Wednesday, September 26, 2018
In today’s political climate, many are asking how the church can speak prophetically to the issues of the day while also being sensitive to diverse views. At Riverside Church, where the congregation is almost universally progressive, we must also ask the question, “How can we avoid turning church into a political rally every week?” It’s a key question for churches that are either very liberal or very conservative in political outlook.
As a practical matter, no church can do everything. If you try to engage every issue, you are going to be really, really busy and probably not very effective. Keep your focus concentrated so that, when you do speak, what you say has impact.
Riverside Church has a reputation for speaking prophetically to the issues of the day. William Sloane Coffin, for example, was very active in the anti-nuclear movement, LGBTQ rights, and anti-apartheid advocacy. And James Forbes was very active in issues of racial reconciliation. The congregation expects me to say things that perhaps others cannot say and to use the pulpit to address conversations that the church has traditionally shied away from. But part of that task is pulling people back to the gospel. We need to be consistent, diligent, and disciplined in examining the words and teaching of Jesus to be sure our proclamation reflects the gospel and the Biblical witness.
Pulling people back to the gospel
In January 2017, for example, when President Trump signed his executive order on immigration, our response the next Sunday was to read every passage in the Bible addressing the issue of welcoming the stranger. It was a way of solidly grounding our political stance in the witness of scripture. Hearing those texts helped many in the congregation embrace their faith in new and fresh ways.
Many churchgoers on the progressive end of the spectrum tend to be a little embarrassed by the Bible and the way that American society has defined and expressed the Christian faith. So, a lot of people in our church that day experienced a powerful sense of relief and joy in discovering that the Bible is a resource that speaks to the issues of our day, rather than a source of embarrassment, and that you can be a person of faith and speak prophetically to these issues.
Concentrating your focus
Riverside has always been a gathering place for people of faith from all over this country and around the world, and that reach has expanded exponentially with the advent of social media. That January 2017 service was viewed over 2 million times by people around the world. We are coming to understand that our public platform is something we need to steward in faithful ways.
As a practical matter, no church can do everything. If you try to engage every issue, you are going to be really, really busy and probably not very effective. Keep your focus concentrated so that, when you do speak, what you say has impact.
A prophetic posture begins inside-out
When a congregation is healthy and faithfully living out the witness of beloved community, its prophetic proclamation will be most effective. When a congregation is rife with infighting or when church disputes show up on the front page of the local newspaper, the integrity of its public witness will suffer. The work of forming disciples and leading healthy community within the walls of your church is essential. While dealing with the church’s institutional health and administrative structures may not seem as important or sexy as engaging serious public issues, it is basic to the authenticity of your external proclamation.
Again, it comes back to the gospel. Does our proclamation reflect the fundamental teachings of Jesus to love God and love your neighbor? This needs to be our measuring stick.
Related Resources:
Amy Butler is pastor of The Riverside Church in New York City. She is an alumna of the Lewis Center’s Lewis Fellows program, a leadership development cohort for outstanding young clergy. She earned her Doctor of Ministry at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.
Riverside Church has a reputation for speaking prophetically to the issues of the day. William Sloane Coffin, for example, was very active in the anti-nuclear movement, LGBTQ rights, and anti-apartheid advocacy. And James Forbes was very active in issues of racial reconciliation. The congregation expects me to say things that perhaps others cannot say and to use the pulpit to address conversations that the church has traditionally shied away from. But part of that task is pulling people back to the gospel. We need to be consistent, diligent, and disciplined in examining the words and teaching of Jesus to be sure our proclamation reflects the gospel and the Biblical witness.
Pulling people back to the gospel
In January 2017, for example, when President Trump signed his executive order on immigration, our response the next Sunday was to read every passage in the Bible addressing the issue of welcoming the stranger. It was a way of solidly grounding our political stance in the witness of scripture. Hearing those texts helped many in the congregation embrace their faith in new and fresh ways.
Many churchgoers on the progressive end of the spectrum tend to be a little embarrassed by the Bible and the way that American society has defined and expressed the Christian faith. So, a lot of people in our church that day experienced a powerful sense of relief and joy in discovering that the Bible is a resource that speaks to the issues of our day, rather than a source of embarrassment, and that you can be a person of faith and speak prophetically to these issues.
