The Senior Pastor’s Weekly Stewardship Overview

How much time should a Senior Pastor spend on stewardship? I believe every Senior Pastor should commit 5% to 10% of their time to educating themselves, building out, and working on a stewardship plan. If that sounds daunting, start with thirty minutes a week and then build from there. The following is a list of things that gives an overview of what I recommend pastors should do every week.

• Stewardship Evaluation – Every week, you should get the report of the past Sunday’s giving. At least ten to fifteen minutes of every staff meeting should be devoted to discussing where you are and how you might improve offerings for the next week. 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.
  * Once a month, you should spend thirty minutes to an hour reviewing and updating your stewardship plan.
• Stewardship Education – Read a stewardship blog every morning. Add ten to fifteen minutes to your study day browsing websites that give stewardship education. Then, read one stewardship-related book a month. Your seminary or Bible school did not teach stewardship education, so you have to learn it independently.
• Stewardship Cultivation – Every church has a Churn Rate, the number who stopped giving versus the number who started giving. You have to cultivate what you have and work to replace what you lose by…
  * Thanking existing donors. Find ways to express gratitude for existing donors. Each week, write a personalized thank you note to your top donors. Have your financial secretary alphabetize the names if you don’t want to know how people rank. The note should express gratefulness for all they do and promise that you will pray for them. Writing a few cards a week will take less than thirty minutes. On top of specific cards to top donors, you will want to write at least one letter a quarter to the entire congregation, encouraging faithfulness in giving. Another idea is to take your top donors out to lunch or dinner throughout the month.
  * Encouraging first-time donors. A note to first-time givers will go a long way toward seeing them become regular donors!
• Stewardship Planning – Every week, you take up an offering. Typically, this is one of the most boring times of our service. When we fail to make the offering meaningful, we fail to see meaningful results. Spend fifteen to thirty minutes each week planning and preparing for the offering.

As a former pastor, I get that some weeks stuff happens and the above gets blown out of the water. However, by consistently implementing these four areas of stewardship you will see your church avoid many of the financial struggles that most churches face. Don’t be a disconnected pastor when it comes to stewardship!