Between COVID-19 and economic concerns, missionary staff might be wondering if this is a good time to raise support. So we invited Dave and Nancy Dickens to join us today for some perspective, encouragement, and practical ideas for engaging in MPD in this time of uncertainty.
For more information related to this episode, check out: https://sites.cru.org/mpdresources/2020/12/22/ramping-up-for-mpd/
Between COVID-19 and economic concerns, missionary staff might be wondering if this is a good time to raise support. So we invited Dave and Nancy Dickens to join us today for some perspective, encouragement, and practical ideas for engaging in MPD in this time of uncertainty.
For more information related to this episode, check out: https://sites.cru.org/mpdresources/2020/12/22/ramping-up-for-mpd/
Welcome to the Cru MPD podcast with Katie Johnson and Michele Davis. We love that the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should give their living by the gospel. We are driven to equip and inspire Christian workers to be Christ centered, fully funded and financially faithful, so that missionary staff can come alongside all people to help them to know Jesus. This process is more widely known as ministry partner development, or MPD for short. Today, Dave and Nancy Dickens are joining us to talk about the state of MPD in 2022. What are staff experiencing and what can we anticipate this year? David? Nancy has been on staff with Cru for 34 years and both served in MPD on a national level where specifically Dave is the US director of MPD for US ministries.
Michele Davis:Oh my gosh, I am so excited to be talking to you today. Welcome Dave and Nancy Dickens.
Dave Dickens:Great to see you Michelle.
Nancy Dickens:Two of our favorite people.
Michele Davis:I mean, we could probably sell the whole hour just tell you how much we love each other. But we I do think it's worth pausing and saying it's kind of amazing. That we are on season four of the Cru MPD podcast and Nancy has sneakily avoided, interviewed for it we are...Nancy! we have to have you here. You are like our one of our favorites and you have so much wisdom and yeah, anyways, thank you for agreeing to do something that's maybe not your first choice. Okay, so we're diving in today with Dave and Nancy to just talk more about kind of like the state of MPD right now, that like the state of MPD, like what MPD coaches are doing for our work with the state of MPD as we're hearing from people who are doing MPD right now. So from the experience of people, we're coaching, what we're hearing coaches, the questions they're asking about the people, they're coaching and stuff and so we wanted to talk about that today because we think that there are some maybe from this some encouragement that can go out to people out there who are listening who maybe aren't like in an active coaching relationship, but they're considering MPD this fall are in the midst of it now and yeah, so we just want to want to dive into that. So first off, I want to ask you guys so now that things are opening back up from the you know, the the pandemic life or whatever, what are we seeing staff experiencing when it comes to MPD appointments specifically? Well, that's a great question to start with. And I think I'll have to caveat it in the very beginning. From the get go just that staff experience probably are different depending on the area of the country they come from or what their specific community values in terms of in person or keeping things virtual masking. And the even caveat in terms of whether people like whatever their own comfortability is for our staff. So Katie was mentioning, you know, having a baby and not wanting to be in person meetings, which totally makes sense. And so each of our staff has their own story and then their communities, their area of the country, people that they're meeting with. So a lot of it a lot of it will depend on those things. But really, I think what is pretty encouraging is mostly people are back to in person appointments, most of our new staff and senior staff that just came out of a summer of reconnect our new staff that are on their initial support raising right now are doing a lot of in person training or in person appointments. I will say one of the things that I think is really changed that I'm actually kind of excited about before COVID and everything locking down and everybody jumping on a lot of these virtual calls and, and all of that Dave and I primarily our MPD strategy has been video calls for a long time, just having teenagers and having you know, just a little bit less ease with travel. We've been we've been using video calls and MPD for a while. And so I'm actually really excited that video calls are so much more easy accessible not just for us but for our partners like they know how to use Zoom calls, they know how to get on Google and jump into a video call. And so all of that has become so much easier. So now when when staff have they have there's no limits on referrals that they can get right in terms of unity because of so much. So much familiarity with how to do a video call both on our parts on or potential partners.
Dave Dickens:I think even for people that are local that we're trying to meet with, you know, some people just schedule wise it just can't figure it out in terms of having the time to connect in to share in person. So we definitely want staff to feel the freedom you know, to you know, go with the video option and for some potential partners. That's that's just what they that that is something that they can agree to doing because it's going to be so much easier and so much quicker for them. So we still would say in person is the ideal because there's so much you know, connection that will happen more in person versus over a screen, but if they're out of town, or if they're in a different state, or in a different country, or it's just too challenging to try to figure out a time to connect. Yeah, definitely go with the video option and like Nancy said, I think we're seeing staff has seen success in seeing partners join their team by just doing a Zoom, zoom call.
