Bill Hybels on Capital Campaigns
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Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels
Bill Hybels on Capital Campaigns
Most of the time a well-run capital
campaign will unify your church and
deepen the spiritual roots of members
who properly enter the campaign.
If you are going to raise
a lot of money,
everyone will have to galvanize
around a vision.
That is a good thing
for a church.
It is a good thing for believers to
take all of their resources and
surrender them again to God occasionally.
One of our regional campuses
just launched a $15 million
capital campaign.
Recently, I had the opportunity to challenge
50 of their largest donors.
Here is what I said to them,
"Once you become a Christian and
you are leading a comfortable Christian life,
what will make you go
into a deep analysis
determining if you are the best
kingdom steward of your finances?"
Under normal circumstances,
nothing will make you do that.
But if your church needs
$15 million dollars
and if you love your church
and you love God and
God is whispering to you that you
may need to play a role in this."
It is an external pressure that will allow
you to do something that
the absence of that pressure
would never cause you to do.
I said to these affluent
people who were gathered,
"This is what I am
asking you to do.
Put all of your assets, everything
you own on a piece of paper.
I am asking you to talk to
your accountant, your lawyer...
I am asking you to take that piece of
paper and put it on your kitchen table.
Back away from the table.
Acknowledge that all of those
things came from the hand of God.
Every good and perfect gift comes
from God, as Scripture says.
I am asking you to back
away from the table,
remind yourself it
all came from God.
Then I am asking you to
surrender it again and
to say to God, 'Whatever of this you
gave me and entrusting me to manage,
whatever of this you want to slide into
this capital campaign I am willing to do.
If you speak I will obey.'
Then you have to listen to what the
Holy Spirit wants you to do.
A lot, a little, or maybe nothing.
Then when He tells you,
you need to obey it.
That is how complicated
this process is.
Surrender. Listen. Obey.
That process is really healthy for every
Christian, who ever experiences it.
Because some of us own things
that means so much to us
we do not want to surrender it.
Some of you have things
you do not care about.
That easily goes on the table.
But your camera.
Your motocycle.
Your dream house you just
moved in to two years ago?
You think, 'Can I really part
with that if God asked me?'
It is a spiritual victory to
surrender your things again.
Also, it is a spiritual victory
to hear God's voice.
What part of this do you want
put into the capital campaign?
You have to go through many
things to hear God's voice and
to process it to know that
He has spoken to you clearly.
Then it takes
courage to obey."
When you lead a church through
a campaign that way,
if we are building for the right reasons and
taking people through the right spiritual process,
you are going to on the other
end of the campaign and say,
"That was a beautiful experience.
Nobody lost. Everybody won.
God was honored. Everybody grew."
Do not be afraid of an
old-fashioned capital campaign.
It is good
for a leader.
Nothing tests the "metal" of a
senior pastor more than
leading a congregation through
a fundraising campaign.
The leader has to ask,
"Is it the right campaign,
amount, time, and reason?"
Those are all purifying.
It is good what the leader is asking
the congregation to experience.