Asking for Campaign Support: A Guide for Church Volunteers

By John Zehring

“Asking for Campaign Support” guides church volunteers to visit members to ask them to support their church’s capital campaign. 80% of a church campaign is planning and preparing. Then comes the time to ask for support. This how-to booklet provides guidance for preparing for visits, arranging to meet, and conducting a conversation that leads to inviting members to “join me” in participating in the campaign. Visitors are guided to envision their task as not only raising resources for the church’s physical needs but as contributing to a healthy, vital, serving institution that meets the needs of the whole person better than just about any other human organization. The booklet is designed to be reviewed quickly to serve visitors prior to phoning a church family to request a visit. Also included are sections to guide visitors in role playing case studies as they practice and prepare for their visits, as well as a treasury of scriptures and quotations about giving – to help visitors frame their service spiritually and to guide them in their work on behalf of God and God’s church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Zehring
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370579136

John Zehring

John Zehring has served United Church of Christ congregations as Senior Pastor in Massachusetts (Andover), Rhode Island (Kingston), and Maine (Augusta) and as an Interim Pastor in Massachusetts (Arlington, Harvard). Prior to parish ministry, he served in higher education, primarily in development and institutional advancement. He worked as a dean of students, director of career planning and placement, adjunct professor of public speaking and as a vice president at a seminary and at a college. He is the author of more than sixty books and is a regular writer for The Christian Citizen, an American Baptist social justice publication. He has taught Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Educational Psychology and Church Administration. John was the founding editor of the publication Seminary Development News, a publication for seminary presidents, vice presidents and trustees (published by the Association of Theological Schools, funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment). He graduated from Eastern University and holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, Rider University, and the Earlham School of Religion. He is listed in Marquis' WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and is a recipient of their Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. John and his wife Donna live in two places, in central Massachusetts and by the sea in Maine.

Book preview

Asking for Campaign Support:

A Guide for Church Volunteers

John Zehring

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Copyright 2018 John Zehring

Introduction

Congratulations for serving as a campaign visitor. Your congregation thanks you for your volunteering in service to your church’s present and future mission, ministry and physical needs. Those are intertwined, are they not? A church shopper coming to a facility with peeling paint and bare wood peeking through will likely think Here is a church which does not take care of itself. Their minds might make a leap to think that if a church does not take its physical presence seriously, neither does it take its theology seriously. Nor its mission. Nor its attraction to guests. Perhaps that is not the case, but a well-cared for facility undergirds the efforts to meet the spiritual needs of the congregation. And so you, campaign visitor, are not just raising resources for the church’s physical needs but you are contributing to a healthy, vital, serving institution that meets the needs of the whole person better than just about any other human organization.

The purpose of this booklet is to guide you to make visits on behalf of your church’s capital campaign. It is a training manual, based on traditional campaign tools and techniques. Much of this may come naturally to you. Some is common sense, although as the philosopher Voltaire noted Common sense is not so common. It is design to be reviewed quickly to serve you prior to phoning a church family to request a visit.

Some say they hate to ask for money. Often that is because they do not know how. Hopefully this work will teach you. You are not asking for anything for yourself. You are asking on behalf of God and the church – a most worthy purpose. You are not asking for anything that you have not done yourself. Every volunteer must make his or her own pledge first before visiting with another. Therefore, you are asking church families – who are already givers to the church – to join you. You begin by thanking them for their participation and service to the church. You tell your own story of how the church meets your needs. And the end, you ask them to consider participating in the campaign, as you have done.

Feel confident about visiting for the campaign

By the time you visit a church family, 80% of the work has been done. In any campaign, 80% of the job is planning and preparing and 20% is asking and following up.