Michele Davis:I have found with my friends or you know, or just potential new partners in general. It for some people it feels like less of a commitment to say yes to a video call because they're not hosting you. They're not cleaning their house. They're not driving anywhere. And so I mean, for me, I like it better so yeah, that's I'm with you, man. See, I love it. It is more like justmore normal.
Katie Johnson:Yeah, and I would even say like, on the back end of that, like if someone wants to meet with me right. It is easier for even my husband and I to meet over video, even at our local because the alternative, like you said is having someone at our house which equals getting the house ready or taking our kids with us. Which sad
Michele Davis:little kids two
Katie Johnson:or three, finding a sitter which costs a lot of money and you know for us to meet with someone else. And so for us it's it is easier to hop on a video call after the kids go to bed. Then a lot of other options so I think I love video calls are so great.
Michele Davis:Are you guys like what are your thoughts on if there are any precautions we should take in order to make sure our ministry partners aren't comfortable meeting? Like I can imagine how the thoughts and feelings and realities for people are still like very, really widely like a friend of mine got COVID recently and he has an immune compromise like an autoimmune disease and he had a really hard time you know what I mean? Like that still does happen for some people even though the disease is mostly milder. And so how would you guys suggest our staff navigate how to take precautions or communicate willingness to have precautions like what do we do? Yeah. So we just finished a new staff orientation this summer. One of the things that I encouraged our new staff to add to their communication to potential partners, as they're asking for a meeting is just to ask the question, are you comfortable meeting face to face? Is that something that that you would be comfortable doing? And then if they're say yes, then what would be your preference to sit outside at a coffee house? Or would you prefer if I came over to your house and we met in person at your house, just to be able to give your potential partners the ability to express what they are most comfortable with? And then have have a mask with you? No matter what like makes sure that you are ready to follow their lead in terms of masking if, if that's what they are comfortable with. So it's mainly you know, asking those questions and making sure that you know what, what potential partners are comfortable with right now. I love that sound advice. Okay, so we were talking about this a little bit earlier about how they're, I think universally there's a tension about asking for money. Always right. And then when the world pause there seem to you know, it paused and businesses are shutting there was like a bit of attention. Do you still hear of staff on MPD navigating that like are you hearing people say that people are saying to them like, oh, the economy is still an issue because of COVID etc?
Dave Dickens:Yeah, yeah. I think before you know, when we were trying to navigate that we were really encouraged as we were reaching out to people. This is when COVID was first starting to ask them, you know, how they were doing and how, how were they were navigating, you know, this new reality and how we can even be praying for them. And just that was more thinking about in terms of our current partners, but we just felt like that was we wanted to love them and love them well, and to hear, you know, how how they were doing and how they were navigating that. And so I think that was really, really important. At this point, you know, I don't think we necessarily, you know, need to ask them, you know, how they're navigating. COVID It's just so much of a normal part of our lives. Unfortunately, these these days, and I wouldn't necessarily, you know, now, you know, more of the concern or what people are dealing with in terms of the challenge is inflation. And I wouldn't necessarily say that, you know, I think that you know, we need to ask them, you know, how they're navigating the increase of food and gas, and all of that, but I think there's still a sensitivity that we want to have towards people and as it relates to inflation, and I think more of this shows up, especially as well as we're asking people for increases or asking people to meet with them to consider partnership. I think the sensitivity comes more as sort of referencing that this is part of our reality. That way, as we're reaching out to people, just making reference that we know, for some people, this the, the challenge of inflation, is actually you know, pretty, pretty challenging. But then to say at the same time, we're in the process of raising up our support team, and we did want to reach out to a number of people to ask them to consider about supporting us and I'd love to talk with you more about that same sort of context as you ask for an increase. I just think it gets again, I guess the word is being sensitive. I just think identifying that as our common reality is really helpful. So that when people say, you know, we're really not in a position to give because of inflation. They can. They don't, you know, there's no there's definitely no shame in them responding that way. So yeah, I think being sensitive, and I think acknowledging, you know, that that's, it's now in place is affecting all of us. It's not impacting all of us, you know, the same way. For some people. They're there they don't have enough in their paychecks to deal with how much things have risen. For others, it's, it's something they really don't think about that much. So, you know, that's the awareness. Now, we don't know who's you know, being impacted by that and who is not and so still, we are faithful and full of faith as we reach out to people. But again, I think referencing that they might be going through a challenging time, I think is really wise.
