Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Even though people attend church services less regularly today than in the past, the church still sees its people face to face more than any other entity in the nonprofit world. We call this “home-field advantage.” Hospitals, universities, relief agencies, and other nonprofit and charitable organizations would love to have the same opportunity to cast vision to potential donors that the average pastor has — and often takes for granted!
What should church leaders do with this home-field advantage? We suggest six practical things.Culture is never neutral; it is either moving your ministry toward generosity or allowing you to drift away. Make sure you are always shaping culture so that it is working for you.
1. Build trust.
All charitable funding is given in an atmosphere of trust. Leverage the weekly worship experience by building trust in all you do.
2. Cast and recast vision.
People have to be constantly reminded of the ministry vision of the church because vision leaks. There are three types of reminders — blast (fire hose), soak (garden hose), and drip (soaker hose). You can probably imagine what each of these would look like in your church. Keep in mind that there is an appropriate time for each. Use the blast sparingly, relying more on the soak and drip so that your people really absorb the vision and own it for themselves.
3. Shape culture.
You may have great vision but bad culture that causes problems in implementing it. Culture is never neutral; it is either moving your ministry toward generosity or allowing you to drift away. Make sure you are always shaping culture so that it is working for you.
4. Demonstrate impact.
Showing givers the results of their giving is like showing them a return on their investments — and people direct their charitable giving to where they see results. Numeric results will inspire some. Others will be inspired by stories of changed lives. No doubt you church has stories to tell, but they may be hidden in the numbers. Make sure you are accurately reporting results and telling inspirational stories of life change.
5. Enhance relationships.
People give to people, motivated by need and results. Build relationships with a broad spectrum of people in your church in order to invite them to get involved. Make sure your schedule is not so full that you don’t have time to connect with the people in your church who can help fund the vision.
6. Highlight good stewardship.
Churches that practice good stewardship with the money given to them earn givers’ respect. Look for obvious signs of waste or excess, and let your people know about key decisions you make to more effectively use the funds entrusted to your church.
However you choose to get started, we want to emphasize again: don’t ignore or underestimate the power and influence of home-field advantage.
Taken from Contagious Generosity by Chris Willard and Jim Sheppard. Copyright © 2012 by Chris Willard and James E. Sheppard. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com. The book may be purchased at https://www.zondervan.com/9780310893134/contagious-generosity/.
Related Resources:
Related Resources:
- Stop Taking Givers for Granted by Chris Willard And Jim Sheppard
- 50 Ways to Encourage Faithful Giving, a free Lewis Center resource
- 9 Ways Leaders Can Promote Faithful Stewardship by Ann A. Michel
- Optimizing Annual Financial Campaigns Video Tool Kit
- Funding Generosity Giving Stewardship
About Author
The first church I ever served called and asked me to come back and preach one Sunday. It was as rural a church as you have ever seen. And I was a city boy. And my wife was a city girl. This little church with a tiny steeple sat on a side road of old Highway 54. When it rained, water would cover the parking lot and almost get in the building. On those Sundays, since we couldn’t get there, we called off church.In that little frame church on a side road, for a hundred years they had found something that kept them going. What happened there had made that place holy ground. What happens in churches should be remembered.
Why not move?
I proposed a simple solution. Why don’t we just move? Move somewhere on the new Highway 54 where all the cars pass by and we’d be away from all this rising water. After I made my proposal, the Deacons didn’t say anything. They just sat there. Silence. They looked horrified and looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Move the church? Well, we didn’t. And one day I moved on.
Then, almost 30 years later, they called me and said, “Guess what? We have built a new church up on the new highway.” (Huh? “Why didn’t you do that years ago when I was your pastor,” I was tempted to ask.) “The reason we are calling is that we are having a celebration of the new church, and we want you to come and preach and help us celebrate.” And I did. My wife and I had an enjoyable time seeing old friends and remembering. And the new church was beautiful.
