Summary
The Lake Forest Family of Churches has a heart for church planting and needed to expand the capacity of their current building. The capital campaigns required a significant investment in time and resources, as well as a partnership with people who understand the best practices for running a campaign for a large church.
In the early stages, stakeholders were hesitant to use outside counsel to plan and guide their campaign. Working through the exploration process, church leaders determined they would be best served by drawing on the wisdom of someone with a long history of helping churches successfully navigate their challenges. Horizons became their "generosity coach," providing the vision, support, and faith in the church to accomplish the goal.
Lake Forest Family of Churches
The Lake Forest Family of Churches comprises four churches with differing missional contexts in North Carolina. Local elders and pastors lead each church. Mike Moses is the founder of the Lake Forest Family of Churches and Lead Pastor at Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, NC.
The average weekly attendance at the Lake Forest Family of Churches is about 4,000 with an annual combined budget of seven million dollars.
Church Vision
The number of people attending the Lake Forest Church continued to grow, and they needed to add to their building in Huntersville and purchase land for the sister church in Denver, NC.
The Lake Forest Family of Churches has a heart for church planting and raising up the next generation of pastors.
Mike Moses explained, "I love raising up one more church-planting pastor at Lake Forest and sending them out to begin a new creative church that contextualizes the Good News of Jesus Christ to a new population."
Church Capital Campaign Challenges
A capital campaign is one of the most significant undertakings a church can experience. It requires a considerable investment in time and resources.
Loss of Identity
The Lake Forest Family of Churches had always handled capital campaigns internally. One of their top concerns was bringing in an outside voice to guide the campaign.
For decades, the Lake Forest Family of Churches cultivated their DNA, culture, and values. They feared a consultant would ignore this and tell them to change their core identity. Losing their identity as a church was a greater risk than not raising the money to buy the initial land and building.
Large Churches Call for Large Vision
While the Lake Forest Family of Churches understood how to cast a vision and galvanize the congregation in a small church plant, they were still learning how to run a large and rapidly growing church. A capital campaign of this magnitude was a new venture.
"We humbled ourselves and recognized that we didn't know how to do generosity campaigns in a church of this size."
It was more than raising money, they also needed guidance on how to organize and lead a professional large staff to accomplish the goal.
Benchmarks and Best Practices
It had been ten years since the Lake Forest Family of Churches had run a capital campaign. They needed someone who knew church-appropriate benchmarks, was aware of best practices, and the type of results to expect.
The church had always focused on its mission and downplayed the need for buildings. But they were now in a place where a building was essential to the mission. Pastor Mike realized he did not know how to structure a process to "get people fired up about bricks and mortar." He also discovered that God's vision before the church demanded they get the best counsel they could find. A campaign this size required new wisdom in the form of external help.
Partnering with Horizons Transforms a Capital Campaign
As the Lake Forest Family of Churches discovered, running a capital campaign alone is challenging. Creating and executing a strategy involves careful planning. They decided to partner with Joel Mikell at Horizons Stewardship to ensure every aspect was well planned and executed.
Building Trust
During the screening process, the Lake Forest Family of Churches felt Horizons was authentic through all the conversations and that they had deep experience raising money for churches while staying true to the culture of that church. They came to trust that Horizons would not ask them to be someone they weren’t.
An Expert Guide
The Lake Forest Family of Churches knew they needed to learn how to build disciples through generous giving. Horizons explained the spiritual foundation of engaging financial leaders and others with the gift of giving in a way that avoided favoritism and honored God's design in each of them.
No one is an expert on everything. Generosity is an essential aspect of the discipleship of every believer. It deserves and requires the best a church can give. By partnering with Horizons, the Lake Forest Family of Churches gave their congregation the best.
A Generosity Coach
A pivotal moment happened when Pastor Mike decided to ask Horizons to help grow his leadership in engaging financial leaders during the campaign and afterward. Knowing how and when to ask individuals to give creates challenges, but Horizons counsel helped him gain the confidence to engage all potential givers effectively.
Horizons became their "generosity coach," providing the vision, support, and faith in their church to accomplish the goal.
"Partnership with Horizons is the best we can do to be responsible to our congregation and to live out the Great Commission command God has given us."
Steps for a Successful Campaign
A Spiritual Task
Before the campaign began, Horizons met with the elders and treated the entire process as a spiritual task. This campaign would, first and foremost, be about disciple-making in the local church and accomplishing God’s vision.
At no point during the campaign did the experience feel like a transaction. Instead, Horizons encouraged the Lake Forest Family of Churches to look at generosity through the lens of discipleship and pastoral care. Only when people give to God from the heart do they become stronger disciples.
Unleashing "Generosity Leaders"
The Lake Forest Family of Churches needed to identify the “generosity leaders” within the church and those with a high capacity to give. "Generosity leaders" have a God-given tendency to give of their finances joyfully.
This was a new concept for the Lake Forest Family of Churches, and at first, they were hesitant, not wanting to show favoritism to any group of people.
Church leaders began to embrace the understanding that God gives us all unique gifts to use for God's glory. Some people are gifted with the ability to earn money and the spirit to share generously, as led by the Holy Spirit. The Lake Forest Family of Churches began to see and treat them as the unique people God had created them to be.
As part of growing "generosity leaders," the Lake Forest Family of Churches held a summit. This was a preview of the campaign and a frank acknowledgment of the pastor’s admiration for how God was using the individuals to fulfill God's Vision for the Lake Forest Family of Churches. It was an electric evening.
Pastor Mike explained this was the group of leaders' critical role in bringing the mission and vision into reality. As a result, the sense of God-given self-efficacy as a disciple increased among those present. He invited them to prayerfully consider being a financial leader in the capital campaign and its impact on those who would follow. The group unified during this meeting, and their joy became evident.
These people were integral to the conversions and discipleship at the Lake Forest Family of Churches. Pastor Mike told them, "In the end, it is you who makes the church's vision and disciple-making happen. Every time there is a baptism, I hope you weep joyfully."
After the gathering, church leaders felt a renewed confidence that the Holy Spirit would work through these "generosity leaders" to accomplish God's plans for the church.
Takeaways from the Lake Forest Family of Churches Capital Campaign
As you discuss a capital campaign for your church, consider this guidance:
- Approach the campaign as spiritual before financial.
- A partnership with an external generosity coach can provide the wisdom needed to run a capital campaign.
- If the vision is important enough, you must do everything possible to achieve your financial goals.
- Treat people according to who they are and the talents God has given them.
- During and after the campaign for about a year is a time of unity and fruitfulness. Run toward and embrace the new vision. It requires sacrifice and giving but also develops stronger disciples and a healthier church.
- A capital campaign is more than an opportunity to raise funds for a project. Instead, it is an opportunity to increase the level of discipleship.
Start Your Next Capital Campaign
Considering a capital campaign for your church? Let’s start a conversation. Contact Horizons today to discuss how our team of experienced professionals can help you get there.
At Horizons, we specialize in helping pastors and nonprofit leaders like yourself realize their vision. Over the last 30 years, we’ve helped over 10,000 ministries raise over 10 billion dollars for impact.
We understand that every ministry is unique and has its own goals. That's why we offer personalized solutions that fit your specific needs. From strategic planning to capital campaigns, creating compelling communication strategies, and measuring effectiveness, our team supports you every step of the way.
We would love to discuss how we can tailor these strategies to meet your organization's specific capital campaign needs and goals. Feel free to contact us to schedule a time that works best for you.
