My Goal for this Playbook “My goal in preaching is for you to come back next week and bring a friend.” I once heard Andy Stanley make that comment at a preaching conference. When it comes to the goal of this playbook, let me borrow that phrase and tweak it a...
Welcome to our final edition on the state of giving in America. One of our goals with the Journal is to give our readers up-to-date information on current studies. Being aware of a decline is a good first step to correcting the decline. This issue will help pastors and church...
Think like a pastor. That’s what I often write on my yellow legal thinking pad as I face each stewardship issue. I ask myself, “If I were still a pastor, what should I do about this information?” I would want to know what this meant for me and my church...
Southern Baptist churches are heading into a crisis that will determine which local churches will survive and which will slowly die. The chart above identifies the ticking time bomb about to explode throughout the Convention. Can you see the problem? Can you do the math? 84% vs. 16%! 84% of the...
As we finish this series on the state of giving to churches, we wanted to provide you with insights on how to address the decline in giving. The following, used by permission, shows how to re-engage those lost donors. Only 32% of your lapsed donors realize they have not given to...
The average evangelical was giving away only 3.2% of household income to either church or charity, and 19% gave not a penny to either over the previous 12 months. 1 That is not the kind of news we like to share, but it is a wakeup call for pastors and...
The average evangelical was giving away only 3.2% of household income to either church or charity, and 19% gave not a penny to either over the previous 12 months.1. Giving to the Church in America is in freefall, and I want to dive into why that is happening and what you...
Last week, I interviewed Ron Sellers of Grey Matter Research, one of the authors of a new study on giving entitled The Giving Gap: Changes in Evangelical Generosity. The study was done by Infinity Concepts | Grey Matter Research. Due to the length of the interview, I broke it down...
Everyone likes good news, but sometimes we need to hear if there is a hole in the ship. Only then can you take action to correct that hole to save the ship. We have a huge hole in our ship when it comes to giving to churches. No church leader...
I have three major studies on giving trends on my desk, and all three say the same thing: giving to charitable organizations, including the Church, is in serious decline. I will break down the findings in this Coach, The Future of Giving: It Ain’t Good, Part 1. “The average evangelical Protestant...
