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, and partnership with people who understand the best practices to run a campaign for a large church.
In the early stages, stakeholders were resistant to bringing in an external agency. Through meetings and a God-sized vision came the realization that they couldn’t succeed without assistance. Horizons became their “generosity coach,” providing the vision, support, and faith in the church to accomplish the goal.
With the guidance of Horizons, Lake Forest Family of Churches identified the “generosity leaders” and those with a high capacity to give within the church. By the end of the capital campaign, they found that it was more than an opportunity to raise funds for a project. Instead, it was an opportunity to raise the level of discipleship.
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 attendance among all the churches totals about 4,000 souls. They have a total annual budget of about $7 million.
The number of people attending Lake Forest Family of Churches continued to grow and they needed to add to their current building in Huntersville, NC. During the capital campaign, they wanted to raise enough money to buy land for a 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.”
A capital campaign is one of the largest undertakings a church can experience. It requires a significant investment in time and resources. With a capital campaign you need to be ready to play the long game.
Up until 2018, Lake Forest Family of Churches handled all their capital campaigns in house. One of their top concerns was bringing in an outside voice to run the campaign.
For decades, the Lake Forest Family of Churches cultivated their DNA, culture, and values. They were afraid 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.
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, existing church. A capital campaign of this magnitude was a new venture.
“We humbled ourselves and recognized that we don’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 large professional staff to accomplish the goal.
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 and was aware of best practices and the type of results to expect.
This was the first time they had raised money for a new building, and they needed a coach to guide them on messaging. How do you get people fired up about bricks and mortar? The vision demanded they get the best counsel they could find.
In the early stages of the campaign, leadership resisted change. Because of their past experience, they had created a bootstrap, we can do everything ourselves culture.
Through meetings and a God-sized vision came the realization that they couldn’t succeed without guidance. A campaign this size required greater wisdom and external help.
As Lake Forest Family of Churches discovered, running a capital campaign alone is a challenge. Creating and executing a strategy involves careful planning. To ensure every aspect was discussed and executed they partnered with Joel Mikell at Horizons Stewardship.
During the screening process, 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 trusted Horizons not to ask them to be someone they weren’t.
The Lake Forest Family of Churches knew they needed to learn the aspect of building disciples through generous giving. Horizons explained the expected results when reaching out to those individuals in the church who have a high capacity to give.
No one is an expert on everything, especially when it comes to running a capital campaign. Generosity is an important 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 pivotal moment happened when the Lake Forest Family of Churches decided to ask Horizons to grow the leadership in asking for generosity during the campaign and afterward. Knowing how and when to ask individuals to give creates challenges, but Horizons ‘taught up’ the leadership staff, helped them plan, and gave them confidence to approach potential givers.
Horizons became their “generosity coach,” providing the vision, support, and faith in our 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.” - Mike Moses
Before the campaign began, Horizons met with the elders in person 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.
It was important that the Lake Forest Family of Churches identify the “generosity leaders” within the church and those with a high capacity to give. “Generosity leaders” are individuals who have a God-given tendency to give of their finances.
This was a new concept for the Lake Forest Family of Churches, and at first, they were resistant. They didn’t want to show favoritism to the wealthy.
However, God gives us all talents to use for His glory and some people He made have the ability to earn money. The Lake Forest Family of Churches began to see and treat them as the unique persons they are inside the church.
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 these individuals. It was an electric evening.
The pastor explained this was the group of leaders that would propel the campaign and as a result, the sense of God-given self-efficacy as a disciple increased. The group unified during this meeting and joy became evident.
These people were an integral part of the conversations and discipleship at the Lake Forest Family of Churches. Mike Moses told them, “In the end, it is you who makes the vision and the disciple-making of the church happen. Every time there is a baptism, I hope you weep with joy.”
After the meeting, the leadership had renewed confidence that the Holy Spirit would work through these “generosity leaders.”
Even though they completed the capital campaign, discipleship didn’t end. A couple of times a year the Lake Forest Family of Churches held a video conference. It was during these sessions that leadership learned that financially generous people in the church care more than the average congregant about the financial and strategic direction of the church.
In addition to the group meetings, leadership offered one-on-one meetings to the “generosity leaders” to discuss the campaign and talk about their gift. Almost all of them wanted to meet and the individuals who had a high capacity to give were the most open about sharing the size of their gift.
As you discuss a capital campaign for your church consider this guidance:
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 more than 10,000 ministries raise billions of dollars for impact.
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