Browsing Tag

stewardship

Church Leadership

Do you have church money anxiety?

moneyministry

In congregational life, there are always those who give more /worry more/spend more time on the money than others. In systems theory this is called overfunctioning. Members who are overfunctioning with financial aspects of the church always think if others gave more or were more responsible, the church wouldn’t have this problem.

Yet there’s a balance between those who overfunction and those who underfunction in terms of financial responsibility. It takes both to keep this dynamic going. Often key church  leaders carry the anxiety for church  finances.

Who is staying awake at night? Typically, it’s the pastor, although sometimes lay leaders are more worried than the clergy. I talked recently with a church treasurer who was losing sleep night after night over whether there would be enough church money in the account to pay the bills. In this situation, the potential shortfall did not belong to the treasurer but to the church. It wasn’t his responsibility—or not his alone. Yet he was the one who was holding all the anxiety for it.

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blog, stewardship

Stewardship: Raising more with less stress

stewardship

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.

blog

3 Reasons why Bill O’Reilly does not get Jesus and the poor

Bill O’Reilly released his book, Killing Jesus which attempts to trace the historical events and movements leading up to Jesus’ earthly life. However, it seems that O’Reilly could have read and study the Gospels more closely when it comes to Jesus and the poor.

On O’Reilly’s program, a video of Rep. Jim McDermott played with McDermott addressing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). O’Reilly went on to say:

The problem I have, as I stated is that you’re helping one group by hurting another group and a bigger group, and so I don’t know if Jesus is going to be down with that…Ok but would he [Jesus]  impose a system that hurts one group to help another group? …Some of the people who don’t have enough to eat, it’s their fault they don’t have enough to eat…If you are an alcoholic or a heroin addict or a drug addict and you can’t hold a job and you can’t support your children and that’s the circumstance of millions and millions of people not most but a lot a substantial minority ok.

Here are 3 reasons why Bill O’Reilly just doesn’t understand Jesus and the poor:

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Church Leadership, stewardship

The Fruits of Stewardship

The decline of giving to churches was well documented during the Great Recession.  Larger churches particularly struggled with giving.  The graph here shows regional declines in giving.  Many churches struggle with a vision on stewardship.  Many churches guilt their people into giving or force the concept of tithe.

Viewing giving through the lens of stewardship is helpful for churches and Christians.  Having a theology stewardship is key for churches to build a fruitful plan for giving.  If we start from the idea that everything we have comes from God then we can see our money, possessions, talents, and time as gifts.  Americans are very possessive when it comes to our property.

However, churches often ask the question, how can we encourage giving?  Cynthia Woolever gives three ways pastors and churches can encourage giving:

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stewardship

The Super Bowl of Priorities

At the Super Bowl one year, a  fan was surprised to see an empty seat at the stadium, a die-hard fan remarked about it to a woman sitting nearby. “It was my husband’s,” the woman explained, “But he died.” “I’m very sorry,” said the man.  Then, the gentleman said, “Yet I’m really surprised that another relative, or friend, didn’t jump at the chance to take the seat reserved for him.” “Beats me…They all insisted on going to the funeral.” Remarked the woman.

Priorities.  Many of us want to a line our priorities based on how much time things will take.  We make a list of things to get at the supermarket.  Do we make a list based on what we need first? Or, what it closest to the door?

In life, we talk about quality time, time management, financial restraint, and balancing our work life. Instead of thinking about those things based on how much time we spend on them, what if we think about them based on what we do first?  How important is it for you to brush your teeth in the morning?  I hope it is pretty important because usually that is one of the first things we do in the morning (along with a shower and the morning coffee).

Dwight Eisenhower once said:

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stewardship

We Have Lost Our Sense of Stewardship

Adam Smith is often credited with creating much of our free market principles as we know today as capitalism.  Capitalism has created, at least in the West, a world where anyone can succeed if they work hard, save hard, and spend wisely.  Much of our understanding of our resources is viewed through the lens of self interest.  We are in control of our money and our gifts.  However, we have seen how greed and corruption have affected our world through this Great Recession.

We need to begin to retool our understanding of how we care for our time, talents, money, abilities, and gifts.  We need to look at these abilities through the understanding of stewardship.

Peter Block, business consultant and author of Stewardship Choosing Service Over Self-Interest provides some business world insights to stewardship that model what stewardship should look like:

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Churches

Mega Church, Not So Mega Committment

Several news outlets, including the Associated Press and USA Today, are reporting today on a new study published by the the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary and Leadership Network that found some surprising trends in mega-churches.  In the study they found:

  • Nearly two-thirds of megachurch attenders are under 45 years old, as compared to only one-third for all Protestant churches (62% vs. 35%).
  • Nearly a third of megachurch attenders are single, unmarried persons.  In a typical church, singles account for just 10% of the congregation.
  • Megachurch attenders are both more educated and more affluent than attenders at other churches.
  • The majority of megachurch attenders are not necessarily new to Christianity but nearly a quarter had not recently been in another church before coming to a megachurch.
  • While newcomers almost always attend a megachurch at the invitation of family, friends or co-workers, the real attraction tends to be the church’s reputation, worship style and senior pastor.
  • Long-term attendance flows from an appreciation for the church’s music/arts, social and community outreach and adult-oriented programs.
  • 45% of megachurch attenders never volunteer at the church, and 40 percent are not engaged in a small group, the mainstay of megachurch programming.

As I have commented in the past, mega churches are meeting a need and are leading to people to Jesus Christ.  Two awesome things.  However, this study of 25,000 people at 12 mega churches indicates that megachurch attenders volunteer less and give less money than people who attend typical Protestant churches, although megachurch-goers tend to be wealthier and better educated. This follows the greater cultural trend of people being less committed to things because of their other commitments.  We are over committed and give less energy to our commitments.  For megachurches, this is problematic because it shows that attendees are less commitment to the church and they are not commitment enough to their stewardship through tithing or giving.  Mega churches draw in mega amounts of giving, so it leads me to believe that they can survive on less giving per member.

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