Concentrating your focus
Riverside has always been a gathering place for people of faith from all over this country and around the world, and that reach has expanded exponentially with the advent of social media. That January 2017 service was viewed over 2 million times by people around the world. We are coming to understand that our public platform is something we need to steward in faithful ways.
As a practical matter, no church can do everything. If you try to engage every issue, you are going to be really, really busy and probably not very effective. Keep your focus concentrated so that, when you do speak, what you say has impact.
A prophetic posture begins inside-out
When a congregation is healthy and faithfully living out the witness of beloved community, its prophetic proclamation will be most effective. When a congregation is rife with infighting or when church disputes show up on the front page of the local newspaper, the integrity of its public witness will suffer. The work of forming disciples and leading healthy community within the walls of your church is essential. While dealing with the church’s institutional health and administrative structures may not seem as important or sexy as engaging serious public issues, it is basic to the authenticity of your external proclamation.
Again, it comes back to the gospel. Does our proclamation reflect the fundamental teachings of Jesus to love God and love your neighbor? This needs to be our measuring stick.
Related Resources:
- “Leading a Historic Congregation,” a Leading Ideas Talks Podcast episode featuring Amy Butler
- 4 Tips for Preaching on Politically Charged Topics by Ginger Gaines-Cirelli
- 4 Opportunities for the Church in the Current Political Tension by Carey Nieuwhof
- Leadership Public Witness Social Justice
About Author
The church council meeting has been moving along just fine when out of nowhere someone suggests a new ministry possibility, and a decision-making process based on popularity and charisma is employed. Are there key persons in the congregation advocating or supporting the idea? Is the idea being presented with enough passion and charisma to wow the group into approving it?
Many congregations use this style of decision making. It can yield good, productive ideas. But many times, it leads to unfruitful ministries that divert resources of time, talent, and treasure from more promising opportunities. And once a poor decision is made, it can be virtually impossible to reverse course or end an unproductive program.When these three questions are used on an ongoing basis, congregations are better positioned to engage in sustained, fruitful ministries that participate with God in the transformation of the world..
Any congregation can make decisions a better way by asking three key questions.
1. Is it consistent with the congregation’s mission and vision?
This may seem like a simple, almost trite, question. But it is the most important question, and it should be asked with every decision. It requires that a congregation be clear about its mission and vision. When the mission and vision are more than just a slogan printed on publications, when they have taken root in the life of the church, they generate a focus for ministry that increases the possibility of fruitful decision making.
What if an idea or possibility is not consistent with the mission and vision? Then there is an opportunity to help shape the idea to make it consistent. Ask follow-up questions such as, “What adaptations need to be made so that there is consistency with the mission and vision?”
2. Is there a team to support the ministry?
All too often, ministries become the passion and responsibility of one person. When that person is no longer able to drive the ministry, it often disappears. A team approach enhances the likelihood of long-term fruitfulness. Congregations employing team-based leadership generally have healthier and more effective ministries. Solo heroic leadership has never been healthy for the church, yet it is often practiced.
In congregations that have dabbled in team-based ministry, leaders have been known to bring a team list forward when the team exists in name only. It’s important to make sure there is a functioning team in place, not just a list of names. A proponent of a new idea should be encouraged to develop a team before presenting the idea for consideration.
3. Are there enough resources to support the new ministry?
This becomes the key question after the first two questions have been successfully navigated. The question of resources includes financial planning but does not stop there. What level of congregational participation is expected? What physical space will be needed? How often will people need to be engaged?
Church leaders have a responsibility to consider the overall amount of time, money, and energy being asked of the congregation as a whole. Overwhelming a congregation with too many demands can limit the fruitfulness of all the ministries, not just the new idea. Having a plan for resources also helps build sustainability from the beginning. All too often great ministries struggle because insufficient attention was given to the need for adequate resources when starting and developing a new idea.
