I was a part of a D.Min final project for Clint Calvert a little over a year ago. Clint is an awesome guy who really likes to help small, local churches figure out how to do their most effective ministry. His project was focused on helping churches determine what their building needs were and then determine how to raise money to meet those needs. I was one of the pastors that he met with and coached in this process. One of the things that came out of this coaching was that while a building would be convenient to have for Tapestry it wasn’t something that necessarily helped our ministry at this moment, and therefore I was the subject in his project that didn’t try to raise money for building needs. Still it started me thinking about what we could raise some extra money for.
That’s when the idea of initiating a capital campaign (the things churches often do to raise money for a building) to provide clean water to someone. Thanks to the Holte’s I had already begun a friendship with Sam Dinga of the Makah Foundation and I asked him to meet with our leadership team. The leadership team was amazed by what the Makah Foundation has done to provide clean water to villages in Cameroon, West Africa. Therefore, we decided that we would do a combination of a capital campaign and an NPR fundraiser – i.e. we would spend four weeks asking the church members to give more than the normal offerings they give that support the ministry of Tapestry AND we would use resources the church already had to match whatever the church members gave for a well through the Makah Foundation.
We aren’t finished yet but thus far we have raised enough money to build one well and we are a fifth of the way into the second well. It has been a pretty good way to celebrate our Lord’s birthday – I can’t really think of a better way to honor the Lord Who gives “living water” than to provide our neighbors with clean, healthy water. It has also been pretty fun that Tapestry’s first “capital campaign” has been to meet the needs of others.
SIDE NOTE – If you are a thread it isn’t too late to give towards the well. You can do so HERE.
SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you aren’t a thread and are looking for an organization to support the Makah Foundation is a good one to support.