I am currently in fundraising mode. I haven’t done a purposeful drive on it for a little while now. What very quickly came flooding back to me is just how much I hate asking people for money.

I am British for a start and we just don’t like talking about that kind of thing very much. It’s all very gauche and embarrassing. I am also from a particular cultural subset that doesn’t focus all that much on money anyway; if you have it you spend it and that’s about that.

But perhaps my biggest inhibiting factor is that I also happen to come from a family that has a pathological distaste for it. My grandfather – a self-employed painter & decorator – would prefer to let people off their bill entirely than have an argument about it and even asking for money made him bristle a bit. It is clearly hereditary because, when I was self-employed, it was the bit of the job I hated with a passion. I would happily drum up business, agree terms, keep relationships warm and do the work at hand, but when it came to sending the invoice I used to hate it. Worse, when people would try and re-negotiate after the fact. I detest it all immensely. PAYE employees have none of this, and I envy them.

I thought, perhaps, when I became a pastor I wouldn’t have to do any of that. I will be doing the work of a gospel minister and I won’t have to talk about money, or ask anyone for money, unless I was preaching a very specific passage of scripture that directly mentioned it. And even then, I wouldn’t be asking for money, just preaching biblical imperatives which feels different. But how wrong I was.

When you minister in a deprived place, you very often rely on external support. This requires you going out and – you guessed it – asking people to support your ministry. Specifically, asking them for money. Money that is directly tied to you and what you are doing. You have to go round, cap in hand, trying to explain what your needs are (which is okay), convincing people that you are worth supporting (which feels considerably less okay), and then asking them for money to do the stuff that you are saying is worth supporting (yuck!) It’s all very grubby and unpleasant to me.

And now I am doing it all over again! I am now trying to raise funds for a ministry and having to do all these same things. I am having to explain what I am doing (which is fine), why it is worthwhile, which feels painfully close to making much of myself, even though I know it isn’t quite that, which feels horrible, and then asking for money to do it, which is just as bad. But needs must so here I am and you would do me a great service by supporting me generously just so I don’t have to do this icky stuff!

But the reason I say all of that is because I know I am not the only one in this boat. One of the reasons I am excited to be working with Medhurst Ministries, particularly the role I will be doing, is I know what it is like to have to keep going out and raising support. I know what it is like to spend 50% of your time doing that all while trying to do 100% of the pastoral work other people expect. My hope is that if I can raise adequate support for my role, it frees me up to be able to build up relationships and raise adequate support for other churches. Much as I loathe asking people for money, if I can do that for other people, take that stress away from them, free them up to be about the pastoral ministry they really want to be about and help their ministries flourish, I will take that hit for the kingdom!

I will be doing a bunch of other things in my role too. But if I can generate support that will free me up to then generate support for all the churches in our network, I would be pleased to do it so that more ministry in deprived areas might focus on the gospel work that they went there to accomplish.

If you would like to support me in this ministry, please click here for more details on the role and how you can give to it.