How to Develop a Pastoral Lane

The Senior Pastor must be involved in stewardship development if a church is to be fully funded. Here is a list of practical ideas for a Senior Pastor for developing their pastoral lane for enhancing stewardship. Start incorporating a few of these suggestions into your weekly routine and you will see giving and givers increase.

• Commit 5% to 10% of your time educating yourself, building out, and working on a stewardship plan. If that sounds daunting, start with thirty minutes a week, and then build from there.
• Educate yourself! Reading this newsletter counts. Read books, articles, and blog posts on the subject.
• Lead your staff to be giving aware. How? Make sure they read this newsletter!

• Give stewardship priority in every staff meeting. I would do the following:
  • Review the results of the last offering and update them on financials.
  • Review the offering talk of the last offering for updates, etc.
  • Preview upcoming offering talks.

• Cultivate donors – Every church has a Churn Rate, the number who stopped giving versus the number who started giving. You must cultivate what you have and work to replace what you lose by…
  • Thanking existing donors. Find ways to express gratitude for existing donors.
  • Encouraging 1^st-time donors. A note to first-time givers will go a long way toward seeing them become regular donors! See the story below!

• Plan, review, and plan some more!
• Make it a priority!

Pastoral Lane Tip:  Write personalized thank-you notes to first-time givers.

Does it work? I gave this tip to a pastor of a church running over 1,500 across three campuses. That busy pastor gave time every week to write a short, handwritten note to every first-time giver. Here is a note he sent me:

“I send a thank you card to every first-time giver every week. Got this note and thought I’d share it with you.”

“WOW! Everything about PCC continually blows me away and exceeds all of my expectations! I never, in a million years, would have ever expected a handwritten, personalized thank you note from the pastor of a church (especially one as large as PCC) for my gift. You are a class act through & through and I feel so incredibly blessed to be a part of your church family! Thank you and may God bless you for the gifts you bestow upon our hearts & souls every week!”

This church saw a 36% increase in giving the year this pastor started working his Pastoral Lane!