League City United Methodist Church

League City, Texas

Challenge:

“Our committee is on a very tight time frame”, was the first thing out of the mouth of Pastor William Jenkins when he called Generis inquiring about a campaign for his church. League City United Methodist Church, the long standing in-town church in the suburbs of Houston, was bursting at the seams and needed to move in order to continue effective ministry for its growing congregation. In the years since Pastor Jenkins’ arrival, League City United Methodist Church had become reenergized and refocused to grow their church.  To do this effectively the congregation would have to move.  Not long into the search, a perfect long-term location had presented itself: right off the interstate, in the new geographic heart of League City with plenty of room for parking.  League City United Methodist Church had heard God’s call and was ready to move.

Tasks:

After a positive congregational vote the church sprang into action.  Generis consultant Anita Colley, immediately put together a plan that would expedite the planning process while still allowing a full steering committee of volunteers to become involved. “We had three months to plan and four months to implement”, said Pastor Jenkins “Generis was the only group that said they could get this done for us.” From that moment on the steering committee was guided though prayer and training through the work of planning the campaign.

Solution:

The heart of the campaign occurred over a 5 week period of time. It was both a spiritual awakening and an educational platform for our congregation in the area of stewardship. The campaign was covered in prayer, prayer events and prayer reminders focused on the life of League City UMC and the potential relocation of our home church. Many lives were touched during this Spiritual Awareness phase and new enlightenment was reached with regards to our individual and collective responsibilities as true stewards of that which God has blessed us. This time frame was also a period of great congregational involvement. In fact, you could sense the excitement and commitment of our entire congregation as we moved towards the Major Event, which was our commitment Sunday.

“The Major Event was the biggest thing to happen in the life of this church in the past 50 years. Everyone got behind it”, Pastor Jenkins said. “We had all kinds of celebrations,” he continued, “We took members to the new property to pray and we had a blended worship service which involved our children, youth and adult members. I walked out of the sanctuary and saw the lawn covered in tents, tables and decorations, and we experienced an afternoon of continued worship through music and fellowship in Christ. At that moment, with all the people sharing and bonding—I knew it wasn’t at all about the money. It was about the amazing spiritual growth that was happening for all of our members. This campaign was by far the best single event of the life of our church. We became focused on a common vision, a vision we know was provided and inspired by God.”

Individualized Guidance:

When asked about the consultants, Pastor Jenkins replied, “Anita Colley was a guiding influence in our campaign. We had done a campaign before with little to no success and this one blew the other one right out of the water. Anita looked at us as individuals. She devised a plan with ‘drop dead dates’. She was able to give us the ownership of the campaign and that made all the difference.”