Church giving can be an uncomfortable topic, but funding is essential to your church's function. There are many hurdles to overcome, but with the right approach, you can help your congregation grow and become better givers.
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It is difficult to watch the events happening in Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine and consider the level of brutality that people can impose on one another. That kind of behavior seems inhuman. How can some people cause such harm to others? The apostle Paul reveals the answer in his letter to the Ephesians.
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While every giver is different, they are alike in this way: Each one starts with a first gift and concludes with their last. This can be when they stop supporting your church (lapsed) or bequeath a final gift posthumously (legacy).
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It’s no easy task trying to get people to understand the beauty of giving and generosity. Giving is an expression of worship, an invitation to partner with God in everything. It requires you to “place your bet” on the work of God over the physical comfort of predictability. Many of us have felt the discomfort of calculating the amount of money God has deemed his tithe and tried to do the math on how that would impact our wallet.
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Having financial goals is important; without goals, it's hard to know if we're on track when it comes to Biblical stewardship. But goals themselves aren't enough - we also need to instill the habits necessary to reach them. It's great to have a goal to pay off our credit cards, but if we don't put in place the disciplines needed to get there, the goal itself doesn't help us.
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Many things about our natural lives conflict with our spiritual lives. Living by the spirit in a natural and often enticing world isn't easy. Even the apostle Paul confessed, "I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate." (Romans 7:15 NLT) One of the challenges we have to contend with is wealth and how we, as Christians, should relate to it.
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If your year was anything like mine, then maybe you can’t believe it’s already almost over. When I’m not working for CSN, I’m balancing life with a preschooler and toddler - and though I thoroughly enjoy this season of life, it’s busy.
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If you’ve been a Christian for a minute, you’ve been exposed to messages on giving to the church or requests to give to a capital campaign. There’s nothing wrong with messages on giving or fundraising for worthwhile ministry projects. The danger comes when giving is portrayed and communicated as a duty we Christians have to perform instead of a loving response to a God who’s been extravagantly generous to us.
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Growing up, I recall the Christmas season being about giving. Everyone focused on buying something for their loved ones. Somewhere along the way, the notion that we should also treat ourselves to something special got thrown into the mix.
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It's hard to imagine taking something like Biblical stewardship and overdoing it. How can someone be overcommitted to good stewardship or to doing too much to advance it? It's not only possible; likely, we've all done it at some point in one form or another.
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When it comes to giving, a minority of churchgoers are still financially supporting a majority of church ministry. Usually less than 20 percent of churchgoers contribute regularly to their church. This is discouraging, first, because of the lack of resources for the church. Second, because of what it reveals; a lack of trust in God concerning money.
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Over the past 20 years, I have seen the language and terminology in the Church around the topic of money change. Truthfully, I've even participated in this by trying to appeal to the people in our Church. As a person who is passionate about seeing people financially free, I've gone to great lengths to improve my communication about money to ensure people understand the information as well as my motivation behind it.
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Building a generous church is hard. It may even feel impossible at times. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In just a few short weeks, the CSN Team is heading to Augusta, Georgia to attend Give Conference!
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One of the most amazing Scriptures is Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." It's amazing because it speaks to how specific and purpose-oriented God was in forming Jeremiah and giving him life. The same is true for every person God creates.
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There is much division in our world today. No matter where you get your daily news intake, there’s no mistaking the reality that we are more divided and becoming more polarized every day. I know there’s an enemy at work here, working feverishly to steal, kill, and destroy, but didn’t Jesus defeat this enemy? Did He not “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” through the Cross? If He’s defeated this enemy, why are we still losing?
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It’s a common feeling for many believers to feel “called” to advance the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s as if God is constantly looking for donors to fund his mission; he’s got a goal set and those buckets keep sloshing around dimes and nickels. Pair that with the trend in many churches to do capital campaigns where Pastors reveal a “number” God gave them, and if we’re not careful, it can feel like we’re doing God a favor by giving generously.
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Doing what’s right is a struggle for us in most areas of life. Because following God’s commandments goes against our fallen, sinful nature, our attempts to do it right can often take the form of tasks we perform. We do so to prove to God, or perhaps more to ourselves, that we are Christ-like, that we’re doing what’s right.
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Jesus met a lot of people throughout his earthly ministry. He dined with the sinful. He met and healed many crippled, disabled, and diseased desperate for his touch. He came to the defense of a woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:2-11) and shared a deep conversation with the outcast Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). He even met with the man notorious for his demonic possession among the tombs of the Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20). In all of his encounters, he never indicates their qualification to be welcomed into God’s kingdom.
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There is not one book, one teaching, one study that will fully disciple people in finances. Financial discipleship is a journey of a lifetime going ever deeper into learning and applying God's principles of managing money and wealth. That's why it takes different types of teaching and curriculum to move people along the journey.
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