OVER-ALL STEWARDSHIP PLANNING - PART 1

 

        

            I’ve been talking about “tactics” for stewardship including the relationship of stewardship and discipleship, metrics and saying thank you. Hopefully, all good stuff. Hopefully, some stuff you’re able to use.

            But I get it…there’s a lot of information, and a lot that needs to be done for effective stewardship planning. I don’t know about you but my to do list can seem pretty daunting, and then there are the tasks that never make that list!

            So here is the first part of a list of items to help you organize your planning for stewardship and generosity:

1.    Preaching series – what series will you use this year…and next…and next?

2.    Teaching in small groups - there is so much material out there about stewardship, giving and generosity. Limiting it to four weeks once a year (if we’re lucky), totally focused on giving to support the church’s budget isn’t enough!

3.    Monthly planning for offerings - I’ve talked about sharing stories and talking about generosity when we’re getting to the time in the service where people are being asked to share their gifts. I don’t know about you, but sometimes your mind goes blank, doesn’t it? It would probably be helpful to you, and to others who introduce the giving/offering time, to have themes, talking points or scripts. We don’t have to “wing it”.

4.    Giving updates – I know there are some that put a weekly update in the bulletin. Often it comes across very negative because our giving doesn’t come in regularly and it doesn’t match our expenses. Maybe a monthly update with comments, in the newsletter or on the church website makes the most sense.

5.    Tell stories of impact – People are giving through the church to change lives. Tell the stories of how that is happening.

6.    Tell stories of giving – Stories of impact are how the money has benefited someone. Stories of giving are how sharing and being a giver has impacted the givers themselves.

            Next week, I’ll share more items for the list of organizing for planning for stewardship and generosity. Stay tuned!

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like help organizing the generosity and giving in your church!

 

                                                   SAY THANK YOU

 

            As I’ve been talking about vision and discipleship and generosity, I want to ask: what happens when all that work is done? You know, you’ve had a campaign, or you’ve asked for money. Do you say thank you?

            I remember, as a kid, being told by my mother to be sure to say thank you at Christmas and birthday time. It didn’t matter whether the gift was exactly what I wanted or expected; the importance was the thought behind it.

            When I graduated from high school, my parents had a small party, and I received lots of cards and some gifts from relatives and friends and from a few friends of my parents as well. This was the opportunity for me to write thank you notes. I had done a few in my childhood, but not very many. I had to figure out to thank people for cash gifts, for gifts I unwrapped, and for cards. Different gifts, while for the same reason (my graduation) needed to have my thanks expressed differently.

            My question then is: how do we say thank you, when we actually say thank you? I know; the majority of time I’ve actually seen thanks expressed after a giving or stewardship campaign, it’s limited to a short paragraph in the monthly newsletter, thanking people for prayerfully giving to the church. Same paragraph directed to everyone, people who made a nominal one-time gift, people who pledged monthly or weekly amounts, and the large gifts. If different thanks needed to be given to someone who gave me $50 and someone who gave me a card, why wouldn’t we thank people differently based on what they gave?

            I know, I know, every gift is important. I’m aware of the widow’s mite. I’m not saying that you’re going to write a long letter to someone who gave big bucks; and basically a pre-printed email to someone else. Obviously, because we appreciate the larger gift more! No! What I’m saying is that EVERY gift should have a heartfelt thank you.

            I know there are reasons why churches aren’t very good at expressing gratitude:

·         People are giving to God, so they don’t need to be thanked by the church.

·         We’re just not aware that it’s something we should do.

·         Church people are busy people, and no one has the time or responsibility for doing it.

            Givers deserve gratitude. We’ve asked them to give to God through the church. We should thank them. When you receive a thank you note (or card, or email), aren’t you delighted? I don’t know about you, but I’ll put them on my credenza and look at them from time to time. It reminds me about my generosity and the good the gift is doing.

            Generosity deserves gratitude. We often spend time focused on planning out our stewardship campaigns, with calendars, and people lined up to speak and write letters, and do announcements, but no one is scheduled to help write the thank you notes. It can be a pretty basic letter, thanking someone for their generosity. You could have some paragraphs created to be inserted in certain letters to certain givers, certainly. But there should be a real signature and a short, handwritten message from the signer.

            I like the thank you that tells me that someone cared enough to notice! How about you?

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like to help creating thank you letters and emails that could be used.

   

                                                   WHO ARE YOUR GIVERS?

            Here’s a question for you: who are your givers? Do you know? I bet if I asked you that question, you would start telling me about the people that sit in your pews or who are logging on online, or have some sort of relationship with your church? Right?

            But, do you know who your people really are? If you really look at each person connected to your church, been those who are sitting in your pews regularly, or are serving on teams and committees, you’ll see that are all very different. And I don’t mean just hair color or skin color or gifts or talents.

            Too often, especially when we look at giving, we have a one size fits all mentality. And, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you need to look at some numbers, at some metrics, at indicators. Look at the last year of your giving (or six months), and look at:

• ·         How many new givers were there?
• ·         Have some givers stopped giving?
• ·         Who are continuing to give?
• ·         Do a chart to see how your gifts are concentrated. Top 1%, top 20% or.
• ·         Look at givers under $500 and givers over $500
• ·         Look at the age of your givers. I read about a trend recently that 60% or more of a church’s giving comes from givers who are 60 years old or older.
• ·         Look at the number of households giving, and the average giving per household.

 

            I know this doesn’t seem very exciting, and for many people it isn’t. But the information you can glean from this will be extremely informative. Once you’ve looked at this, you may find:

• ·         You only had two new givers all year; does this mean the congregation isn’t growing?
• ·         You had five households that stopped giving entirely. Do you know why?
• ·         Maybe, half of your giving is concentrated in a handful of people. What happens when those very few people stop giving?
• ·         A large amount of your giving is given by “older” folks. And I have to say, as one of those “older” people, it’s to be expected, but those older folks won’t be here forever. If there are no new givers; if younger folks aren’t giving, what will you do?

            Metrics may not be exciting, but it will help you determine who your givers are, and how to approach them. And, more importantly, how is the discipleship of your folks working with their giving and generosity?

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like to talk about this and how to do some work on your metrics and interpreting them.

 

                                   DISCIPLESHIP MUST BE PRIORITY

 

            I’ve been sharing over the past couple of weeks the concept of generosity and discipleship being related to each other. Many of us in our churches spend quite a bit of time on discipleship. Sometimes because we take to heart the scripture that tells us that we are to go and make disciples. Sometimes because we are told we have to prepare an intentional discipleship plan. Sometimes for other reasons.

           

            But I’ve seen enough discipleship plans to know that time is spent on worship, service, teaching, spiritual practices, etc., but few contain an emphasis on giving and generosity. Giving and generosity needs to be apriority whenever we are focused on discipleship. An article I was reading said it this way “if…two families who have the exact same financial means and one gives liberally while the other gives very little, the issue is typically not financial capacity. The issue is spiritual.”[1]

            Our relationship with Christ obviously affects our lives; I think we can agree on that. But our growing in our relationship with Christ also changes our giving. Larry Burkett (an American radio personality whose work focused on financial counseling from a Christian point of view) said that a person’s giving is probably the single best objective indicator of their relationship with Christ!

            Wow! So what does that mean for us specifically?

• ·         Pastors must make themselves aware of the giving of their “flock”
• ·         Financial leaders, by definition, may very well be the best ones to talk about generosity and convey it. Have you asked them not “can you give more”, but “tell me a little about why you are so generous to God and to the church”?
• ·         The topic of money and possession appears in over 2,000 verses in the Bible. Why should we be nervous about speaking about money?
• ·         Money is a problem for us, for many in our congregation, in our community and for many churches.

Discipleship and generosity work together and must be tightly woven together!

 

Please feel free to contact me at (315) 427-3668 or susanranous@unyumc.org if you’d like to talk about this and how stewardship at your church can work together with discipleship and the intentionality of it all!

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[1] Fund the Vision: Short-term Tactics vs. Longer-term Planning (Generis, 2022), p. 12.