When Nathan and I got married we did something very nerdy. We didn’t start wedding planning the traditional way. Instead, the first thing we did was to make a list of our values. After that, the myriad of necessary wedding decisions were easy to make, which was a huge blessing because we were only engaged for 100 days!
At The Cause, we are always praying for “new wine skin” solutions, so this year, instead of following the traditional nonprofit year end fundraising plan, we started with our values.
Our deepest VALUE is to bless and engage all parties involved – our amazing ministry partners, our generous supporters, and The Cause.
We knew that God wanted us to go deeper with our year end fundraising campaign than just asking for the necessary donations to keep this ministry going. Then, one of our supporters reached out with an amazing idea. He offered to take a day to fast and pray for The Cause with us. The idea quickly grew and solidified, we would ask all our friends to join us for Hungry for Prayer on Giving Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019.
Wow what a great day! Our first ever Hungry for Prayer far exceeded our expectations. EVERY SINGLE ONE of our partners had someone lifting them up specifically. We had over 50 people sign up to join us from around the world, and then, our staff, board, local partners, and volunteers all spent time praying together.
One of my favorite moments was seeing a widow, on a very fixed income, make an anonymous donation to the partner she was praying for. It was small amount-wise, but mighty and powerful in the Spirit.
As we prayed, God gave me the image of a globe with pins sticking out of many locations. Then God took string and started connecting one pin to the next, weaving hearts together, and soon enough the connections were everywhere. It was a beautiful network, flowing with goodness, grace, and power. This is what God is doing with The Cause and we are just seeing the first fruits now.
In November, we had the most beautiful group Zoom call for our partners. Everyone openly shared, helped each other through a myriad of challenges, spoke truth into each other’s lives, and prayed for each other. The impact of our time together was powerful.
The visions that God is giving us for the future of The Cause are absolutely blowing our minds. I’m so excited about where God is leading us. Here are just a few of the things we can’t stop dreaming about…
• A partner retreat for everyone in 2021.
• Turning our wonderful individual relationships into a global Kingdom community.
• Implementing a new collaborative paradigm for missions support raising alongside your personal support raising. I’ll be sharing more about this soon!
• Expanding our spiritual and strategic support.
We love seeing The Cause Community grow and expand, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.
