From the Desk of Our Executive Director

Happy New Year, and welcome to the first 2023 edition of the Stewardship Journal. We are back with another issue to help you build a generosity culture based on biblical stewardship!

Here is a preview of this week’s Stewardship Journal.

As we begin our year, we thought it would be valuable to give you a review of giving. The title of our opening post is The Economy Is Impacting Giving. Mark Brooks, The Stewardship Coach, shares a recent update on Cooperative Program giving and what that might mean for the Convention and your church. His caution and advice are worth paying attention to.

Mark continues the theme of analysis by beginning his 2023 column with a post entitled 2023 Giving Predictions. Mark believes inflation and the economy will continue to impact giving. He shares four practical ways you can get ahead of any decline the economy and inflation might throw your way. As Mark says, “…the church that survives into the future is the church that plans for the future today.” That is one of our driving goals with the Stewardship Journal.

In the Bonus Section is a post entitled Three Reasons to Increase Recurring Giving. At a time when most churches are cutting their budget and spending, this article will share with you an easy way to save money and increase giving. We advise churches to spend January encouraging their members to set up giving to be automatic and recurring, and this post will convince you of that need.

This week’s Mission and Ministry moment is entitled Dreams Matter and is written to be shared the day before Martin Luther King Day. It’s a great use of a current event to link to the importance of giving. We believe that if you take two minutes or less to position your offerings, it will increase giving and the number of people giving.

We are looking forward to another great year publishing the Stewardship Journal! We would love to have you on our list of Missouri Baptist pastors we often survey about their stewardship experiences. If you want to join that list, contact Rob Phillips at rphillips@mobaptist.org. We would love to hear from you.

Advancing the Gospel!