I will always remember Sunday, March 13th, as the day the offering bucket passed by me for the first time in, well, forever! Since I moved to Oklahoma, I have seen a lot of things in church I have not seen in a long time, like shaking hands and maskless...
“When is showing gratitude ever inappropriate?” That was my wife Valerie’s response after I returned home from meeting with a pastor who had asked me to write a series of letters for him. One letter I wrote was a thank you letter to donors for their generosity. When I showed...
Are you running a bit behind in giving? Would you like to increase giving to assure those summer initiatives are fully funded? How about seeing some new donors start contributing? A successful Easter offering will accomplish all the above. I’m in week two of a series on Easter offering planning....
Easter is six weeks away, and I have about six seconds to keep your attention. So, how about this? Reading this Coach will help you raise your largest Easter offering ever and add new donors. Need more convincing? Here is what one pastor emailed me after using my Easter giving playbook: “We followed...
“He is twenty minutes into his sermon, and he has not yet mentioned one Bible verse.” That was my comment one Sunday morning, right after our move to Oklahoma. Valerie and I were church shopping, looking for a church that would be a good fit for us. Someone had recommended...
You are 2 ½ times more likely to see an increase in giving after preaching a series on giving rather than preaching on stewardship once or even twice a year.1. If that is true, why is it that so many pastors fail to even preach one sermon a year on...
9 in 10 Evangelicals Don’t Think Sermons Are Too Long was the title of a recent Christianity Today post that captured my attention. That is good news for us preachers. Here is another surprising discovery, 88 percent are happy with how often the church asks for tithes and donations.1. Why...
I’ve learned to stay in my lane. It became apparent to me early in my ministry that there were certain things that I simply was not gifted in. It wasn’t my lane to be in. At this stage of my ministry, my lane is stewardship. I get up every morning...
The offering is not dead; it’s different. It has been my new mantra and theme of the last few issues of The Stewardship Coach. I’ve been contending that the why of the offering hasn’t changed. What has changed is the how. In 2011, only 14% of churches offered online giving....
Remember what it was like that first shut down Sunday in March 2020, and your offering went to practically zero overnight? That is your future if you don’t do something quickly. If you doubt me, have your financial person give you a listing of the top ten donors in your...
