have the X-ray then. It took a little while longer.

Frank: So knowing that, what do you advise churches that are looking for something to reunite their church or reinvigorate their church, but they've got fractures? What do you say to the church that thinks a generosity initiative can fix that? That it can be unifying or it can be a moment. How do you advise them to work through when it could be a solution as a unifying event versus just magnifying the problem?

Jim: Well, being a hardwired eight and pretty high blunt as you know better than anybody, my first reaction is, hey pastor, let's set that aside for a second. Let's suppose a couple with significant marital issues comes into your office and they talk through the issues and you're like, "Oh, y'all got some stuff going on there." And they propose that having a baby would be the solution to draw them closer together. What would be your answer? You already know what the answer is. No way. The last thing you should consider is having a baby in the midst of the chaos that's going on in you. And I would say for most churches that would be the same answer. This is not going to help you draw closer together. It's probably going to divide you even more because the things that you're not even being honest about are going to become very clear, maybe even magnified in a major giving season because we're talking about giving. And I don't think it's going to help you.

Frank: That's so good. So good.

Jim: You know, I try to say it a little kinder than that. But probably not successful because I really don't have a better example than that. That is the best example I have. And most everybody who's been in ministry for a while knows that's probably not a good idea. That is not a good idea. Don't do that as your solution. Now, heal your marriage. Go have a baby. That's a great idea. But don't bring the baby in to heal the marriage.

Frank: That's so good. It's a good point of clarity to remind everyone. X-rays don't cause the fracture. X-rays don't cause the problem. They reveal the issue. And so there's this reality that if we start to hit some white water that we're unaware of and this initiative starts to flush some of that out, it's typically not the initiative in my experience that causes the problems. Once again, it just reveals what's there. So what does it look like to leverage the X-ray as an opportunity? So, you're doing this initiative. You start to see the cracks. You didn't know they were there. You probably should have known they were there, but hey, you just weren't aware that there was some misalignment. And now here you are starting to work on this generosity initiative. The X-ray has revealed the cracks. Once again, it didn't cause the break, but it's revealing the cracks. How do you coach someone through that season where it's like, uh oh, we've got some misalignment, some lack of clarity, and other issues, but here we are trying to do this major initiative?

Jim: That's our job, Frank. Absolutely. That's exactly right. We're the ones who've got to intervene. We got to be, you know, Lyle Schaller, the great leader who wrote so many articles on the church. If you're not a boomer, you may not know who he is. Go check him out. He wrote a book many years ago called The Interventionist. Blew my mind some of the stuff that he talked about in there and a lot of it is still relevant today. We've got to be the interventionist. We've got to help you as a church leader see things that you can't see for yourself. And to the extent we can, we've got to put ourselves out in the roadway and say, "Hey, you can go forward, but you need to run me over to do that. This is a big deal, pastor. This is a big deal."

And sometimes they're going to go forward anyway. And there you've got two choices. Am I going to resign the engagement or am I going to stand with you and try to help you figure it out? For the most part, mine's generally going to be answer number two. Unless there's some integrity issues. As long as it's not integrity or something else, I'm going to say, well, gosh, if he's going to do this, he's going to need some help for it to land as best it possibly can. And I'm probably as good a resource as anybody out there in terms of helping that. But you've got to be the one who doesn't have emotional, political, or any kind of other baggage in this fight and say, "Pastor, hear me out, brother. This is where it is."

Frank: I will say it's one of the things I love about this work, and I'm so grateful for the privilege and honor of being in the room, being a fresh perspective, and having an opportunity to speak into those moments when there is emotion. There's history there, there's connection among the team and so there's a little bit of a lack of perspective and so coming in and giving some fresh perspective and helping coach them through that. What a privilege to get to navigate that. And you've used the illustration before of a campaign guide, the work that we get to do being much like the whitewater raft guide, right? So, we know the waters. We've seen them before and navigated them. What a privilege to know, hey, you're going to hit some stuff. We know you need to go a little further right here or let's go ahead and turn it sideways here because we know what's about to come. We get to kind of help coach and guide through that season, through that white water and turmoil. And some are a little more wild rides than others, but what a privilege to get to come alongside those seasons. And for you to have the privilege to have done that for over three decades is incredible, Jim. That's really great.