Michele Davis:Yeah, and I like what you said, Dave, that it isn't like, it doesn't hit everybody in every area of the country. The same way because I think that's that's really true. I will say just I actually lost some of our coaches a while inflation and how their new staff are doing and not long ago, and while the coaches just reference the fact that it seems like people's wages have been increasing as well. So there's certain areas of the country where people's wages have increased and their job opportunities have increased. So they haven't actually seen so much of an issue with inflation but they're also definitely areas of the country where it is been more challenging, more challenging, for sure. And then there there are staff out there who have communicated to us that they've actually have partners increased without them asking Wow, and they have communicated. We know you're probably dealing with inflation right now. So to be able to come in and help help with that. So it's, it's interesting how that economic reality is just it's going to be different for our different staff.
Dave Dickens:Yeah, we had one of the nobody ever mentioned this to Nancy, but the Mortons was talking to Barry. And he said that he's talking about inflation and wondering how our support was holding up and he said that he and Jesse you know, wanted to increase their support just in the reality you know, that they know, you know, things are more expensive, you know, for us, which again, is amazing because it's more expensive, you know, for them to but they're just sort of was it acknowledgement on their end that they wanted to, to increase in light of you know, inflation, how inflation was impacting us. So that, yeah, that's great to win when that happens.
Katie Johnson:I feel like right at the end of the day, there's been a rhythm of God will always take care of us. And so it's not there. Yeah, faithful and full of faith. I love that. You mentioned that Dave as we move forward. Knowing the current realities in those realities are going to continue to change and things will always you never know what people are walking through honestly, like, even outside of inflation. And so you just have to trust the Lord and yeah, be sensitive. Like you guys said to other people situations no matter what it is. Super cool that people are increasing though without asked because they're trying to help staff with inflation. I love that.
Michele Davis:That's yeah, and doesn't it isn't interesting. Katie like it really. These are the type of questions and these are the type of circumstances that just naturally bring us back to to God and to whether we are viewing the world as a place of abundance. With God as a father, that is generous with us, or whether I view this as a time of scarcity. And this is an in we know like I know intellectually that God is a God of abundance, and he is generous and he is able and to, you know, want to I want to make sure that in my thinking, like that's my worldview, and that's my foundation. Even in times of economic crisis. That is so so encouraging, and visionary, motivating all those all that because yeah, I think I think we all just are wondering and worrying you get you Yeah. But I think Dave, you and I have talked about this before I don't like Have we ever seen like in any predictable way seen economic issues impact giving in a way that's like noteworthy you know, I think people do look for like, just kind of wonder historically, like beyond like, we've all been through a lot in very recent history since 2021 versus 2020. But beyond that. What have you seen?
Dave Dickens:Yeah, this is what's really amazing. And so crisis of the Lord. But if we look at the, the Great Recession, or we look at the pandemic starting in 2020, that there's always this anticipation of staff and of our leadership that we that support was really going to suffer and that our staff were really going to suffer. But in both of those instances, that did not turn out to be the case. In fact, even through the pandemic. Hole the benchmarks you know, for senior staff actually improved as far as their support. But in the downturn of the recession, it just people continued to support the missionaries they supported through the pandemic. People continued to support the missionaries that they supported. And I just think, again, it's the Lord's grace. And there's something about that connection, you know, to a person that really motivate people to continue to give and to gifts, you know, sack sacrificially, whereas Cru and churches and other organizations, you know, about this scenario scenarios experience in terms of corporate funding, experienced a downturn. It was a staff support, that really stayed strong and solid and Ellis would say, you know, predating the recession, the different financial crises that that he was, you know, that he experienced, the same held true that staff support continued to be very solid, you know, through those times. Now, of course, that's overall in certain places of the country. You know, they might, you know, perhaps you know, that was more negatively impacted. But still, there's just, there's something about that connection, that relationship that industry partner has with the people that they support, that they they hold on to that as long as they can. So that's been we've seen that held true of the last few years through the pandemic, for sure.
