What Am I Getting for the $95 a Month?

This question recently came by e-mail from a missionary appointee who was understandably questioning why he should pay a monthly fee for weekly coaching and accountability while he raises his support.  I realized there must be others who have this question on their minds, but aren’t so forthright as to ask it.

As you may already know, raising support for faith ministry is a daunting and formidable task. It is currently taking from three to five years for those raising a full budget for long-term ministry.

KCT trainees who follow the training and coaching guidelines take an average of six months to become fully funded. The most important factor that makes the difference is the coaching and accountability relationship.  So the quick answer to the question is that your $95 monthly ($570 total based on the average of six months) buys two to four years off of the time it will otherwise take to become fully funded. That puts the actual cash savings in the thousands.

Everyone who engages in KCT accelerated partnership development faces internal and external obstacles which are very difficult to overcome without continual and active guidance and support.

The main internal obstacles that come to mind are the sense of isolation, fear of rejection, internal accusations and a failing sense of urgency.  The external obstacles are distractions, negative feedback and the tragic old false paradigm that you can raise support just by speaking in churches and Sunday School classes, showing up at mission conferences and writing letters.  All of these obstacles demand continual attention by a coach that is trained to recognize them and to de-fuse them.

Isolation – Every individual or couple raising support regularly feels alone and isolated in the process.  Their coach is their connection with the dozens of others facing similar issues, and their source of encouragement and reassurance that it can actually be done.

Fear of rejection — It’s universal.  Jesus made it clear that if they rejected Him, they will reject us.  This  normal fear needs to be continually acknowledged and addressed.  Your coach knows the signs and will keep you reminded that your partnership development ministry meets an urgent need of the church to be connected with a major purpose for redemption — to be the expression of Christ to the nations.

Internal accusations – They come at the point of highest vulnerability.  You hit the 50% plateau and stay there a couple of months and suddenly you are thinking. . .

“Am I really called to do this?”

“What makes me worthy to ask people for support?”

“I feel like a beggar!”  . . . the list goes on.

Your coach is familiar with all of them and skilled at helping you re-connect with your original calling and purpose.

Failing sense of urgency – When the going gets tough, among the first things that falters is your sense of urgency and momentum.  Again, the coach is skilled at spotting the symptoms and challenging them.

Distractions — There you sit with a list of names and phone numbers on your desk.  It’s time. . . for another cookie from the jar, or . . . oh, that garage really needs cleaning out. . . and on go the distractions. The primary goal in the accelerated partnership development process is “keeping the main thing the main thing.”  Who is in your life, other than your coach, who has weekly contact with you and who assumes the responsibility of helping you stay on task?

Negative feedback — It is painfully common for people raising support to get stalled for weeks or months by an offhanded comment from a friend or family member.

“Maybe you should think about getting a real job,”

“Can’t you find a mission organization that pays a salary?”

“Isn’t it terrible having to go around begging for money?”

“I don’t think I could live on handouts like that.”

You may know there are clear, right and reasonable responses to these attitudes, but when you are out there alone, frustrated and discouraged, it is a huge advantage to have a coach to help you keep focused on the fundamental principles of why we minister in this way.

False Paradigm– It is when your are faced with making phone appointments  for face-to-face presentations that the “telephone terrors” set in.  It is a universal phenomenon.  That is when the old paradigm creeps back in with thoughts like. . . “There has to be an easier way!  Surely if I just speak in churches, Sunday school classes, home groups and invite people over for dessert, people will respond with support.   Your coach is there to reinforce the proven fact that you have a five times better chance of receiving partnership when you share your ministry with one couple or individual than you would if there are two or more couples or individuals in the room.

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Effective Support Raising and Partnership Development

Since Greek and Roman times skilled communicators have known that people resist change. They have also know that people go through five distinct stages of resistance before they make a change. Jesus, the Apostle Paul and others in the Bible understood these stages. They organized their preaching and teaching so their listener and readers could come to a decision in a natural way. (For examples, see Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman in John 4:7-24; Paul on Mars Hill, Acts 17.)

In my training you will gain practice in anticipating the five stages of resistance every audience member goes through, and the five effective responses to these stages.

Not everyone in an audience will manifest each of these attitudes but we can best assume the majority of people will. Therefore, it serves you well to anticipate all of them in every presentation in which you want people to stop doing, start doing or do something differently.

