Hope Church Presbyterian

Lutz, Florida

Challenge: Building a new church and community center

Five years after they first began meeting as an organized church just outside of Tampa, Florida, the leadership at Hope Church Presbyterian felt a growing awareness that it was time for the 200-member congregation to move out of the facilities it rented at a local YMCA and into a church home of its own.

Because of its size and the resources of its staff -- its youth pastor, children's pastor and administrator serve on a part-time basis -- mounting a campaign proved to be a difficult undertaking. Still, the leadership and congregation knew that with facilities of their own, they could encourage the growth that their intimate church community knew was possible.

Tasks: Conduct first-ever capital campaign

As a small church, many in the congregation were understandably wary of any fundraising effort that would appear heavy-handed. "We've got so many folks that weren't involved in any church before, and they were sometimes scared of it," noted senior pastor Mike Jones.

Building their campaign around the theme "A Time for Hope," the church worked with Generis consultant John Bash and began their fundraising in earnest in early March 2006, with a goal of raising $500,000. With our help, the leadership team organized what it called "awareness meetings" with members in their homes, to spread the vision of the campaign.

"We created our own prayer journal, which was a wonderful bonding experience for our people," he added. "I felt like everything we were doing had a biblical base, so that made it very easy to get excited about it."

Solution: The start of a three-year campaign, with construction plans on target

By the time Palm Sunday arrived in April, the church had already reached $560,000 in pledges and gifts, with two-thirds of that amount from the church leaders themselves. "It went very, very well," said Jones. "The campaign exceeded our spiritual expectations. It really opened people's hearts to what God owns and what he doesn't, and of course God owns everything."

Once it secures additional financing for the project later this year, Jones added that the church expects to begin construction in the fall on the first of three planned phases that will include a gymnasium, community center and sanctuary.

Individualized Guidance

What persuaded both Jones and his fellow church leaders and members to select Generis for the campaign was our spiritual approach to capital campaigns, he said. "We really wanted to find an organization that wasn't going to do our greatest fear," he added. "When we looked at Generis, they were on our wavelength, they were in line with us. So many other companies were only about the bottom line."

The campaign never deviated from that approach, Jones added, paraphrasing a quotation from C.S. Lewis: "The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non members," he noted. "We are here for un-churched people, and God has blessed us with lots and lots of conversions."