Michele Davis:Yeah, I mean, when I'm thinking about my own personal giving, like if I were to experience like the need to cut something, I can picture myself way more easily cutting like, I'm not going to name the names of organizations. I support if that doesn't feel right, but like, you know, like, it is, it is like, like, why would I cut like, if I have a choice, you know, if I don't have to cut off on me giving like, yeah, it just the personal nature of MPD is like this is one of the benefits of like how we do our missionary funding is that it does create those personal bonds, which hopefully are more lasting. So all right, I think we've walked around this question a few different ways because we're we're basically assuming their staff we need to raise more support. You know, their basics have gone up, they you know, they're there. They're wondering if it's the right time, they're wondering, you know, other things and so, in light of all we've covered, like, if a person's like sitting here thinking, Okay, I really do need to raise support, and I'm still not sure what to do next or I'm a little nervous. What advice do you guys have for that person right now? Yeah, that's a great question. We're gonna assume that there are definitely people listening who that is a question that they're probably they're asking. So I would encourage a few different steps the first, start by just printing out your 14 month donation, report off of MPDX off of the staff web and get current with your reality. Reality is our friends so it's a good good time. To print that off and go line by line and look at who is given within the past 14 months and then make an action plan for each of those people, or is there people on your list that that perhaps they have dropped off in the last few months or maybe even last few years? And they might be good people then to circle back with and find out why are there people that you just need to connect with that are on that list, you just need to reach out and see how they're doing? Are there people that might you might be? They might be ready to hear you asking for an increase. So just start with your reality. This is who's giving and this is, this is what my report says. And then make them make a plan. And you know what? I should have started this before but pray, okay, I'll start with that. You should, you should stop and pray. I would take some time to fast and pray and just seek. Seek the Lord in this whole process and then print out your report and find out your reality and then create a plan of how you're going to reach out to people at that point. And Dave, and I talk about a strategy that we use, that's an ongoing strategy that has worked really well for us. Oftentimes, we can't take time away from ministry to work on MPD in a big chunk of time, and so we have more of a strategy that's ongoing, where we call it our three threes. And what we try and be faithful to every week is spending three hours a week on MPD and calling three of our partners every week, and we call them not to ask them for money or anything we just call them to say how can we be praying for you? Usually a couple of them don't answer. That's fine. We just send an email or text to say we call this Thank you. And then for those that do end up picking up, it's a good time. Just ask, How can we pray and we get to hear stories and we get to hear how they're doing. And that's just it for that's just good for our hearts. And then we want to do three asks a week. So it might be an ask for an increase and ask to have an appointment. Circling back to people who have been on our prayer letter list for a while to see if they would be in a position to join, but three asks a week and usually like wit for us, it just ends up keeping us in a pretty even place in terms of MPD. So that I think it also is helpful because starting to think about MPD can feel overwhelming. It's like well, where do I start? And we can't do everything, especially if we're not able to pull off a foreign ministry responsibilities. So the question is, what can you do? What steps can you take? Don't think of MPD as an all or nothing sort of thing. It's it is you don't have to do everything but what what can you do? Yeah, so that's kind of demonize sort of our ongoing strategy.
Dave Dickens:Yeah, and it's not it's not a big time commitment. You know, Nancy said three hours, but actually sometimes it can just be those three apps or three threes, you know, can be just a couple hours a week and such so helpful doesn't feel overwhelming, but you just see incremental progress, you know, through through doing that week to week. And also I just encourage us, you know, we ran the MPD reconnect program this past summer, for eight weeks or so, and, and, you know, staff saw a lot of money coming in and we're still actually calculating still commitments are being made till we have the final final number. But so many staff you know, seeing over $1,000 in new monthly raised, so I want an email from someone that she had seen 1800 new monthly that grew 22 Someone came up to me and said that they were at the beginning of the week, and they were at 1600 and by the end of the week, he said they were up to over 1700 You know, so it's just you know, the Lord continues, you know, to provide continues to be, you know, hard work, for sure. But don't let the fears you know, those fears that we talked about, as we think about cost and inflation get to us, but continued to do like Nancy said, you know, what are the next steps that I need that I need to take and again, just be encouraged? Staff we're seeing support arrays and our new staff and our interns. I forget the latest percentage, but we're getting close to 100% that will report. So it's just amazing how the Lord continues to provide. So I want us to be to hear that and being encouraged by that.
Michele Davis:That's amazing. Oh my gosh. That is I think that's a great note to end on. You know, that it's just it's really encouraging to see that. You know, God is at work that he is bringing in, you know, support for staff in the midst of a lot of uncertainty and I just really appreciate both of you. Thank you for joining us and your encouragement today.
Dave Dickens:Yeah, it's a great thanks so much Michele and Katie.
Michele Davis:Thanks for listening to the Cru MPD podcast. Please help others find our show by liking, sharing and rating us on Apple iTunes and wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on social media by searching for the Cru MPD podcast. Check out the show notes for more information including the various resources we mentioned in this episode. Till next time, we encourage you to be faithful and full of faith in all things, especially in MPD.