Rick McGinniss

The strategy of meeting with individuals instead of the typical ‘yall come’ sermon-series-then-pledge approach is powerful not only in raising dollars for mission and ministry but in spending intentional time getting to know people better. I was involved in at least 80 meetings and can say that it was one of the highlights of my 30+ years of pastoring because I got to hear so many stories of people I didn’t know.

I think it’s important to note that, for people who are still in the early stages of faith, the idea of meeting with someone they don’t know personally (like a volunteer or even a staff member) to discuss the vision/project can be challenging. It would be wise to have a strategy defined in advance of the public phase of how you are going to handle that “non-responsive” crowd which, in our case, was about half of the 650 identified active households.