FREE

Stewardship: Raising more with less stress

Stewardship does not have to be the hardest thing you do at church. Pastors and leaders often lament pledge drives or stewardship campaigns. Fundraising in the church is difficult.

There is an alternative to non-stop fundraising, convincing people to give more – or simply cutting the budget. It’s what you bring to stewardship that you already have and not about learning the latest technique.

Register for this FREE webinar for Monday, May 5th @ 3:30 PM EST and you will be able to:

become more thoughtful about the financial challenges you and you church face
see money – and the process of stewardship– from a different perspective
bring more calm and creativity to recurring and unexpected problems in funding ministry
concentrate on long-term ministry goals and strategic persistence to get financial support for those goals.
focus on yourself and what you can impact directly rather than trying harder to convince others to give more
enjoy the stewardship process rather than dreading it each year

Leading this webinar is Rev. Margaret Marcuson works with churches who want to create a ministry that lasts and clergy who want to have more impact on the people they serve best. She speaks and writes on leadership and works with church leaders nationally as a consultant and coach. Margaret is the author of 111 Tips to Survive Pastoral Ministry, Leaders who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry and Money and Your Ministry: Balance the Books While Keeping Your Balance (just released). Margaret is an American Baptist minister and was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gardner, Massachusetts, for 13 years. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Karl, and belongs to First Baptist Church of Portland.

Spots are limited for this webinar! Sign up today.

Leadership

Why leadership and ethics are the next big thing

“I choose Business Ethics” – Billy Madison

In the movie Billy Madison, young Madison (played by Adam Sandler) must out wit his rival to take control of his father’s company. Billy Madison picks the category of ethics in a winner-take-all contest because he knows his opponent lacks any sense of fairness when it came to business. The immature Billy wins the day because his opponent breaks down under the pressure of a sense of right and wrong.

If Bernie Madoff, Enron, Bear-Sterns, and the sub-priming lending disaster are our examples of business ethics, then our culture could use more business ethics. Recently, Slate posed the idea that teaching ethics in business school is a tough proposal, but a needed one. Ethical failures cost companies… a lot.

There is a shift occurring in the world of business and organizational operation. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, middle management was a prime focus in business. Somehow and someway, managing people became the norm for companies. Do people and problems really need managing? It seems managing people and problems is more placation than about leadership. Leadership has more to do with moving organizations and people forward towards a goal or idea. Management has more to do with keep things kosher within a business or company.

The MBA, the recent standard of middle to upper business/organizational management, is beginning to see changes – hopefully for the better. Most programs teach students how to run a company or business, but few teach how to lead people… a more complete concept. Years ago, the trend was to crank out problem managers rather than making leaders. Xavier University is one of the growing schools focusing on leadership and ethics, rather than cut-throat profit and get-ahead tactics. Here’s the program in a nutshel l:

Stewardship: Raising more with less stress

Why leadership and ethics are the next big thing

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