Putting it all together
It’s tempting to skip or postpone answering one or more of these questions. But for this style of decision making to be most effective, the three questions need to be asked consistently and in order: ask first about consistency with mission and vision; then ask about the team; and, finally, ask about resources.
Congregations should commit to start new ministries only when all three questions are answered affirmatively. If “no” is the answer to any of the questions, there is always the opportunity to adapt and refine the idea to move toward a “yes” answer. Once the answer to all three questions is “yes”, the idea is greenlighted.
These three questions can be used not only for new ideas, but to evaluate ongoing ministries as well. A program’s connection to mission and vision can drift, teams can shift and deteriorate, resources can be depleted, or needs can change. So, it can be helpful to apply the filter of these three questions to all of a church’s ministries on a regular basis, perhaps every 12 to 18 months.
When these three questions are used on an ongoing basis, congregations are better positioned to engage in sustained, fruitful ministries that participate with God in the transformation of the world.
Related Resources:
- Discovering God’s Future for Your Church Video Tool Kit
- 5 Steps for Putting Good Ideas into Action by Jim Hoffman
- Launching Sustainable Ministries by Ann A. Michel
- Leadership Leadership Best Practices Meetings Visioning and Planning
About Author
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The Right Question
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Think about the agenda for your governing board or a committee on which you serve and ask these questions.
- What items are always on the agenda?
- What items are rarely or never on the agenda?
- What does that say about our priorities and possible missing items?
Learn more and watch an introductory video now.
Church members who make pledges give substantially more than those who do not, and congregations that seek annual financial commitments have significantly higher levels of overall giving. These 50 tips will help you maximize giving by improving your annual financial campaign.
Engage your leaders and members
Choose a time of year when the congregation can focus its attention on stewardship and when there is a high probability of connecting with the most people. The annual financial campaign should be on the calendar a year in advance and planned with as much attention to detail as Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve.
Pick a new theme every year for your stewardship campaign. Taking the time to be creative and innovative may encourage your members to take the time to reflect on their giving.
Be strategic in building a leadership team. Involve a large group of people to build their sense of responsibility for the outcome. Include persons from different age groups and different ministry areas. A faithful giver (preferably someone who tithes) should head your annual stewardship campaign.
Be sure that the generous givers of the congregation are well represented on the stewardship team and other groups related to the church’s funding, just as you would be sure to include those most active in other ministry areas as you plan for those ministries.
Do not hesitate to ask church leaders to make their pledges first as a sign of their commitment and as an encouragement to the larger congregation.
Orchestrate a comprehensive communication strategy to focus attention on stewardship during your campaign. Use every available means — sermons, music, testimony, newsletter articles, study programs, bulletin boards, banners, etc.
Plan carefully
Remember — and communicate — that the annual budget is about ministry and mission, not dollars. Prepare the budget with great care, being sensitive to giving trends. Set ambitious but realistic goals.
Define your purpose and set goals. Set priorities and sequence activities in appropriate ways. Be efficient and realistic in making assignments. Be logical about how you allocate your time and efforts in relation to expected outcomes.
Establish a realistic timeline. In larger churches, planning and implementing the annual commitment campaign can take six months or more. Use benchmark dates to keep on track.
Avoid the temptation to rush to the final steps without spending adequate time and attention on the foundational steps that normally determine success or failure.
Know that developing a congregation of faithful givers does not happen only through a stewardship drive. Develop a year-round approach to stewardship education.
Appreciate that fund raising is incremental. The most important determinant of how much you can raise this year is what you raised last year.
Approach solicitation with a healthy frame of mind
Never be apologetic or feel guilty about stewardship appeals. Campaign leaders are not asking for themselves. Their willingness to approach others about giving is an expression of their deep commitment to the church. The vast majority of those being asked will respond in ways that honor that commitment.
Remember that there is a great deal of “money looking for mission” and that many people are seeking ways to use their resources to advance their values and do God’s will.
Remember that people give to many things, so do not assume that people will give all their charitable giving to the church. You need to make your case.
Emphasize that stewardship is about faithfulness to God, not obligation to the church. Stress the giver’s joy in giving rather than the church’s need to receive.