Suspended in time
As I left, they gave me a video of the last service in their hundred-year-old building. Back at home, during a time in my ministry when I had pretty much given up on church in general, I watched the video one evening. The last service was on a Sunday night. They gathered that evening in June to tell stories about the Dawson Baptist Church and what it meant to them. They filled the house that night.
In the video, little had changed. It began by showing the tiny white clapboard building with the gravel parking lot. There was a steeple with a bell and a cord hanging down in the vestibule that somebody rang every Sunday. As the camera moved inside, you could see they had bought new pews from another church that did not quite match the decor. Sure enough, there were the two cursed, ugly Warm Morning heaters at the front that kept the place too warm or not warm at all. Through the years, bits and pieces of colored glass had been knocked out of the gothic shaped windows and replaced by other pieces of glass that did not quite match. In the center stood the pulpit with the pulpit Bible that Midge Sadler had given in memory of her oldest son and her husband who were killed in a terrible automobile accident while I was there. On the right was the Hammond organ that Miss Jenny played just as slowly as she could. They always told me that Miss Jenny worked in the distillery all week, but, they added, she didn’t drink the stuff. Opposite the Hammond organ was the spinet piano. Behind the pulpit was a huge framed needlework piece of the Lord’s Prayer somebody had made. On the left of the pulpit behind the piano were the two rows where the choir sat.
Holy ground
That night, different members told what had happened to them in that special place. They remembered their own baptisms in the creek and when their children had been dedicated to the Lord. Someone told about their bout with cancer and how the church gathered around them and loved and prayed. A proud member told of how they took up money and sent one of their girls off to college because she had no money. She became a missionary. They remembered revivals and Vacation Bible School and losing jobs and coming together after a long hard week in the fields. Mostly, it was personal stuff. In that little frame church on a side road, for a hundred years they had found something that kept them going.
As I finished watching the video, I sat there in the dark brushing away the tears. For they had reminded me that what happened there had made that place holy ground. And that even though I was having a challenging time in my own life, I needed to remember all the things that happen through the years in churches everywhere.
This will be remembered
I was reminded of the woman who pushed her way through the door of Simon’s house and broke open a very expensive jar of perfume and anointed Jesus’s head. Those looking on were horrified, but Jesus said of what the woman had done, “This will be remembered.” What happens in churches should be remembered.
Going back to my old church to preach helped restore my fragile faith. What had happened there through the years was important — maybe more important than all the not so good things with which all churches contend. In remembering, I was also challenged to break open my own flask of perfume and pour it out for the glory of God.
This article is adapted from a post on Roger Lovette’s blog rogerlovette.blogspot.com. Used by permission.
Related Resources:
- A Love Letter to a Closed Church by Roger Lovette
- A Better Script for Small Churches by Lewis A. Parks
- The Soul of a Small Church by Lewis A. Parks
- Change Church History General Small Membership Churches
About Author
Read more now.
The Right Question
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Howard Stevenson suggests some questions donors must implicitly say "yes" to when deciding to support a cause.
- Are you doing important work?
- Are you well managed?
- Will my gift make a difference?
- Will the experience be satisfying to me?
Learn more and order now.
Learn more and watch introductory videos now.
Support the Lewis Center
Leading Ideas is made possible by contributions to the Lewis Center for Church Leadership from readers like you. Thank you.
Donate now.
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
SANDHYA DIRKS
Congregants stand and pray, at the end of the Sunday service at Tapestry Church, an newly, and intentionally, multi-ethnic church.Sandhya Dirks/KQED
Churches are some of the most segregated places in America. But two pastors in Oakland are trying an experiment — to merge a white congregation and a black congregation into one house of worship, called Tapestry Church.It all began one day when Kyle Brooks was running late.
Brooks was the pastor of Oakland Communion, a small mostly white church of newcomers to the city. He was attending the Bay Area Clergy Cohort, a social justice conference for Christian leaders, and stumbled into a group exercise after it had already started.
