Getting Givers To Give
The Most Profound Insight On Raising Money I’ve Ever Heard
I was at the C3 Elite pastors’ dinner—the night before the Creative Church Conference—and Ed and Lisa Young are sitting there casually dropping the bomb that they just raised an insane amount of money—more than they ever have. Cash. As in: actual legal tender. For a massive new expansion on their building, complete with a full-blown youth and young adults auditorium plus classroom space for a ministry school.
Even mega-churches like Fellowship Church in Dallas, TX—the kind with offices bigger than your apartment—need a real plan when they start swinging for the fences. Because faith alone doesn’t cut the check. And debt? Still sucks. Ed and Lisa have faith for a debt-free church, and—get this—they’re actually walking it out.
So Ed gets up and starts explaining—line by line—how they raised the money.
No hype. No smoke. Just raw honesty.
He talked about how he used to do it, and how terrible it was—how draining, awkward, and emotionally expensive the process had been in the past. And then he drops what he did differently this time. And I’m telling you, it blew my freaking mind.
Here’s this guy—one of the most polished communicators alive—saying, “Hey, I sucked at this. I got it wrong. Then I changed a few things, and everything shifted.” It wasn’t a flex. It was an invitation.
And I don’t know about you, but if you’re running a 501(c)(3)—or plan to—this stuff matters. Raising money is the worst. But it’s also essential. You can’t keep the lights on with vibes. THEOS SEMINARY doesn’t exist without donors. We can’t break even at the price we charge, not with what we offer. We’ve got over 500 students online right now, and we’re still underwater.
Add to that all the scholarships we’re taking on—pastors on the mission field, leaders in countries where affording a theological education is laughable. And somebody has to mark those papers. Someone has to keep the lights on, pay the team, support the mission.
So when Ed dropped this one insight, this key strategy that totally changed the game for them—it hit. Because we stumbled into something very similar. And yeah, it worked.
More on that in a second. But first: let’s talk about what most churches get wrong when it comes to funding vision, and the single thing that he shifted that blew the doors off their giving capacity.
This is what he said:
