Giving & Fundraising

Giving & Fundraising gathers Christian Standard articles that explore biblical generosity and practical approaches to supporting ministry. Here you’ll find teaching on stewardship, sacrificial giving, church finances, donor communication, and funding mission and outreach efforts with integrity. These articles aim to help individuals give joyfully, and help churches cultivate a culture of generosity—raising support in ways that are transparent, mission-focused, and faithful to the gospel.

February 9, 2019

Christian Standard

A Profitable Sermon on Generosity, Any Way You Slice It

By Jim Nieman Mark Jones is glad he opted for a simple devotion one week in the midst of his sermon series on generosity. The decision resulted in a finale that had greater impact, and which, at the same time, garnered quite a bit of positive press. Jones opted for the devotion one Sunday when “horrific weather” swept through the Bardstown, Ky., region and Nelson Christian Church saw lower-than-average attendance. But that set things up nicely for the final message, Feb. 3—which happened to be Super Bowl Sunday—when Jones called in a pizza order from the stage early in his

February 2, 2019

Christian Standard

How to Fund Your Ministry for the Long Term

7 Numbers that Explain the Benefits of Estate Planning By D. Clay Perkins Could your church or ministry use more money? Financial planning can advance your ministry, of course, but it can also benefit your donors! Effective leaders do the right things consistently. They focus, among other things, on achieving long-term financial health for the ministry they serve. Mission and passion drive leaders to serve, but those alone won’t make them succeed. We serve a heavenly purpose, but each of us faces an earthly reality. Cash flow is “king,” even for faith-based, nonprofit organizations. Positive cash flow can be elusive,

January 3, 2019

Kent E. Fillinger

Kent E. Fillinger

Giving Insights for the New Year

By Kent Fillinger Sermon series on giving, stewardship, and generosity are often popular to start a new year. To help church leaders gain a broader perspective on giving, here are some important research results.   The State of Charitable Giving According to Giving USA 2018: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2017, Charitable giving reached record levels for the fourth consecutive year in 2017. Total giving in the United States rose 5.2 percent, ringing in a new all-time high of $410 billion. Over the course of a decade, charitable giving increased by nearly $100 billion. Studies show the

November 26, 2018

Christian Standard

10 Christmas Gift Ideas that Support Ministry and Mission

By Carla Williams You want your Christmas season to be as meaningful and Christ-focused as possible, but when it comes to gifts, it can be difficult to escape the trap of overcrowded malls or flash Internet sales. As you ponder your list of loved ones to shop for this Christmas, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to give something that makes a difference for the kingdom around the world? Many ministries and mission groups sell thoughtful, meaningful gifts that help sustain and serve their gospel purposes. This year, you can give gifts that truly keep on giving! _ _

November 20, 2018

Christian Standard

A Special Name for Today

(For use Sunday, November 25) By Lena Wood Tomorrow is Cyber Monday, a day of exceptional online bargains. Nowadays you can do all your Christmas shopping from home, sitting on the couch in your robe, having coffee and scrambled eggs. No more “shop ’til you drop”; now you have the option to “plop and shop.” After buying presents for loved ones on Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday lets you enjoy another kind of generosity that carries no expectation of material return, a chance to experience a deep principle: Giving is better than receiving. So, what should we call today, the day

July 28, 2018

Christian Standard

Weekly Offerings Increase after Pastor Threatens Dramatic Interpretation of Leviticus Unless All Members Tithe

By Caleb Kaltenbach LAWSON, OK—“It worked,” said Gene Moody, pastor of Diamond River Christian Church. “The approach took a little refining, but we got there.” After two weeks of preaching on generosity, the weekly offerings of Diamond River Christian Church still hadn’t changed. Members seemed unwilling to increase their giving. “I had enough,” Moody said. “So, last Sunday, I announced that unless they started giving more to the church, I would begin a verse-by-verse dramatic interpretation of Leviticus!” Several church members gasped when Moody announced this. “My husband and I were frantic,” reported Beth Gilmore, longtime member of Diamond River.

January 3, 2018

Christian Standard

Get Creative with your Fund-Raising!

By David Girdwood Each summer, as temperatures rise and the daylight expands, our children begin dreaming of a commercial enterprise: “Mom, Dad, can we pleeease do a lemonade stand?” Personally, spending hours in the blazing sun selling just enough lemonade to cover the cost of the Crystal Light isn’t very appealing. We allow our kids to do it anyway. Why? Is it a rite of passage, a way to kill a few hours, an opportunity to teach an economics lesson? Or is it ultimately a chance for them to be creative, resourceful, and even to experience the generosity of others?

December 31, 2017

Christian Standard

Money Matters: Practical Tips for Fund-raising

By David Dummitt Whether you”re raising funds for a personal mission trip, planting a new church, or any number of other ministry endeavors, money is necessary to drive God-given dreams forward. In my experience, God has “come through” most dynamically through finances. I have found myself in a position many times where a vision was sure to fail, and yet God has always come through in huge ways. When it comes to fund-raising, we must pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. Pray hard. Work hard. Here are a few practical fund-raising tips I”ve

December 26, 2017

Michael C. Mack

Don”t Drop the Ball!