A facilitator had placed chairs in a pyramid shape. One at the front, then two behind it, then three, and four, and so on. The instructions were simple, sit in the chair that represents your place in society.
Bernard Emerson, the pastor of a small black church called The Way, was on time. He knew exactly where he would sit. As a black man in America, Emerson took a seat in the back row.
By the time Brooks got there, there was only one seat left for him to take as a young white man, the single one right at the front. Right at the top of the privilege pyramid.
"If I'm sitting all the way in the front," Brooks said, "the people I need to be talking to are the people all the way in the back." Bernard Emerson just happened to be there, in the back row.
That is the "meet-cute" story of their bromance, the one they like to tell. The two started talking and soon realized they were spiritual soulmates. They even quote the same passages from the Bible, like Jesus' prayer in John 17: "Father make them one, as you and I are one."
The two men came from different faith traditions. Brooks was steeped in the Christian Reformed Church and Emerson, whose father was also a pastor, was raised in the American Baptist church.
Emerson said they made a conscious decision to put their friendship and shared love for God ahead of any differences in their spiritual traditions. "We decided then that we would be better brothers than we were pastors," Emerson said.
It was not just bible passages the two had in common. They shared a dream of leading a multi-ethnic church. They talked a lot about what it would mean to create a church in the way that they had created their friendship, rooted in mutual respect and love.
The point of the church is to be a display of God's love for the world. And we can not do that effectively if we do not love each other.
Pastor Kyle Brooks
"The point of the church," Brooks said, "is to be a display of God's love for the world. And we can not do that effectively if we do not love each other."
"It was always the intent of our Lord that the church be multi-ethnic," said Emerson. But that is not been the way church has historically been in America.
There is an infamous Martin Luther King Jr quote about exactly this, made in an appearance on NBC's Meet The Press in 1960. "I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation," King said, "one of the shameful tragedies of our nation, that 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America."
Things have changed slightly since King said that, but not a lot.
"The vast majority of people who go to church, go to church that is racially and ethnically homogeneous," says Brooks. According to a National Congregation Study, funded by Pew Research, 8 out of 10 American church-goers attend a congregation that looks just like them.
That was the case at both Brooks' and Emerson's small churches. For Pastor Emerson, it was especially true; a lot of his congregants are actually members of his extended family, so they really do look like him.
While that Martin Luther King Jr. quote is often paraphrased and repeated, it's not all he said that day. "Any church that stands against integration and that has a segregated body, is standing against the spirit of Jesus Christ and it fails to be a true witness," he said. He admitted his own church was also not integrated. It was King's belief that the church would not, like schools in America, be integrated through legal processes or outside pressure. American churches would only integrate if they decided to do the work themselves.
Pastor Bernard Emerson (left) and Pastor Kyle Brooks (right) standing in front of Brook's East Oakland house.Sandhya Dirks/KQED
Facing FearsWhich brings us to Pastor Kyle Brooks and Pastor Bernard Emerson. They knew creating an inter-racial church was not going to be easy, but they kept kicking the idea around. They would take long walks through Oakland's Dimond District and dream about it out loud. Maybe at some point in the future, they thought.
Then a year ago, Neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, and they felt like they could no longer wait.
First, they had to break it to their congregations.
"I saw it on facebook, and instantly I typed back, 'oh my god, this is exactly what I've been looking for,'" said LaSonya Brown, who had been attending Emerson's church, The Way, for about a year. "I'll be the first one to join," she said.
Brown was raised in a black church with only two white people in it. One was her godfather, who had married into the black community, the other was a white woman who would "speak in tongues, and then translate the tongue."
"I never knew her name, but I'll never forget her," Brown said. Despite it being different than what she had known before, Brown welcomed the idea of an inclusive congregregation. "I think it was something that I wanted, but I didn't realize that I wanted it until I saw his post," she said.
At first she thought it was going to happen instantly, just everyone showing up to church together. But it is not that easy to flip the switch on hundreds of years of segregated worship.