The five responses can become a structural framework for all your spoken and written communication to persuade. They apply to preaching, evangelizing, fundraising, recruiting volunteers, personal witnessing or motivating people in any way. You can use them in writing memos, reports, work papers and newsletters. They are worth writing down, memorizing, keeping on a card in your wallet, posting above your desk, and storing in your computer.

In my training you will gain skill in organizing the elements of your presentation is such a way that it naturally responds to the five stages of resistance. It will allow people to discover truth and respond to it in logical sequence. Once they discover truth, they own it and they unconsciously begin to adjust their thinking and behavior accordingly.

* I am indebted to Mr. Claude Bowen for this specific wording of the five attitudes and responses.

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Four crucial steps to preparing a story:

1. Make notes of the key elements of your story

I recommend that you do not write out stories that you plan to tell. The problem is that we write in a different style of language than we speak. If you write it out completely it will not come across naturally when you tell it. Just think through the story and make notes of the critical action and key scenes.

2. Craft a power line

The power line is the one line in the story, often the final line, which draws the whole story together and portrays its meaning. It is similar to the punch line of a joke.

Samples of power lines:

“I never took another drink after that.”

“That is when I realized I could never stop loving her.”

“So my advice is never to walk away from a crying spouse.”

3. Cut the fluff

As you practice your story, practice cutting anything that doesn’t enhance or support the power line. Don’t cut any visual aspects of the scene because those are important. Get brutal; however, get violent and merciless in cutting out generalities. A generality is anything that doesn’t connect with specific time, specific people and specific places. Cut everything that doesn’t add power to the power line. Regardless of how funny it is, how smart it makes you look or how short it makes the story, cut it. Your audience will love you for it.

4. Practice telling it with visual and emotional power.

Get alone, stand up, and practice the story. Get your voice, your face and your whole body into the scene. Feel it in your heart. Visualize your audience reacting in just the way you want them to.

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I can train you to engage the seven rules for telling stories

1. Keep your stories short.

There is no such thing as a long story and a short story. There are only long and short versions of stories. For our training purposes and to develop the discipline of tight stories, we keep the maximum length down to two minutes.

2. Begin where the story begins.

This takes training and discipline. We are naturally inclined to introduce a story or explain what it is about before we tell it. The story is much more powerful when your audience discovers what it is about as you tell it.

3. Get to the Action.

The “Action” is where specific people are in a specific place at a specific time where specific things are happening. Action is visually oriented and emotionally engaging.

Generalities, where people “sometimes used to go here or there and do this or that” are boring, useless and pointless.

4. Stop where the story ends.

Something in our culture drives us to explain or state the moral of stories we tell. You know what happens to a joke that needs to be explained. It is the same with any story. If it needs to be explained it means was either the wrong story or it was poorly told. When you have to explain it, your listener is forced to make a judgment about whether it is true or not. When they discover truth from your story, they bypass judgment and they own it.

5. Know the opening and closing lines.

The two most critical points in a story are getting in and getting out. Getting in is easy. Just make it a habit of putting three important pieces of information in the first sentence: Answer the questions: who? when? where? Example: “In the fall of 1971 my wife and I drove a Chevrolet van from California to Quito, Ecuador…”

Getting out takes a little more thought. Think of how the punch line of a joke has to be exactly right. The “power line” of a story should be thought through and memorized. I don’t recommend that you write it out, just think it through and memorize it. It is the power line that ties the whole story together and portrays its full meaning

6. Don’t just say it; portray it.

According to research, words alone account for only seven percent of the total impact of a talk. The rest of the impact comes from your voice and non-verbals like face, gestures and body language. You can engage the other 93 percent of the impact by putting your whole person in the scene. You see the action; feel the emotions and re-live every aspect of the story.

7. Use visual images.

We all think and remember in pictures. Every story needs a scene that people can picture in their minds. Let your eyes move to see the scene; let your hands help shape it in their imaginations. React physically with your whole body to the action taking place in the story. Create imaginary props in your hands. Where there is dialogue, practice playing the role of each speaker and simulate their voices.

Avoid adjectives that don’t create mental pictures. Adjectives like “wonderful, awesome, beautiful, interesting,” are next to useless in stories. Use visual imagery like, “struck like a cannonball, “gorgeous like a fresh rose”, “more annoying than a hangnail”, “angry black storm clouds”.

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