The Importance of Strong Relationship

By Jim Collins
Every church family has a governing body usually called the church council or perhaps the vestry, church board, church cabinet, etc. Although most of the congregations or parishes look to these groups to lead the church family with ideas and initiatives, many times leadership can and does come from other places within the church community.

The search for these leaders should begin the first day the campaign director arrives and throughout the feasibility process. This is the most important prequel routine of the stewardship campaign.

Not only is it important to ask the focus study group participants for their suggestions regarding leaders through a questionnaire, but it is equally important to look for passion, emotion, personal testimonies, body language and more from all participants through the eyes of the clergy, leadership and the campaign director.

Issuing a request to the church community for campaign leaders does not necessarily guarantee the best volunteers will step forward. But through perceptive and knowledgeable eyes you can find some gold nuggets who have never been asked to participate or who would never have stepped forward on their own. They have to be engaged, connected and networked by aligning their careers, hobbies and spiritual walks to the stewardship initiative.

Through this methodical and patient search routine, some church family members who were once thought of as wallflowers turn into campaign dynamos and new leaders! It should come as no surprise that with careful facilitation by the campaign director keeping everyone on point, the mixture of tenured, talented leaders, new volunteers selected for important campaign leadership positions and praying for God’s wisdom, the road to a successful campaign will be paved for success.

Prayer, timing, patience and reaching outside of the box are all important ingredients for a campaign, but leadership is key. If these ingredients are exercised by both sets of leaders, new leaders will inspire tenured leaders with new enthusiasm while tenured leaders will inspire new leaders with a base structure of experience from which to spread their wings to drive a campaign toward exceeding goals.