Why Personal Support?

When it comes to fundraising, one of the questions that comes up frequently runs something like this: "Why do you have to raise personal support? Why doesn't your church just foot the bill?"

The short answer is, "They are - very significantly, in fact." Both Rocky Mountain Community Church in Billings (RMCC) and Gallatin Valley Presbyterian Church in Bozeman (GVPC) are supporting us as an official mission work, raising funds through their Faith Promise programs. The regional arm of our denomination, Rocky Mountain Presbytery (RMP), is also supporting us. So we actually have a very strong base of "project level support."

That said, there are a number of reasons why we still need to raise personal support. First of all, we are going as a team - both us and the Sutherlands. This offers some obvious advantages (twice the ability to do outreach and ministry), but it also raises the cost of the work as a whole, because it will need to support 2 pastors from the getgo. In addition, Missoula is a tough place to plant a church - 70% of the population is completely unchurched (and often somewhat hostile to the Christian faith). Because we are committed to reaching unbelievers, the church is going to take longer to grow. Add to that the fact that we are starting from scratch, without a core group, and the plot thickens. We want to be wise and realistic - it may take up to 5 years to become self-sufficient.

That in itself is not a bad thing - there are actually some key advantages to planting a church this way - but it does mean that the task itself is longer and more expensive. It is beyond any one person, any one church. Most church plants fail because of inadequate funding. And that is why we and the Sutherlands are both raising personal support as well - to supplement the project funds which have already been pledged.

Now, here's where things get a little more complicated. When you raise personal funds, you typically do it by appealing to friends, relatives, family, etc. For us, many of these people attends RMCC, and a number of them are already supporting us indirectly through their Faith Promise giving to the church. We are huge fans of missions programs like these - so we don't want anyone to stop giving to Faith Promise in order to start supporting us directly. At the same time, we know that some people aren't giving to Faith Promise yet, and others have indicated they want to support us directly as well.

So what does all this mean? Well, since we don't know who's doing what, we have to ring you up and share our vision and see if you would like to come alongside us in this adventure. As I've mentioned elsewhere, this inter-presonal relationship thing - dealing directly with people rather than just a church committee of missions board - this is part of what makes fundraising a beautiful thing.

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter to us whether you give a little or a lot, whether you support us directly or through Faith Promise, whether you give money or simply pray. At the end of the day, what we really want is a deeper relationship with you - we want you to be a part of our lives, to participate with us as we move forward in this exciting work. So that's the "why?" of raising personal support. We'd love to have you be a part of it.