1988 and 1989
"Above all that we ask or think"
(Ephesians 3:20)
Ralph D. Winter
The wonderful woman who told this story thus far has gone to her reward, and she took her writing talents with her! As her husband I am not even going to attempt to write in the conversational way she did.
However, the story she was unable to finish cries out for what happened next. Did we, with God's help, ever pay off the campus? In Roberta's two chapters after the book was printed she gives some of the excitement. In this brief chapter I will try to summarize those final events of the campaign. In two further chapters I will sketch the following fourteen years. To do that many exciting details must be omitted — they would require a whole additional book, much of which Roberta wrote but never finished, and which may be published later on.
But, very briefly....
By early 1988, after the campus was paid for, our most hair-raising crises were over. Now our major visions could be tackled with an entirely different mood and approach. Indeed, we soon had even an extensively different staff.
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Why was that? During the campaign our long term purposes had been somewhat blurred by the flurry of events. The workers we attracted (whether the handful at our headquarters or the thousands of our dear part-time helpers all across the country) were easily able to digest the concrete danger of our losing this beautiful campus. We deeply appreciated their eagerness and loyalty to our cause. But the cause was bigger than buying a campus, and once the campus was secured, many struggled to perceive those out-of-sight longer-term goals for global mission. But that story is in the next two chapters.
In this chapter we must review in a few paragraphs the final months of the "Last $1000" Campaign. In the spring of 1987 we still had a long way to go. But Roberta's book, Once More Around Jericho, revised and expanded, appearing at that point in a bright new cover design and a new arresting title, "I Will Do a New Thing," became, in truth, a major factor in accelerating the campaign itself.
The graph you see here tells the story of how slowly the first part of the Last $1000 Campaign got started — until, that is, the point where not only the earlier part of this book reappeared but also we began a series of weekly first-class letters to those who had already given.
GRAPHIC with bars goes here
I should clarify something. In this campaign period we stopped asking for money, unless people themselves decided to send it. Rather, we sought people who would
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promise to provide "the last thousand dollars," if we were ever to line up enough other such promises to make up the total. (We did not think about the possibility that some might pledge and then later change their minds. But as it turned out amazingly few felt they could not fulfill their pledge as more than 98% of the pledges came in.
So what is the rest of the story? How did God allow us to go from a third of what we needed to the full amount in a little over six months?
Of course, it might have been a case of the first part being the hardest, and certainly essential to what followed. Yet we might have stalled and given up when it seemed we simply were not taking off.
Aside from the republication of Roberta's book (in the I Will Do a New Thing version) I believe the most strategic decision of the campaign took place when we decided to stop mailing out letters to new people and instead simply mailed a weekly report to those relatively few (1,903) who had at that point already given or pledged a thousand dollars. This new strategy meant we would be suddenly depending on those who had already been convinced, to convince still others. God blessed, and it worked.
At the point moment we began those weekly first-class letters eight months of the campaign had already passed and we were less than one-fourth of our way to the final $8 million needed, and this final balloon payment was fast approaching.
Thus, on July 4, 1987, our first of these weekly letters pointed out that although we needed a total of 7,960 one-thousand dollar donors or pledgers, only 1,903 such people had stepped out (that was the bad news). But, we also urged the recipients to see that if each of these 1,903 who had already given or pledged were to invite people to their home and show our video we would only (this was the good news) need each present donor to find 3.2 additional donors or pledgers. People can't easily envision how thousands
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of new gifts can come in, but they really are able to think about how to find three.
The second week, this 3.2 number (of new donors needed per present donor) had decreased to 2.7, and the third week, to 2.6 and the fourth week to 2.5, and so on. This combination of home meetings showing a special video and weekly letters reporting results, all bathed in prayer, seemed clearly to make a major difference. We were making steady progress. In fact in September, in view of the October 1 deadline, we had experienced a mighty surge of gifts and had almost reached 50% of the campaign goal. This surge led the college from which we were buying the property to move the date of the final balloon payment from October 1 to December 31.
