TriBond; a game that asks, "What do these 3 things have in common?" Here's one for you. What do elephants, scaffolding, and Easter eggs have in common? They all shape our perspective on "support raising." Can you see it? Let me explain.
While evaluating, recognizing, and obeying God these past months, many people have asked us this question, "How do you feel about support raising?" In other words (it would seem), "How do you feel about asking people for money?" Good question! To say the the thought of "asking for money" is not naturally positive for us is true, but more or less understated depending on the day. We are confident that we are following God's lead to begin a career as missionaries, and that obedience means "support raising." So, emotions aside, one of the first questions we've got to grapple with is, "How are WE going to ask people for money?"
I'm curious. Have you ever had cause to ask that question of yourself? How do YOU feel about "asking people to give you money?" I'd wager that, if you've ever actually considered that question for yourself, you can probably identify with me when I tell you that my first response included no small measure of fear. Fear? Of what? That's easy. I'm afraid someone might see me as a manipulator, slacker, lazy, moocher, dishonest, salesperson, cheater, entitled, freeloader, greedy, etc. I'm afraid relationships will be strained instead of nurtured. I'm afraid of awkward. I'm afraid of begging to scrape by. I'm afraid of people trying to avoid me because I "only see them as a dollar sign." The list could go on. Yet, here we sit convinced that God is telling us to, "Ask people for money." Thankfully, God has also convinced us that this asking is as right and Biblical for us now as it has been for others who've gone before us. So, after much thought and prayer, here's how we intend to "ask."
Enter elephants, scaffolding, and Easter eggs.
Money. If there's ever been an elephant in the room while a missionary is telling us what God is doing in their lives while raising support, it's money. Money doesn't make a missionary, but we all know it takes money to be one. When we receive the call asking us if we'd like to hear "what God is doing," in the lives of those we know are headed into missions, we know the story will climax with an "ask" for money. As we think about being the askers, it's very tempting to try to avoid the "elephant in the room," when telling someone about what God is calling us to do and looking for partners. Yet, most people know the question is coming, and they are anxiously awaiting the voice of the elephant. How loud will it be? How forceful will it be? How honest will it be? How much of a disguise will it attempt? Instead, maybe we should just point it out right away, "We're here to ask you for money!" I might be inclined to do just that if I believed the asking was only about money, but I don't. So to the elephant I say, "Don't try to hide, Mr. Elephant. You have no reason to be ashamed! You are not the only reason (or even the most important reason) to meet with people. You are a part of the scaffold, but only a part." And, of course, the elephant replies,"Scaffold, what's that?"
Over my 23 year career in construction, if I've stood on scaffolding once, I've stood on it a thousand times, but what is it? Scott Ribble defines scaffold as a structure that allows someone to be in a place they couldn't otherwise be, to do work that they couldn't otherwise do. If God truly wants me to quit my job and move my family to Florida to be full time career missionaries, He needs to provide a scaffold. If He doesn't, we will never be able to be there which will totally prevent any doing there. As we've wrestled with the understanding that we need to "ask," God has used the metaphor of "scaffold" to quiet some of our fears. The comfort comes from the realization that scaffolding is commonly made up of multiple parts, not just one. In the same way, for us to be in Florida to work with YouthHOPE, we need more than money. You've probably seen the common kind of scaffold that has upright "ladders," held together with "X" shaped cross braces, and platforms on top. Those 3 parts remind me of (at least) 3 of the different things we need to get to Ft. Myers: prayer, advocacy, and money. To pray is to go before God, asking Him to glorify Himself by building His kingdom in and through us. To advocate is to care for us emotionally, to encourage, to listen, to help, and tell others about the good things God is doing through YouthHOPE so they might be inspired to participate. To give money is to care for us physically as God is leading us to serve people who can not supply our physical needs. All three are necessary, and all three are effective only by the grace of God.
The picture of scaffold comforts us in the sense that it rightly takes the focus off money, yet it does little to change the picture of the salesperson or any of the other discouraging pictures I suggested. Am I now charged with trying to compel people to give us money, AND be our advocates, AND pray for us? Easter eggs to the rescue!
My in-laws have grandchildren ranging in age from 17 to 1. For many years, they have enjoyed an Easter tradition of hiding plastic easter eggs, stuffed with treasure, around their yard for their grandchildren to find. They want the treasures to be spread out for all of their grandchildren to enjoy, and they've used a variety of methods to ensure that happens. One method has been the assignment of specific colored eggs to specific children. Beautiful. Each child feels loved because they know there are treasures for them, which treasures are for them, and they believe the treasure to be equitably distributed. Then when the older ones inevitably find all their treasures first, they don't hesitate to help the littles find what's lovingly been hidden for them. In the same way, each member of the body of Christ has been designed for a purpose. Each member of the body of Christ is a treasure to the kingdom of God. Some of those treasures are for the special benefit of these, some are for the special benefit of those, some are for the special benefit of you, and some are designed and set apart to be the scaffold for us. My in-laws love all their grandchildren, and they give special treasure to each one. In a much greater way, God loves all his children. He tells us to do what he's designed us to do, and supplies the "treasure," the scaffold, each one of us needs to obey.
So how do I feel about asking people for money? I don't want to do it. Thankfully, I believe that's not exactly the assignment that God has given us. I don't believe we are to try to persuade and compel, but instead, I believe our job is to find the people that God is building into our multi-part scaffold. It's our job to find the "eggs" in the yard that God has hidden for us, and to encourage and affirm those "eggs" God has hidden for others. In this we are comforted and encouraged, not because it means no work, but because we are remembering whose work is whose. It's God's work to compel people's hearts. It's our work to search diligently for those hearts he's compelling. God is lifting us to a place we couldn't otherwise be, Ft. Myers, Fl, to do what we couldn't otherwise do, work full time on the YouthHOPE team. Maybe He is calling you to be a part of our scaffold?
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