Every three years InterVarsity holds a national gathering of all staff.  The 2030 Calling I’ve been writing about this past year began to take shape after the last such gathering three years ago.  This will be the first time our entire staff family has been together since then.  It will be my first SC since coming back on staff with InterVarsity.  The big question we’re going to tackle seems to be:  IF (big if) revival is the doorway God is taking us through to advance the mission, how then could we ready ourselves as a movement to welcome a work of the Holy Spirit like this?  Two quotes from our staff website about SC20:

“InterVarsity’s 2030 Calling directs us to see our campus mission field with fresh eyes, focusing on unreached corners and campuses. This calling is compelled by a holy discontent—thousands of students and faculty have little or no gospel-centered witnessing community on their campuses. It also is fueled by a holy longing—a yearning for campuses to experience a season of breakthroughs in word, deed, and power that usher in a new normal of kingdom experience and fruitfulness.”

“At Staff Conference 20 (SC20), we will seek the Lord for kingdom breakthroughs in our own lives and every corner of every campus. We will give our attention to preparing for revival, renewing our calling, and thriving together. We will meet the Lord in Scripture through John 13–17, Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse.  And we will worship with our brothers and sisters gathered from across the fellowship.”

Please be in prayer for us as we gather in Orlando, Florida later this week.  Here’s a schedule of our time together.  I’ll post an update or two  from the event.  We’ll be seeking God in a special day of prayer and fasting on Jan 4th.  Ask God to meet us and move in us in a new way.

Before the year ends…

Thanks so much to all who have been getting their year-end donations sent in.  In case you are one of those who likes to take care of things at the eleventh hour, here are two helpful links.

Click here to be taken to Tim’s donation page on InterVarsity’s website.

Click here to fill out my year-end ministry response form.

 

Thanks so much!  Here’s to a bountiful 2020!

We usually refer to our people as Ministry Partners.  At the macro level we call it Ministry Partner Development (MPD) not fund-raising.  For the sake of celebrating my team, I am intentionally referring to my supporters as donors in this post.  “Donor” doesn’t capture all of what my ministry partners are to me, of course.  Ministry partners are family.  Ministry partners are friends.  InterVarsity alumni.  Fellow staff members.  Former staff members.  People whose pastor I’ve been.  People I’ve supervised.  My wife and my kids.  All these phenomenal foundation stones are who I treasure and absolutely lean on with all my weight.

Click here to donate to Tim’s work.

Donors are ministry partners who keep me in business.  On top of all the prayers and friendship and team-work, donors give financially so that I can do ministry.  Here’s a timeline of the team God has given me over the past 34 months.

Several things should jump off that chart.  Finding 83 donors is no small feat!  Calls.  Appointments.  Meals.  Gallons of coffee!  Asks.  Requests.  Proposals.  Follow-up.  Every staff member will tell you how rewarding and demanding being self-funded is.  Thank you to everyone who has given to see that I can pursue InterVarsity’s call to the University.  It wouldn’t happen without those donations month after month, year after year.  Thank you for doing your part!

It also should stand out that InterVarsity staff are constantly finding donors.  We enlist more and more people every year because our needs are always expanding.  Some of our donors move on out of necessity or hardship in their lives.  Some want to help for a season because God has blessed them in unusual ways.  I remember beginning this adventure making the prediction:  “I think I can find my full budget from about 65 donors.”  I was almost right.  But I was totally wrong.  My team will ebb and flow.  I’ll always need to welcome new partners.

Lastly, I do need a pay raise.  My supervisor actually encourages staff to not let our pay stagnate.  Personally speaking, my circumstances are pushing me harder than my boss.  As a family we’ve had an expensive year (I think you know exactly what I mean).  Expensive years are years when these kind of things happen:

• Your teenager shatters his arm in a skiing accident.
• Your damaged home needs a new roof, but the insurance settlement doesn’t cover all the necessary repairs.
• A random person doesn’t see the red light at an intersection and smashes your car (the settlement from their insurance is $1,000 short of the damages).
• A family member has a major medical procedure.

Pray for me as I continue my efforts at finding Ministry Partners.  Especially as I look for donors.  My current budget is in a pretty good place (85% funded), but in the next calendar year I need to add to my salary significantly.  Thank you to those I’ve already heard back from via the response form.  Several have indicated they can bump up their contributions.

If you haven’t yet filled out my online Ministry Response Form, please click here.  Let me know how you’d like to partner with me in 2020.