Meanwhile, however, some members of our board felt we were allowing the campaign to drag out too long. It was now a year old, and although we had never set a date at which to give up (and return all gifts and cancel all pledges), certain board members felt it was time to do so. Also, they had a different plan. They felt sure most donors would allow us to keep their gifts, plus, by selling off the ninety-three surrounding houses in order to complete payment on the campus, that would at least save the campus itself.
This introduced a great deal of anguish since from the beginning we had been confident that without the endowment function of the houses the entire project would be unstable and greatly limited.
But, board pressure mounted to end the campaign. It peaked at our meeting December 4. We were now at 85% but that meant we still lacked gifts or pledges for a total of $1,115,000 — a lot of money for so few days before the new deadline of December 31.
Under this pressure a compromise was finally reached, a strange decision which created a true internal crisis at board level. Namely, we would shut the campaign down
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December 31 no matter what. Yet, if the total amount given and pledged by that time had not reached the total needed, our promises all along were to cancel all pledges and return all funds contributed.
For some of us these seemed extremely unwise, since we were really close to the end now, moving fast, and we had not promised anyone we would shut down at a given point, and if we were close the college would surely give us a few more days. It was a difference of perspective between a real-estate, business approach and a faith campaign approach. But the latter group was now in the minority. The decision was made.
Our first-class weekly letters instantly recorded this now brittle situation. By now we were mailing this yellow four-page letter to 6,789 people (who had either given or pledged $1,000).
Thus, we were substantially close to the goal but still had farther to go in the remaining time than we had ever gone in so short a period. On December 15, however, we were informed by a dear couple that if we fell short at midnight December 31 they would make up the difference! What a fantastic relief!
Even so we worked night and day right down to the midnight December 31 deadline. When that moment arrived our records indicated that the combination of gifts and pledges only fell short by $75,000, and we knew that would be made up by the couple who had promised to do so. We practically collapsed with joy and gratitude. After eleven tedious and uncertain years we were over the hump.
Or, we thought we were. Certain factors had not been considered. First, we glumly discovered that fairly often a pledge on our records would have come in under one name, say, the husband's, and the money would then after a while be sent in by the wife. In this way it was counted twice, thus inflating artificially the amount we thought was covered.
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Second, we had never doubted the validity of any pledge. But some people who had early pledged a thousand dollars, now, a year later found they were no longer in position to send that amount of money. And, we would not know for several months just what would come of the more than a million dollars of pledges.
Providentially, on the other hand, the cut-off date of midnight December 31, 1987 did not entirely stop the flow of gifts. Furthermore, as it turned out, most all of the pledges were finally fulfilled.
Before all these details had become clear, however, we held a "Mortgage Burning" victory celebration on January 16, 1988. Many illustrious Christian leaders sent greetings and audio clips. Paul Cedar and Jack Hayford were there to speak in person. As we retraced the entire history of the Center, we called forward those who had contributed to our success. By the time we finished the story a very large multitude stood triumphantly together at the front.
Many pledges were still to be received, but on that marvelous night we at least turned over all of the cash we had and received a huge two-by-five-foot "receipt" from the Point Loma College president. Humorously, whatever artist had made this impressive receipt had erroneously added "paid in full" even though we still had to collect over a million dollars of outstanding pledges before we could pay in full! But the evening was one of great joy and rejoicing. I sob inwardly even as I write this.
Of course a great deal was yet to be done. We paid money over as fast as it came in. Transferring large sums was getting to be commonplace.
I recall one curious moment when I was accompanied by a fund-raising expert to the bank where we were making a major transfer. We owed not only money to the mortgage held by the college, but also we had been lent some funds at earlier payment deadlines by three other organizations. One of them was the Calvary Chapel group headed by
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Chuck Smith, a very dear man and an enormously influential leader. He had saved us from foreclosure at one point by lending us $200,000 at no interest. Meanwhile the college mortgage in those days had risen to 14%.