Structure your campaign to acknowledge unique giving patterns
Know that every church has a “giving pyramid” with a small percentage of donors contributing a large proportion of what is given; for not all people have the same resources to give, and not all people are at the same level of spiritual maturity. Most money will come from larger gifts.
Analyze giving histories and membership data in your congregation to determine where your people are on your pyramid.
Track pledges and giving by age “decades” (younger than 20s, 20s, 30s, 40s, etc.) so you can assess giving patterns across age groups.
Determine what percentage of giving comes from those aged 70 and above. You may be vulnerable if this percentage is high and getting higher each year.
Focus on those currently giving. Most of the giving, including increases, will come from those already giving.
Be realistic in your expectations from those who are not currently giving. New donors are much more difficult to reach, are less likely to respond, and will give less than those already giving.
Know that one approach will not fit everyone in the church. What is appropriate for the spiritually mature member who demonstrates faithfulness may not be appropriate for a newer or relatively inactive member who has never given. Think of relating to people “as they have lifted their hands.”
Think in terms of “concentric circles” with your committed core (active members who are strong givers) in the center.
Expand the circles, then, to includes actives who are likely to move up in giving because of their income, level of engagement, and current giving; new members since last year; those who attend or participate but do not give; and inactives who do not participate or give.
Have multiple goals with these realities in mind — a comprehensive effort that invites everyone to give along with a focused effort on the relatively few likely to give the most. Seek to increase the number of pledgers and to increase the giving of those who already give.
Set giving targets to help people get a figure in mind. People normally do not give more than they are asked. Set different giving ranges for different categories of givers.
Provide a “Step Up” plan to encourage everyone to grow in giving.
Make each part of the plan as personal as possible and appropriate.
Know what motivates people to give
Know that people give from a mixture of motives. Few give out of a clear spiritual rationale. Most do not have a well-planned or consistent approach to giving.
People will “protect themselves.” You do not need to guard them against over-giving!
Appreciate that people want care in the use of their money, but procedures and documentation do not tend to be motivators for giving except in the negative.
Remember that people are likely to continue giving once they begin.
Nurture relationships. People give based more on credibility and relationships than on the merits of the cause.
Ask in effective ways
Take the initiative. If you want money, you must ask for it. Many never give because they were never asked nor given compelling reasons to do so.
Use the most personal approach possible. A personalized letter is better than a form letter, a hand-written note better than a letter, a phone call better than a note. A one-on-one visit is best of all! If you cannot visit everyone, start at the top of your pyramid.
Be positive in everything you communicate about giving. Eliminate negative references.
Never divide the budget by the number of church families or members and say, “If everyone gave just …” Those who give little will not give more, but some who give more may give less
Most people do not give to support budgets. They give to support people and programs.
Build your message around mission. Relate everything to the church’s vision and purpose.
Prepare a “Ministry Impact Budget” to use in your campaign. Rather than presenting “line items,” this budget should interpret ministry and mission in ways that are meaningful to your membership (worship ministries, educational ministries, outreach ministries, etc.).
Always, however, make the accounting version available to anyone requesting it.
Use groups in your church to reinforce your campaign efforts. Prepare group study materials related to your campaign theme. Ask group leaders to help in contacting their members.
Know that congregations that seek annual pledges have a higher level of giving than congregations that do not ask for annual commitments.
Make giving by automatic withdrawal simple to choose when people make their pledges.
In all pledge requests, acknowledge that some may be in a “financial jam.” Ask them to commit what they can and not to let their inability to give more keep them from church.
Follow-up
Do not think of a Commitment Sunday as the end of the campaign. It is an important celebration and punctuation point, but much work needs to happen after that day to reach those who have not responded.
Follow every successful solicitation with a meaningful gesture of appreciation.
Do not forget to seek commitments between campaign periods, especially from new members.
Be sensitive to members’ desire and need to make year-end gifts. Communicate any deadlines for year-end giving positively, focusing on all the ways a person can give in a hectic time of the year. Do not make it hard for people to give.
