Not Your Parents' Offering Plate: A New Vision for Financial Stewardship

Cover

Halftitle

Not Your

Parents’

Offering

Plate

Other Abingdon Press Titles by J. Clif Christopher

Other Abingdon Press Titles by J. Clif Christopher

Whose Offering Plate Is It? New Strategies for Financial Stewardship

Rich Church, Poor Church: Keys to Effective Financial Ministry

The Church Money Manual: Best Practices for Finance and Stewardship

Title

J. Clif Christopher

Foreword by Mike Slaughter

Not Your

Parents’

Offering Plate

A New Vision for Financial Stewardship

REVISED

WITH

ADDED

CONTENT

Nashville

Copyright

not your parents’ offering plate:

a new vision FOR financial stewardship

Second edition

Copyright © 2008, 2015 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

First edition 2008. Second edition 2015.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, Abingdon Press, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., PO Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988 or [email protected].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested.

ISBN 978-1-5018-0493-9

All scripture quotations are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

Contents

Foreword (by Mike Slaughter)

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction

1. Survival of the Fittest

2. Reasons People Give

3. Why Are You Here Anyway?

4. All Members Are Not Equal

5. The Pastor Must Be a Fund-Raiser

6. The Three Pockets of Giving

7. Church Folks Want to Win

8. The Top Eleven Things I Would Do Now

Suggestions for Further Reading

Foreword

Foreword

Lots of pastors have a copy of the first edition of this book on their shelves. I do. Clif Christopher is one of the top authorities on church finance and stewardship in America, and he has been since that original edition came out in 2008. Clif brought to that first book his personal experience as a local church pastor, combined with a brilliant financial mind, deep love for Christ and the church, and an easy, cut-to-the-chase writing style, and it established him as the expert in his field. We needed his help then and we need it now; most church leaders of all types, including pastors, are lousy when it comes to financial stewardship issues. Clif is true to form in this revised edition. He shares an incredible wealth of knowledge and research. He addresses issues that will inevitably face every pastor and most other church leaders. He gives profoundly wise counsel, delivering it concisely and simply, without fluff. And Clif does not mince words. The pages here, as in the 2008 edition, are like a conversation with a wise mentor-brother who speaks from a place of compassion but whose words you know will challenge and convict you. So if that first edition is on your shelf already, why read this one?

A lot has changed since 2008. Nearly 20 percent of the material here is new or updated. The statistics, for instance, show a further decline in giving to religion in America, while giving to higher education causes has increased. That’s important to know, because if you actually do what Clif advises, you’ll be sharing this information with key donors in your community, and it would be better have your facts straight. This edition also includes new chapters, like the one where Clif pushes us to answer the question, Why are we here, anyway? In this chapter Clif addresses a reality that is woefully overlooked by the church. We are not just competing for those charitable donation dollars; we are competing for a place in people’s understanding of their lives, the culture, and society as a whole. Clif grabs us by the shoulders and asks us to account for ourselves, to articulate our mission, to justify our very existence. Clif reminds us we can no longer just assume everyone out there understands us and thinks well of us. It’s an important new section, and every pastor should read it.

But there’s more. In this version, Clif lays out new strategies that church leaders can use to make sustainable improvements in their annual stewardship campaigns and in long-term giving overall. He points out two critical mistakes that pastors commonly make in the way they disciple the lay leaders on their stewardship teams and committees. He clearly outlines new nuts-and-bolts information that every pastor needs—budgets, best practices, habits to make and break—the practical and essential information we never learned in seminary. He’s added new resources and ideas for further study, including tools you can use online.

Clif has worked with about one thousand churches since he wrote that first book. So in addition to the updated statistics and other straightforward information, this edition delivers an even wiser, more thoughtful, and more challenging read. In fact, I want to emphasize one point Clif makes in his new introduction. He notes that in order for us to change, we have to do something differently. Reading a book is good. But the act of reading will not make a change. Only you can do that. So whether you’re reading this for the first time or the fifteenth time, I join Clif in imploring you to do something with it. Use the study questions at the end of each chapter, and work through the material with your leadership teams. Choose one new action to take each month. Focus on one area to improve each quarter. If we are truly convinced that Christ’s mission in the world is the most important thing, then, as Clif says, we can no longer afford to stick our heads in the sand. Don’t just read this book and stick it on the shelf. Do something with it.