So here the two of us were at the bank deciding where a huge sum would go. I said, "Let's pay off Chuck Smith first." The financial expert at my side said instantly, "No, pay down the 14% loan first. That is what is killing you." My response was, "That high interest simply means they are not hurting very much if we take a little longer to pay them. By contrast, Chuck Smith is getting no interest, so we should pay him first." And we did. Looking back I cannot easily account for the faith Chuck Smith had in helping us the way he did. We are so grateful to this insightful man. Campus Crusade and World Literature Crusade also helped. In fact, Campus Crusade finally forgave us a great deal of the $200,000 it had lent us.
But now it was all over, and we were entering a whole new world. And to that we must turn in the chapters that follow.
Granted, the blanket of financial debt had now been lifted. Now we could face with security our original long term goals of pursuing frontier trouble spots and opportunities in mission. Now those mercilessly concrete financial deadlines were a thing of the past. Now we could, as originally envisioned, do our work without competing for funds with all the other mission agencies we were committed to help. (While we accept gifts to the institution we do not ask churches or donors for gifts for our work beyond the individual needs of our staff families.) In all our campaign to pay off the campus the number of gifts beyond $10,000 could almost be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Now, our original small-gifts policy could resume in order to be able to send all larger gifts on to other mission agencies — what we had promised all along. We were determined not to depart from our conviction that the cause of
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missions not only needed a large nerve center (which we now had well in progress) but it also needed a minimum of a million people who had caught the vision of finishing the task of penetrating every last ethnic unit on this planet. That's the Abrahamic Commission as found in Genesis 12:1-3, "... through you all the peoples of the world will be blessed." This basic, Biblical commission was repeated to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 26:4,5, and 28:14,15. It is mentioned again in Psalm 67, and Isaiah 49:6, and is paraphrased with utter finality in Matthew 28:18-20. At least a million people need to discover that this commission is actually the main subject of the Bible, and that therefore it ought to be the organizing theme of their churches and their personal lives.
Thus, we understood that to continue to capture the attention and imaginations of additional people was as crucial to the cause as acquiring the campus.
There is however, right here, something painful to relate. In the aftermath of the campaign we not only had to contend with the duty of collecting over a million dollars of pledges, but we also faced the rapid attrition of the sturdy team which fought with us successfully to pay off the campus. This team had to be gradually replaced by a new crew which leaned into the wind of our long-term goals yet who had not been present when we made our promises. In this confusing situation we confess that we seriously neglected our desire and promise to continue with the original small-gift campaign until all the larger gifts were either returned or reassigned.
This may benefit from further explanation. We had early felt the call to avoid diverting funds from other mission agencies. We felt we could avoid doing that by asking no one for more than $15.95 (later $16.95 to cover materials we sent). It was obvious then that such a policy would force us to gain the attention (and small gifts) of a million people in order to acquire the campus. Less obvious might
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be the fact that this second achievement could be as important as establishing the U.S. Center for World Mission in the first place. The "Million Person Campaign" is what we came to call this aspect of the primary goal of avoiding competition with the existing mission agencies.
I feel personally apologetic for our neglect of this dimension. Beyond that apology I can at least say that at the time of our 25th anniversary we have renewed zeal to continue this less dramatic activity, and that extensive planning already exists to pursue that follow-through campaign.
We also realize that some of our Last $1000 Campaign donors never intended for us to return or reassign their gifts, and while this does not reduce our commitment to seek a million people with new vision we also do not intend simply to keep that money for our own use. Except for a few foundation gifts we want to be able eventually to say that we have not finally diverted more than $15 from any one person in our effort to establish this project.
But what to do with excess funds? We could just give them away to a variety of mission agencies. We early planned, however, to establish a "Fund for the Kingdom" with such monies. Its purpose is to jump start projects which are "neutral crucials," that is, 1) projects or ministries crucial to the cause of missions and neutral in their broad contribution, 2) projects which can get started more quickly if they do not have to raise funds in advance of their getting going and actually demonstrating their purpose, and, lastly, 3) projects which are willing to conduct a small ($15) gift campaign themselves and thus revolve their start-up funds back to the Fund for the Kingdom. This latter "rotating fund" policy will allow the Fund for the Kingdom to sponsor project after project that is neutral and crucial to the mission enterprise which needs help in getting started.
However, we must move beyond the campaign to revisit the different kinds of events, both happy and unhappy, which that new era generated.