Jim: You're right. I do use that analogy a lot because I think it's a great analogy for our work and the work that we do with churches, any consultant actually, but with us with churches. I remember many years ago we were in Colorado and we did a whitewater rafting trip and there's a lot of water in the river and so the rapids were running pretty good in a couple of places. I remember the guide—and of course we had a guide. I mean, you're gonna have a guide to go down the river like that because he goes down it all the time. I don't, so I probably need what he knows better than what I know. And the guide said something to the effect of this. He said, "I know you're going to get nervous when you see this water because it's going pretty good. And if you're not used to seeing this, you're probably going to get nervous or panic. But here's the thing. I don't need you to get nervous or panic at what you're seeing. The only time you need to get nervous or panic is when I get nervous or panic." And he paused and he said, "And for the record, that doesn't happen very often down here." That's really good perspective, too, because I go up and down this river all the time. I see things that would make you flinch, but they don't make me flinch because I see them all the time, and I know how to navigate my way.

Think of the analogy of us and the work that we do, right? Something that might cause a pastor to flinch and you're like, "Bro, that ain't that big a deal. It might be a big deal to you, but I've seen this. Not my first rodeo. Not my second or third one either. Let me tell you what doesn't work. Let me tell you what might work." Because part of what happens is you get to see people pay dumb tax on these things.

Frank: That's right.

Jim: And my favorite saying about that is, hey, you can make up some new stuff, but you don't have to stub your toe on things that other people have already stubbed their toe on. So, what I'm really saying is, I think I see what the X-ray is likely to show if we keep on this pathway. Let's go on another pathway and see if we can change what the X-ray might show when we're all said and done. Because here's the thing, man. Most churches don't live in the fully strong bone side or the fully broken bone side. To go back to where we started, they live somewhere in the middle.

Frank: They have a lack of calcium is what you're saying. They're just a little soft. Osteoporosis maybe.

Jim: Okay. Now we sound like we've wandered into medical language. Let's get us back. Can we pray, please?

Frank: Yes. Bring us back, Lord.

Jim: Because attendance can be affected by programs or sermon series. Budgets can be managed creatively. You can do things and make things look better than they are. Verbal encouragement can be selective, and it always looks like it's positive, but then all of a sudden... but generosity is different, man.

Frank: That's good.

Jim: You start down that lane and I'm telling you, it's bringing the good stuff and the bad stuff to the front. I mean, you know this because you're familiar with the situation. We had a situation here in the firm within the last few years where we had a church that on the surface you would have thought again would not struggle with an engagement that was basically about one and a third times their annual income, and they struggled with it mightily. And you remember I was perplexed and when we found out this one factor it was like, might be some other stuff, but here's your big one. Only 40% of their staff was giving.

Frank: Only 40%.

Jim: There could be situations where people are experiencing financial difficulty, but you can't explain that one. And so what it identified was that that's just not a priority for their people. They don't see it as a spiritual discipline or there's some other things going on. And so the X-ray showed us a really broken bone over here. A really broken bone. Had we known that early, by the way, it's taken me back to basics. So now in my giving initiatives when I'm doing my front-end work, hey pastor, do we keep tabs on people on staff as givers here? And I don't mean as a matter of compliance. I don't mean as a matter of lording it over them, but as a matter of pastoral health, right? These people are on the front lines of advancing the vision and mission of your church. And if they're not bought into it, it's really unfair to expect the rest of the church would be bought in as well, right? And so the X-ray showed us that. And so there are things that can actually cover up. You're living in the middle. You're not fully broken. You're not fully strong. And you've got these things. But then you do a giving initiative and well there's your X-ray. There it is. Now we see it.

I mean, you know this. I've been struggling with an issue in my knee and we never could figure out what was going on. Went and got that X-ray. There it is right there. Lateral compression on the outside of your right knee. And my doc's like, "Well, I don't need to do an MRI. I could, but it's not going to tell me anything more than I see right there. I know what your issue is, and here's how we're going to fix that."

Frank: That's so good.

Jim: And here's the thing, man. Let's take that example. X-rays help you to identify what needs to be healed so the healing can begin, which might include treatment.

Frank: Right.

Jim: Some things heal by themselves. Mine needed some treatment. And so the X-ray is the point where you begin to see clearly there's something wrong here. And how do we get ourselves to the place where this bone can be a lot stronger than it has been historically?

Frank: So good, Jim.

Jim: And you might not have found that out. In fact, you probably wouldn't have found that out any other way than in a major giving initiative. And that's why for me this X-ray analogy is so clear, Frank. So clear.

Frank: That's good. Guys, this has been another great episode of the Next Sunday Podcast. It's been great because Jim has provided us some fantastic insights today. Stay tuned for more of these episodes because what happens next Sunday could change everything. Heyo.