Stewardship &amp; Generosity

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?

January 2, 2018

Jerry Harris

The Tyranny of Numbers

By Jerry Harris I live every day with the tyranny of numbers. It’s everywhere I look, around every corner, in every closet, reminding me of the truth, the oftentimes painful truth. When I get up in the morning, the tyranny of numbers is waiting on the bathroom scale display. It’s in my Weight Watchers app on my phone, in my budget, my bills, and my bank balance. As a pastor, I face the tyranny of numbers when I see last week’s attendance, the offering number, and the number of baptisms. I live with the tyranny of numbers when I look

December 31, 2017

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 29, 2017

The Church Budget Shouldn”t Be This Hard!

How to Build an Effective Church Budget and Choose the Right Tool By Chris Boue Building a church budget can be hectic and complicated. Even if everyone agrees on how much the church should spend 12 months in advance, technical and administrative issues always seem to crop up. We send files back and forth, miss important email attachments, and lose track of the “right” version of that Excel file or tab. These types of problems can give everyone a bad case of heartburn. You know the budget process is going poorly when you hear statements such as, “I”ll just put

December 27, 2017

The Future of Finances in the Restoration Movement

By Doug Crozier It was late August 1972 when I walked into one of my first college classes at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Accounting 101 was in a lecture hall large enough to hold more than 700 students. I learned a lot from Accounting 101 during that first semester, even though the large lecture hall was intimidating to this small-town kid. One of the key fundamentals of financial accounting I learned is a simple rule: Total Assets minus Total Liabilities equals New Worth (or New Assets in the not-for-profit world). In the mid-1990s, when I went work in

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,

June 6, 2017

Credit Report

By Mark A. Taylor Some assume a magazine”s editor is alone accountable for the insights and errors that have appeared in its pages. But as I write this, my last editorial for CHRISTIAN STANDARD (indeed, my last piece of any kind as an employee of Christian Standard Media, known as Standard Publishing during almost all my 41 years here), I know better. I must share credit, along with some blame now and then, with a long list of encouragers, examples, and givers of advice. And in this space I have room only to summarize. I think first about a decades-long

May 7, 2017

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

February 27, 2017

Michael C. Mack

How Ministers Can Respond to Financial Pressures

By Michael C. Mack CT Pastors recently reported, “Today, 90 percent of pastors feel financial stress in their family and church work, 76 percent of pastors know other pastors who left the ministry due to financial pressures, 31 percent of pastors work a second job to help make ends meet, and almost 60 percent of pastors do not receive health insurance or retirement funds from their church.” We asked pastors: What would help, or what would have helped you in responding well to these circumstances? Here are a few of the responses: “Some problems, not all by any means, could

February 6, 2017

8 Best Practices for Pastoral Financial Health

Take advantage of coaching networks available to pastors (yes, that may mean paying a coaching service for your long-term health in ministry). It”s an investment, not an expense, as seasoned ministers have years of advice for you. “¢ Participate in a financial acumen class (Financial Peace, Money Matters, any Larry Burkett program, and others). “¢ Opt for a non-Bible degree undergrad program. (Business would be a good option for ministers.) “¢ Take advantage of spousal insurance or retirement plans. (If your spouse is a teacher, maximize the benefit of retirement plans and paid health insurance.) “¢ Go bivocational. Many pastors

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

September 2, 2016

CostlyÂ””The Price of Avoiding Sermons about Money

By Eddie Lowen “Our minister doesn”t teach on giving, at least not very directly or often.” I haven”t counted how many times staff members or elders from other churches have said something similar to me, but I”m sure the tally is approaching 50 by now. It makes me wonder. . . . During the last year, how many churches have hosted a four-week series on biblical money management that emphasizes tithing (or growing generosity) to the church? How many churches regularly offer Financial Peace University or a similar series that equips people to master their finances? How many churches have

July 3, 2016

Worship””Filling the AbyssÂ

By Tim Harlow Financial campaigns are good because they remind us where to look for the help everyone is seeking. Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician, is often quoted as saying there is a “God-shaped vacuum” inside of us. That”s a preacher”s abbreviation of the following paragraph: What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help

April 20, 2016

Diworseification

By Jim Tune Peter Lynch is a legend on Wall Street. As the manager of Fidelity Investments” Magellan Fund between 1977 and 1990, Lynch averaged a 29.2 percent annual return. His fund consistently doubled and even tripled the S&P 500 index. He did this without the help of complicated algorithms or insider trading. Lynch takes a commonsense approach to portfolio management. His most famous investment principle is simply, “Invest in what you know.” In his best-selling book One Up on Wall Street, Lynch devotes a chapter to listing the kinds of companies he stays away from. He cautions readers to

March 16, 2016

Don”t Worry about Wealth

By Jim Tune Back in 1966 the folk-rock duo Simon and Garfunkel released an album called Sounds of Silence. The album was a best-selling collection of reflective songs with contemplative lyrics. It has been preserved by the Library of Congress as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” work of art. For that album, Paul Simon penned the words to a song about a much-admired philanthropist who was envied by all. “Richard Cory,” a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, was adapted by Simon into a song that ends with the startling news of the philanthropist committing suicide. My grandmother used to

February 22, 2016

An Interview with Mike Prior

By Jennifer Johnson The president of Financial Planning Ministry since 1994 explains what FPM does and why it”s important.Â So let”s start with an overview of what Financial Planning Ministry is all about. Ultimately FPM is about helping people be better stewards. We accomplish this by educating people about their estate planning options and providing an estate planning solution called a living trust that allows them to easily avoid huge costs in probate and pass that “saved” money along to family members and ministries they care about. What”s a living trust? How is it different from a will? A will

November 24, 2015

Why Weren”t They More Thankful? (Part 2)

By Mark A. Taylor As we bustle through Thanksgiving with our eyes on Christmas, many of us Americans are counting the cost of our Christmas gift-giving. “Please bring a $25 item for the gift exchange.” “How much does your brother spend on us for Christmas?” “What will we give Sue and Bill? I can”t remember what they gave us last year.” The thread through most of this is a concern to “stay even,” a compulsion coming largely from pride (we don”t want to be seen as cheap) and selfishness (we have our own expenses, after all; we can”t let this

November 17, 2015

Why Weren”t They More Thankful? (Part 1)

By Mark A. Taylor I love the family times, the meal times, the kick-off-the-holiday-season times that usually surround Thanksgiving Day. But every year as the holiday approaches, I”m tempted to wonder if we should change its name. Considering how most Americans actually celebrate, maybe we should call it Have a Crowd for Dinner Day or Shop Early for Big Savings Day or Watch Some Football Day. Don”t misunderstand. I don”t mean to be a grump. As I said, I”m grateful to have the day off and to spend it with people close to me. But I am a bit chagrined

October 13, 2015

Calculating the Right Answer

By Mark A. Taylor “You don”t own your possessions. Your possessions own you.” Not true for you, you say? Well, try this experiment. Think about your time: For one month keep a running diary of every minute you spend fueling your car, washing your car, or taking your car to the garage. Then add time spent cleaning the house, performing maintenance at the house, decorating, replacing broken appliances, or doing yard work To this log, add any time you”ve spent purchasing, repairing, or maintaining other favorite possessions: electronics, computers, smartphones, and the like. And then add time spent shopping for

March 17, 2015