"It's much more complicated than that," Brown said. "You don't think that your life is different than somebody else," but it can be. In an ideal world, she said, people want to think about what they have in common and not their differences.
But we do not live in that ideal world of race relations. "There's a lot of things that we don't do in common," she said. "But we do want to know how to be together."
Each church individually went through months of workshops and classes, owning up to their own fears about what merging would mean.
Many people in Pastor Brooks' white congregation were afraid of being uncomfortable. There was a feeling of discomfort around everything from different hymns, to the service being in a different neighborhood, to different styles of worship. There was also discomfort in having to face up to their responsibility, as white people, in ongoing American racism. Everyone in the church was excited about the merger, but that did not make it easy.
Pastor Emerson's congregation was also supportive, and not just because they are largely family. The black congregants of The Way had different fears, fears that they might not be welcomed. Emerson said some of them asked, "will they accept us for who we are?"
"I was afraid that the person that I think I am, is not the person that I really am," said LaSonya Brown. She worried she might find out she was not as open to difference as she wanted to be, that she might not be the person who saw her Pastor's post on facebook and declared she would be the first to sign to up for an integrated church.
There have been tests, like tensions over what kind of food to serve at coffee hour. A couple of interactions came off as rude. Brown said she thinks it may be similar to people speaking different languages, and things get lost in translation. They are still learning how to talk to each other.
"I remember telling my momma, 'momma, you know this happened, I might find another church,' but then every Sunday I go, every Sunday I go," Brown said. "And I can't leave my church because I love my church."
Her church now, the church she loves, is no longer The Way, because after months of talking and getting to know each other and learning each other's songs, this past June, the two churches became one: Tapestry Church.
Pastor Kyle Brooks preaches the Sunday sermon, while Pastor Bernard Emerson listens intently.Sandhya Dirks/KQED
TapestryOn a recent Sunday morning, about 25 people gathered in an East Oakland school cafeteria with children's paintings of flowers on the walls.
The pastors say they've retained most of their original congregants. Not everyone comes every Sunday. They are still a small church.
Brooks and Emerson take turns preaching, but they talk through their sermons together. There's a melding of worship styles on display. The black church is well known for a vociferous call and response, something Brooks is really excited about. "It helps!" he said. "It's a dialogue and a feedback."
"One of the cool things I love is that there are some people who have never done it, but inspired by some else, they yell out," Brooks said.
"This has been a prayer answered," said Kim Emerson, Pastor Emerson's wife. "It was always our dream to have a multi-ethnic church and that wasn't happening. It sometimes seems like you draw like-minded, or like-looking, people."
Now, they are drawing some new congregants. After service they hold events like 'Pizza with Pastors,' trying to get newcomers to stick around. The pastors tell their origin story, and people stay and eat and talk with each other.
Dwight Davis and his husband moved to Oakland 14 years ago. Davis says they have probably visited every church in Oakland, but they keep coming back to Tapestry.
We're gay people. So it's nice to come into a place and not feel everybody's like, 'you're going to burn before me,' you know?
Dwight Davis
"We're gay people," Davis said. "So it's nice to come into a place and not feel everybody's like, 'you're going to burn before me,' you know?"
They had been searching for a diverse congregation, "where the communities came together and we could be apart of both."
But Davis says it felt awkward to show up at a traditionally black church, especially with so many African American residents being displaced from Oakland by waves of mostly white newcomers. "You know with the gentrification and everything" Davis said, he felt uncomfortable at some churches, like he was "treading on somebody's territory."
"In these times you want to be sensitive to people's sanctuary," he said. "I don't want to be that one person who interrupts someone's sanctuary."
The pastors say that integrating America's most segregated hour is not an easy, one-step process. It can be uncomfortable. There is no magic spell that allows you to snap your fingers and have it all be harmonious overnight.
"You're actually bringing people together who have deep and long and somewhat painful, traumatic histories with each other," said Brooks.
It will take time and love, alongside a willingness to be uncomfortable and honest. It will take people coming back Sunday after Sunday.