If you happen to be an avid Facebook follower of mine, this might be old news.  However, a couple of blog posts back I left you with the announcement that I’d be having a heart procedure to fix my Atrial Fibrillation.  I’ll spare you the details.  After zapping and freezer-burning excess electrical circuits inside my heart, my Atria now look and feel as completely normal as I remember them 13 years ago!

If you haven’t yet visited the Ministry Partnership Response form this month, please click here and take three minutes to let me know your plans for 2020.  Thanks!

You can tell from the image on the left that before the procedure I was an ENTJ,  Ideational, Strategic, Learner.  Just kidding – ablation did nothing to my personality profiles (hopefully).  Actually this is a before and after image mapping the electrical flutter in the left atrium of my heart.  Evidently purple is bad?  Red in the blood vessels absolutely bad!  We want chill-gray pulmonary veins.  Nice work, Doctor Mahoney!

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.  In the two weeks since the procedure I’ve been feeling terrific. Two very brief episodes of arrhythmia (lasting minutes not days).  A 1.5 mile long walk every day.  No workouts yet, but I’m itching to get back on the Nordic Track!  Sleeping well at night.  Definitely more energy during the day.  I go in for a follow-up on Dec 23rd.  Doctor and I are both hoping for the decision to take me off the medicines I’ve been on since being diagnosed with this 13 years ago!

Thank you so much for all the prayers.  Feeling so grateful to not be in a crisis over the procedure and for an effective recovery.  Grateful for my family who waited patiently through both trips to the hospital and for friends who stopped by.  Thankful for the incredible medical technology that enabled a surgeon to spend 3 hours inside my heart operating through a blood vessel in my leg!

More posts coming this week on ministry support and a training conference coming this weekend.  Please keep those response forms coming!  It’s been encouraging hearing from you.

Click here to be taken to Tim’s donation page.

It is that time of the year.  Everyone in a support-raising ministry or non-profit is reaching out letting you know how things are going… and what the current funding needs are.  This is that letter.  If you want to skip some of the details and head straight for the response form – you know the drill!

This is the fist time in three years I’m requesting everyone who reads perryboilerroom to give me feedback.  We’ll get in the groove of doing this each Nov/Dec moving forward.  In the old days this was quite a project!  Stamps, envelopes and response cards.  It led to papercuts on the lips, tongue and fingertips!  Now all you need is this convenient link:

Click here to be taken to my ministry partnership response form.  

It’s a google form.  You’ll know you’ve landed in the right place when you see this:

Here’s the skinny:

1. In 2020 I need to raise an individual budget of $103K (Area Director’s budget below).  That covers my salary, benefits, overhead and some travel costs.
2. Currently I have 68 active donors giving 85% of my budget.  That means I’m trying to find about $16,000 in new support.
3. I’m hoping new support will come partly from new donors and partly from increases in giving from current donors.

When you go to fill out the response form, would you consider helping me increase my funding?  If you are giving monthly would you think about a small boost in the amount of your donations (maybe by 10-20%)?  Please let me know what you decide on the response form.  I’ll make sure you get the link to my donation page (also below).  Monthly donors can also just add a One-Time year-end donation to their monthly giving.  Use the google form to tell me what you want to do.

If…

If you are an annual donor and haven’t given yet in 2019, now is a great time to do that.  If you can increase the amount 10-20% over last year’s donation that would be terrific!

If you’re like me, you may need to keep your budget where it’s at.  If you’ve been giving and need to keep your donations the same – just indicate that on the response form.

If you’ve been getting updates for the past couple of years but haven’t been able to support financially – maybe this could be a good time for you to begin monthly support or send in a one time donation.

If you’re old school and need a Business Reply Envelope to send a donation – add that information in the last box of the response form and make sure I have your street address.  Far be it from me to stand in the way of a fresh paper-cut!

Many of you are familiar with InterVarsity’s donation website.  Once you’ve sent me your response form, feel free to head over there if you need to send a new donation or change your current giving level.  Please email me if you’re having difficulty working the web page.

I’m so grateful for your partnership.  I can definitely tell I’m no longer on my ministry on-ramp.  I am immersed in  my job description and feeling the full weight of GFM ministry.  It’s a tougher job than I remember having on the undergrad side of things 13 years ago!  Thank you for getting me to this plateau!

In the coming days I’ll post a few other thoughts about ministry partnership.  I’ll keep a few reminders in front of you – I know its a very busy time of the year!  I would really love to hear from you.

tim.perry@intervarsity.org