“I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned” (Exodus 3:3, ESV)
Moses had herded sheep in that wilderness for forty years. He had walked past a thousand bushes. Then one afternoon he walked past one that was on fire and wasn’t burning up, and he stopped. Before God said a single word to him, God gave him something he had never seen.
Seth Godin wrote about this in his marketing classic, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. Drive down a country road, see a brown cow, and you keep driving. You’ve seen brown cows your whole life. But a purple cow? You pull over and take a picture.
That burning bush was God’s purple cow. “When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush” (vs. 4). God waited for Moses to turn, and then the conversation started. What makes your ministry worth turning aside for?
Your Donors Are Walking Past Bushes Every Day
Think about what your donors open in a given week. Appeals, newsletters, event invitations, year-end letters, Giving Tuesday asks. Your donors aren’t ignoring you. They’re scanning, the same way you scan. Most of it never registers, and not because it’s badly written. It just looks like everything else that landed that morning.
So what would make one of your donors stop and read?
Maybe it’s a subject line that doesn’t sound like a subject line. Maybe it’s a first sentence that tells a true story before anybody realizes they’re reading a fundraising letter. Or a photo of something real instead of another ribbon cutting. None of that is a gimmick. It’s refusing to sound like a form letter when you have something worth saying.
The Bush Wasn’t Flashy
It was unmistakable. God could have sent a thunderclap. Instead he used a desert shrub doing something desert shrubs don’t do. Flashy says look at us. Unmistakable says come and see what God is doing here.
Moses didn’t turn aside because God was showing off. He turned aside because something was happening out there that he couldn’t explain, and he could tell it was worth a closer look.
Give Them a Burning Bush
Your donors want to be moved. They gave last year because something got through to them, and they’ll give again for the same reason. But first they need a reason to look up from the ordinary.
So what is happening in your ministry right now that you cannot explain apart from God? Most of us bury that story on page four, under the budget chart. Lead with it instead, ahead of the program summary and the statement of need. Lead with the thing that would make someone pull the car over.
Then be ready. Moses turned his head and walked away with an assignment that outlasted him. That’s usually when God shows up in the conversation.
Think About This: If your case for support sounds like every other ministry that does what you do, why would a donor choose yours? What makes you unmistakable?
Response: Lord, help us tell our story in a way that makes people stop, turn, and see what only you could be doing here.