Sandhya Dirks is a reporter at member station KQED
Read more and listen now.
Quotable Leadership
Freedom is a journey with others for others toward God's future. (Letty M. Russell)
Stress the spiritual dimension of stewardship
Teach stewardship as a holistic model of our relationship with God, as the tangible expression of our trust in God. Giving is a spiritual matter as central to faithful living as prayer, Bible study, and worship.
Reinforce giving as an act of worship. Use the offering time to lift up the spiritual significance of giving. Take an offering at every service.
Set a good example. The pastor should tithe and encourage other ministers, staff, and leaders to do the same. All leaders must take their giving seriously and model generosity.
Talk openly about money and faithfulness to God. If leaders are uncomfortable about money then members will be also. Know your story of giving and be willing to testify about it.
Model the giving spirit you seek from members in your church budget by giving generously to ministries beyond the congregation.
Teach the theology of stewardship through a variety of means — church school classes, other study venues, sermons, and correspondence. Use stewardship scripture, quotations, and stories in bulletins, newsletters, other printed materials, and the website.
Know what motivates giving
Know that people give to many things for a variety of reasons. Few have a well-planned or consistent giving strategy. Some give on impulse. Others are more cautious. Different kinds of appeals are effective with different types of givers.
Recognize that people want to make a difference. They will give to what they value.
Appreciate that faithful giving is a fruit of spiritual maturity. It takes time and much nurture to develop.
Do not engage in fund raising. People give to God, not to raise the preacher’s salary or pay the utilities. Don’t make church gifts “one more bill to pay” — a bill that can be skipped without late fees, penalties, or the need to catch-up. Emphasize giving as a joyful response to God’s generosity, not an obligation.
Talk to members about stewardship and opportunities for giving. Most people never increase their giving because they were never asked, nor given compelling reasons to do so. Don’t be afraid to lift up the needs of the church, but always in a way that emphasizes mission.
Nurture relationships. People give to persons and organizations where they feel a connection. Church leaders should listen carefully for clues about issues of importance to church members. Personal solicitation is critical, especially for larger gifts.
Link stewardship to mission and ministry
Remember that people — especially younger generations — give to support mission, not institutions or budgets. Everything you communicate about giving should stress ministry, not maintenance.
Congregational vitality is key to giving. Whatever increases member involvement and participation will help giving. Involve as many as possible in the church’s ministries.
Share information freely about the wonderful things giving makes possible. Use announcements to remind people of the impact they are having. Bulletin boards featuring how the church is in mission are good reminders to a congregation. Websites offer ways to tell the church’s story and to interpret stewardship and giving.
Know your givers and congregational giving patterns
Do not make assumptions about what people give — most of the time you will be wrong.
Give your pastor access to members’ giving records as a matter of pastoral care, not power or privilege.
Keep alert for any changes in giving patterns — if giving stops without explanation, if an adult child starts writing checks for their parents, if there is confusion about giving, if designated gifts replace general giving, etc. Notify the pastor of any potential pastoral care concerns.
Know your people and approach them where they are. Someone who has never given does not respond in the same manner as someone who gives faithfully, proportionately, and generously.
Understand the financial profiles in your community. If few people carry cash, a spur of the moment offering will not succeed. Remember that more women than men carry a checkbook and younger generations are more inclined to pay by electronic or other non-cash means. A 25 year-old is unlikely to make a stock gift, while an older member on a fixed income may prefer an estate gift to one that reduces their monthly income.
Monitor giving Indicators throughout the year. Compare pledge payments with those of previous years.
Know how actual income compares to budgeted income for a given time of year. Avoid reporting what is “needed to date” by dividing the total budget into equal monthly or weekly segments. No congregation receives its income so evenly. Instead, determine how much income is “needed to date” based on a rolling three-year average of what percent of total giving is normally received during that period.
Provide a variety of ways to give
Give people multiple opportunities to give. Those new to the church may be unfamiliar with the concept of pledging and tithing. Other ways of giving can get them in the habit.