Mike Slaughter

January 2015

Preface to the Second Edition

preface to the Second Edition

The opportunity to update Not Your Parent’s Offering Plate has in many respects been an eye-opener for me. It forced me to read over the book in total for the first time in a few years as I considered what should go into an updated version. I saw a number of things that have changed, but not necessarily for the better, and also a number of things that have not—like the incredible fear of changing a culture in the church—even though that culture has not produced the results of disciples for Jesus Christ or generous persons. In other words, I saw that an update of the book was certainly needed but wondered if it would have any larger impact than the first one, which, though it was a best seller, has not ushered in a revolution in Christian financial stewardship that is so desperately needed.

This edition is updated seven years since the publication of the previous edition with new giving data from churches and nonprofits as well as with information I have received from hundreds of churches that have attempted to change and many that actually did. This edition is written after having spoken to tens of thousands of pastors and laypersons from mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Unitarian-Universalist, Centers for Spiritual Living, nondenominational, Baptist, and other churches and having heard their concerns, stories, and frustrations. It is written in hopes that this new edition will unlock some of the barriers to financial fruitfulness in our churches.

WHAT HAS CHANGED? Philanthropy has changed in America. Finally in 2013, Americans reached the same level of giving that they were at back in 2007. According to Giving USA 2014, Americans gave away 335 billion dollars in 2013. Though giving rose slightly every year from 2009–2013, it did not return to its prerecession levels until 2013. However, the news for giving to religion was not nearly as positive. In 2008, gifts to religion as a percentage of the whole was 35 percent. In 2013, it had fallen to 31 percent. This is the lowest ever recorded for giving to religion. In the last two years, as giving has increased throughout the philanthropic world, we have seen that every single cate-gory has increased except religion. Secular charities (education, health, arts, environment, United Way, and so on) have all shown increases. Only religion has failed to advance. (All information from Giving USA Foundation, Giving USA 2014: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2013 [Chicago: Giving USA Foundation, 2014].)

Now remember that we are talking about a charity market share that at one time was at 60 percent. Today it is at 31 percent. Religion receives one-half of the charitable dollars in ratio to what it got thirty years ago. The only comparison that I have been able to think of similar to this from any group still alive is with General Motors. The mega automobile company used to sell more than half of all cars in America. That market share plummeted to below 20 percent, and they declared bankruptcy before starting a comeback. They did it by totally remaking the way they produce, sell, and maintain their product. They changed the culture of the company! Are we willing to look at radically changing the culture of how we do stewardship, or will we just go bankrupt and hope Congress will bail us out? Americans are saying loud and clear that the church is not being chosen for their charitable dollar. Years ago they did the same thing with the Royal typewriter. Is that our future, or do we want to discover the computer?

WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED? This story may help you see what has unfortunately not changed:

I was working with a church I have worked with for a number of years and knew very well. The finance team of this church had actually read Not Your Parents’ Offering Plate four to five years previously. They said they learned a lot from it and wanted to have my company help them with a 10 million dollar capital campaign.

One of the persons on the campaign committee was a man who had previously served on a committee with me. I knew him to be a very generous man who, though he had made a lot of money in business, had a clear stewardship understanding of needing to do with his money as God would have him do. When I would visit this church, I always saw this man and his wife in the same pew. They were very active and had been for nearly forty years.

Early on in the campaign this man and his wife made a six-figure pledge to the church capital campaign. Everyone was thrilled and delighted. Their gift was used to encourage others to do likewise. I was not surprised but secretly had hoped for an even larger gift.

Then about three weeks after I had been told of their gift, I opened up the newspaper to see their smiling faces as they shook hands with the president of their alma mater. They were being thanked for making a gift to the university’s art department, not of several thousand dollars, but of several million dollars! The exact amounts given will remain private.

I immediately