By Michael C. Mack A 2015 research study revealed that small group participants gave an average of $1,886 more per year to their churches than those not in groups. As a small groups guy, that statistic makes me smile. You”re probably not shocked by this finding. It makes sense that the more connected and involved people are in the life of the church, the more buy in they will have to the church”s vision and the more they will tend to give. But I think there”s more to it. LD Campbell, who was senior minister of First Church, Burlington, Kentucky,

May 7, 2017

Christian Standard

The Third Conversion

By Jennifer Johnson It was offering time, and the father sitting in front of me handed his 3-year-old son a dollar bill. The boy happily placed the money in the basket as it passed by, and then resumed working on the important task of covering his entire bulletin with green crayon scribbles. While it was a nice moment, I distinctly remember thinking, Sure, it”s easy to give someone else”s money. But the truth is, I find it quite difficult to part with cash from Someone Else. This child doesn”t own anything; he looks to his father for everything, and dad

November 3, 2016

Michael C. Mack

November/December Ministry Ideas: Giving Tuesday

By Michael C. Mack You know about Thanksgiving and the special shopping days that have become associated with it, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Now you can add another special day the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (November 29, 2016), a global day dedicated to giving back called Giving Tuesday. “It”™s a simple idea,” says the holiday”™s official website, www.givingtuesday.org. “Whether you come together with your family, your community, your company or your organization, find a way to give back.” Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 by 92nd Street Y (www.92y.org) in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and has engaged more

March 17, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

Most to Jesus I Surrender

By Mark A. Taylor Is anybody still using the slogan “Not equal giving, but equal sacrifice”? It used to be standard verbiage in stewardship campaigns raising money to underwrite a budget or build a new auditorium. If the expression is no longer used, I”m not disappointed. Although the phrase does touch the Bible”s principle of proportional giving, I”m a little suspicious of that word sacrifice. After I”ve given a tithe and more, I still can pay for food, clothes, cars, the mortgage, and a vacation. How much would I have to give before the gift would qualify as sacrifice? Perhaps

January 11, 2015

Christian Standard

A Healthy Church Is a Giving Church

By Joe Putting “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “˜Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15, 16). When I was growing up in the late 1960s, my dad exposed me to every western movie available. There was nothing quite like the drive-in theater experience. At some point in nearly every film, the good guys would circle the wagons to ward off the bad guys. Though this might sometimes be necessary, a group that

January 4, 2015

Christian Standard

Child Sponsorship Made Easy

By Jennifer Johnson Bruce Wydick, a professor of economics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, recently reported that sponsoring a child is one of the most effective ways to fight poverty around the world. Now Christian Missionary Fellowship (Indianapolis, IN) is making it easier than ever for churches to involve their members in child sponsorship with its new Start! program. Families, individuals, and groups can all sponsor a child through CMF, and Start! is specifically created to help churches launch events to introduce the concept and connect members to children in need. CMF provides promotional videos, sermon

December 30, 2014

Mark A. Taylor

New Steps and a New Gift

By Mark A. Taylor Every year at Christmastime I look for a way to give something to someone who can”t or won”t give me anything in return. Usually this means an extra offering to a favorite mission, a check written to a local shelter, or gifts purchased for our church”s project to “provide Christmas” for needy children. I do this because it”s always seemed to me that exchanged gifts are trades, not really gifts. They”re fun, and they can be a good part of office or family celebrations. But true generosity doesn”t happen with rules about dollar limits or gift

September 5, 2014

Christian Standard

A Seven-Day Cycle for Shoes

By Jennifer Johnson A British man living in Dubai rode his bike across the Alps this summer to raise funds for a Missions of Hope International school, part of Christian Missionary Fellowship”s ministry in the Mathare slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Tim Hooker, his American wife, Fiona Petrocelli, and their son, Quinlan, became acquainted with the work of MOHI when they were planning a luxurious safari holiday in the Masaai Mara in 2011. Fiona wanted to add a different perspective to the trip by spending a day doing some type of service for local people. “Some friends of ours put us

June 29, 2014

Christian Standard

A Call to Sacrifice

By Jennifer Johnson The 25 Group is only a few months old, but its goal is ambitious: to leverage the wealth of American Christians to fund kingdom work around the world. “It”s crowdsourcing generosity,” says executive director Titus Benton, who also serves as student pastor at Current: A Christian Church in Katy, Texas. “Most people can”t give $20,000 and single-handedly fund an entire project, but a bunch of people each giving $25 a month can make a huge difference.” The challenge to give $25 ties in nicely with the nonprofit”s name, a reference to Matthew 25; the six needs mentioned

January 10, 2014

Christian Standard

Giving Matters

By Rick Chromey While in Africa, I was blessed to worship at the influential Himo church, affiliated with the conservative Evangelical Lutheran Church in Africa. I had never experienced an authentic African church service and found the contrast from my American church background and experience significant. The Himo church is a true megachurch, boasting more than 1,000 in weekly attendance (most African churches are under 100). Rogers Mtui, an ordained clergyman in the African Evangelical Lutheran Church, serves as pastor; his congregation is the largest in the Kilimanjaro district. Of all Protestant denominations, the Lutheran church is the biggest and

May 26, 2013

Christian Standard

The Envelopes, Please

By Daniel Schantz   I have enjoyed a lifelong romance with envelopes. When I was just a boy, my preacher-father supplied me with several boxes of leftover offering envelopes to play with. I have been in love with envelopes ever since. About the size of an index card, these little envelopes gave me much pleasure. We lived in Springfield, Ohio, at the time, the city where I was born. My cousins lived there, too, and on Saturdays we held a secret club meeting in a dusty corncrib, organized by my oldest cousin, Carol. She appointed herself president of the club, but the purpose of the

May 13, 2013

Christian Standard

How a Harley Store Became a Home

By Kent E. Fillinger What do you get when you combine an empty Harley-Davidson store with generous giving? No, this isn”t a bad joke. The answer is a growing church. LifePointe Christian Church, located in Elk Grove, California, launched on February 23, 2003, with a nucleus of about 60 people. It initially met in a local school on the edge of town. The church soon was averaging more than 200 in attendance, and after a few years was averaging more than 300. Then there was some stagnation, said senior pastor Chris Delfs, even though “the congregation loved the church and

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