Consider sending some appropriate communication a few times a year to those who do not pledge and to non-resident members.
Remember that people can give from their income, from their assets (stock, 401Ks, bonds and real property), or through legacies or bequests. Create giving opportunities appropriate to each type of gift.
Don’t wait decades between capital campaigns. More frequent capital drives create a culture of supporting the church’s capital needs and prevent neglect of property concerns.
Create a foundation or permanent fund, even if you have not yet received any bequests. People cannot give to what does not exist. Formulate policies for wills, legacies, and bequests. A large estate gift can be divisive if proper procedures are not in place.
Assist members in the stewardship of their personal resources
Remember that personal finances and spending decisions are as much a part of Christian stewardship as giving to the church. Too often churches ask people to consider the church’s financial situation, but seldom offer to help with members’ financial situations.
Teach members to think about their finances as an expression of faith. Use appropriate study resources to foster a theology of personal stewardship. Reinforce tithing and “first-fruits” giving as a faithful way of prioritizing one’s personal finances – not a way to pay church bills.
Offer workshops on budgeting, financial management, and estate planning.
Encourage sessions in which members can come together to discuss personal financial challenges. For example, parents of students preparing for college could discuss educational funding options. Those responsible for aging parents could come together to talk with other members who have learned of resources to help.
Minister to the economic concerns of parishioners. Provide pastoral assistance and support groups for the unemployed, those in career transition, and those facing financial difficulty.
Develop a year-round, comprehensive stewardship program
Preach stewardship sermons throughout the year, not just in the weeks before asking for an estimate of annual giving.
Know that developing a congregation of faithful givers does not happen during a three to four-week stewardship drive. People do not become faithful stewards in one moment or through one influence.
Create an annual stewardship calendar, emphasizing different stewardship concerns at different times of year – such as annual commitment in the fall, second-mile giving at year-end, planned giving at All Saint’s Day, etc. Develop stewardship themes that fit with different church events and liturgical seasons.
Encourage faithful giving over the summer by preaching on stewardship the last Sunday before school is out. Everyone knows the churches bills do not go on vacation, so quit reminding your members of that.
Make giving and stewardship education a part of your ministry with children and youth.
Take the time to do everything related to stewardship well. Poor planning results in poor giving. Inspire generosity through sound management
- Know that people give to healthy organizations where they know their money is used wisely.
- Exhibit honesty and openness in financial interactions.
- Seek a good working relationship based on trust between the pastor, treasurer, and financial secretary.
- Make sure at least two unrelated people count the offering each week.
- Make sure all funds are administered properly. Keep precise records of income and dispersements. Keep your giving records secure.
- Keep the congregation informed of financial matters in meaningful ways. Issue timely financial reports and make them available to any member who requests them. Report financial concerns in a consistent manner.
- Send out pledge reports/giving statements in a timely fashion, always with a thank you and a reminder about any update that may be needed.
- Arrange for an independent audit or review of funds annually. Put a brief announcement in the Sunday bulletin a few times stating the completed audit has been reviewed by the finance committee and is available to members wishing to review it.
Find multiple occasions and ways to say “thank you” to those who make the church’s ministry possible — from the pulpit, in person, in the newsletter, and on their giving statements.
- Conduct an annual “thank-a-thon” not associated with a fund drive.
- Tell stories of how lives are changed because of their giving. People need to know their giving makes a difference.
- As a sign of appreciation, make sure all your procedures for giving are as convenient as possible. Avoid procedures and policies that are for the convenience of those who handle the funds rather than those who give the funds.
Download a PDF of this page to share with others.Read and download free.
Editor: Dr. Ann A. Michel
Copyright © 2004-2018 Lewis Center for Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary
Connect with the Lewis Center:
Lewis Center for Church Leadership
Wesley Theological Seminary
4500 Massachusetts Avenue NorthWest
Washington, D.C., 20016, United States
***
No comments:
Post a Comment