When we first started The Elemental Group, there was one driving goal: to help churches get healthier and more effective. That was it.
And what drove that was the effect that healthy churches had on the people inside and outside.
I recently was in a small city in northern Ohio visiting the leadership of a 130-year-old denominational church. They had dwindled down to a few people who were aging out and ready to close the doors. The church could no longer afford the upkeep of their historic building and were on a downward, cash-burn spiral every month.
An interim pastor came in, began to speak life into the church, taught the powerful, transformative words of Jesus, and invited the Spirit to move. He was no young, fiery upstart preacher: he was seventy years old. The people began to be inspired…and within two years they became outward-focused and no longer in debt. As a matter of fact, the week we visited, they had just given $17,000 to a women’s shelter across the street from the church and restarted their free monthly lunches for the resource-challenged in their neighborhood.
They had found a purpose, a mission to give themselves to. It had brought new life and energy to the people there.
What’s more, they wanted help establishing a nonprofit to expand their learnings with other struggling churches.
In the past few years, our work has now expanded to faith-based nonprofits, both helping churches start them or help with existing NPOs in need of support or consultative advice.
The beauty of our original mandate was obvious: when a church is healthy, inspiring, and outward-focused, it isn’t uncommon for the people in that church to begin dreaming, hearing from God, and wondering how they might make a difference themselves.
For instance…
Some Christian moms in Orlando began to wonder who would take care of their autistic adult children after they had passed on. They formed Casa Familia, and are soon to open a fifty-unit apartment complex with live-in care for autistic adults.
A man sitting in a church in Ohio was suddenly inspired to create a ministry that would take people with physical disabilities on outdoor hiking adventures in specially-made wheelchairs. Luke 5 Adventures was born…and now with chapters opening all over the U.S.
Allen Rainey went on a mission trip with his pastor and helped repair a small solar power system at a medical clinic in Honduras. It led him later to launch a nonprofit called Sonlight Power, that has now installed over 270 solar projects all over the world while sharing the good news of Jesus.
These kind of stories repeat over and over when people in vibrant, motivating churches are moved to do something transformational in their corner of the world. These are some of the 40+ faith based nonprofits we worked with last year, helping them with everything from advancement planning to grant writing. Our team of five grant writers secured over $1.5 million last year alone.
When a church is healthy, everyone wins…both inside and outside.
We recently created a free, simple 12-question self-scoring survey for faith-based nonprofits to assess how ready they are to receive grant-funding or determine needs like strategic planning, board development, or regaining organizational momentum. To us, these are all ways that followers of Jesus are advancing the Kingdom in practical ways.
When church leaders are encouraging their people to dream with the Father “who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine”, they are exponentially expanding their influence.
How is that working for you?
Dave Workman | The Elemental Group
Every healthy organization is marked by four essential traits: Integrity, Passion, Servanthood, and Imagination. With a practitioner perspective, author Dave Workman offers common sense guidance and tools to maximize leadership. Filled with insight, humor, and reflective exercises, this is an indispensable exploration of these four universal values. Check out Elemental Leaders: Four Essentials Every Leader Needs...and Every Church Must Have.
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