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50 Ways Funding Giving Stewardship
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Quotable Leadership
Visioning is a gift of God. It is a reward of disciplined, faithful, and patient listening to God. (Rueben Job)
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The mandate given by Jesus to his followers was to take his authority to proclaim the counterculture Kingdom of God, to teach and demonstrate Spirit-empowered living and to heal the sick and oppressed. As I have traveled the past 14 months consulting with churches throughout Europe and the U.S., I am witnessing some fresh alternatives to the traditional approach of getting people into our weekend worship events. Here are three among many that are faithfully breaking out of the box and accomplishing Jesus’ mandate:Recovery communities
Within months of becoming pastor of Ginghamsburg in 1979, I asked our board to approve using our sanctuary to host a local AA meeting. This seemed like a big ask for our small, rural church back in the day. I would smile though when I preached on Sunday mornings and spotted from the pulpit new cigarette burns in the carpet. Ginghamsburg went on to launch a Christian recovery support group and host other recovery groups before launching Next Step Recovery Worship on Saturday nights, 13 years ago. In 2008, Ginghamsburg member Ron Will launched Joshua Recovery Ministries, which now runs six recovery homes for men across two counties. (For more on Joshua Recovery, view this video.) Ginghamsburg’s early involvement in recovery ministry was prescient in light of today’s opioid crisis. Dayton, Ohio, minutes south of Ginghamsburg, has been named as its epicenter.
Recovery ministry is something any church, no matter its size, can initiate for moving outside its walls and addressing a tremendous felt need in its surrounding community. The addiction crisis is no respecter of persons, race, neighborhood or socioeconomic status.
“Church” for the homeless
This past March I was in Honolulu, Hawaii to consult with First United Methodist Church, Hawaii’s original Methodist church established in 1855. My favorite ministry that I experienced at First UMC was Pancakes & Praise, a hot breakfast and worship service for Honolulu’s large homeless population. (The morning I worshipped with them, the actual menu was tuna and rice, eagerly consumed by possibly 100 guests that Sunday.) Pancakes & Praise is reminiscent of Ginghamsburg’s own Soul Food Café at our Fort McKinley Campus, where the hurting and underserved are also welcomed for breakfast and worship. Three Sundays of the month, medical students from the University of Hawaii show up to take care of guests after breakfast. They take blood pressure readings, treat minor wounds or medical conditions and give health advice, among other services.
Serving with the poor in and among us creates some of the most powerful worship I have ever experienced. As Jesus noted, the poor we will always have with us. More than 2,000 scriptures make plain God’s special concern for the poor. Clearly if the gospel isn’t good news for the poor, then it isn’t the gospel.
Neighborhood communities
What I’m discovering as I visit and work with churches is that people may leave their “local church” for various reasons, but they don’t leave relationships. A church I consult with in Cincinnati has lost some of its key givers over the past year, yet those formerly active members have not abandoned their church life group. I also believe that life groups alone, although essential, are not always enough. We need to think beyond traditional life groups toward launching healthy house churches. Simple organisms multiply faster than complex ones, and the house church can be a friendlier model to unchurched people who may not be attracted to a “big box store” church model. Watch this video to grasp the vibrancy of what can be accomplished through the relationships built in small group communities.
Your church size and context are not barriers to mission and ministry. Passion, a little out-of-the-box creativity, and a hunger to reach the least and the lost are the true essentials for Kingdom growth.
Mike Slaughter, pastor emeritus and global church ambassador for Ginghamsburg Church, served for nearly four decades as the lead pastor and chief dreamer of Ginghamsburg and the spiritual entrepreneur of ministry marketplace innovations. Mike is also the founder and chief strategist of Passionate Churches, LLC, which specializes in developing pastors, church staff and church lay leaders through coaching, training, consulting and facilitation services. Mike’s call to “afflict the comfortable” challenges Christians to wrestle with God and their God-destinies. Mike’s newest book is Made for a Miracle: From Your Ordinary to God’s Extraordinary (Abingdon Press).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Slaughter
Mike Slaughter, pastor emeritus and global church ambassador for Ginghamsburg Church, served for nearly four decades as read more…Read now.
Editor: Dr. Ann A. Michel
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