1 - Aim for transformed lives, not institutional survival
Too many churches are interested in teaching generosity truths only when there is a budget crisis or building project in the church. With more than 2,300 verses in the Bible on finances, generosity and material possessions, God obviously intended his people to learn his ways in these matters so they can glorify God with their resources and live in financial peace.
2 - Christians are in trouble
With record bankruptcies, corporate downsizing, out-of-control credit card spending, rampant materialism, and giving patterns at 30-year lows, people in your congregation are desperately in need of the insights available in the Bible. You can proclaim God's Word with clarity, conviction and confidence to people who truly need to hear what God has to say.
3 - Provide spiritual vision
I learned of one church that had a member who was considering giving his church a $100,000 gift. He went to the pastor and asked him, "If you had available some unexpected financial resources, what would you do with them?" The pastor thought for a moment and said he would like to re-wallpaper the ladies restroom. The man gave him the funds for the project. Then he gave more than $99,000 away to another ministry that had a vision big enough to put his gift to work for kingdom purposes.
4 - Get God's written blueprint for your ministry
In Scripture, resources always followed a God-given plan. In Exodus 30-35, God gave Moses detailed instructions and the provisions came forth. In Nehemiah's day, when the king asked him "what he needed," Nehemiah gave him a detailed answer. When David challenged people to give in I Chron. 29, he had a detailed plan he was asking them to resource. Do you have a detailed godly vision that can be clearly communicated in writing? Are your plans tangible and measurable?
5 - Connect people's giving to the ministry of the church
Often we ask people to "fund the budget." But the reality is we are asking people to give to help teach children, to provide full-time spiritual leadership for our children and teens, to help fund mission work worldwide, etc. Learn to connect the church budget line items with actual ministry that is touching people's lives. For example, if you are raising money for Christian education facilities, talk about a family that was turned away because of a lack of such space.
6 - Tell stories of how God is creatively stretching your financial resources
In our church's recent expansion project, we had a $10,000 phone system donated to us. A retired electrician donated more than 300 hours of work over a 10-week period. A gravel company donated rock for our parking lot expansion. We were able to purchase a $35,000 office cubicle system at an auction for $4,000. A marble company donated marble for all of our bathrooms. A plumbing company installed all of our plumbing fixtures for free. When you can report how God is stretching the financial gifts people are giving, they are encouraged and have a growing confidence that their resources are being wisely used.
7 - Use personal testimonies about how God has taught people to give
Once I was asked to come and give a stewardship message at a church in Iowa. I agreed to come under one condition: I told the pastor to determine four individuals or couples whose records showed they were giving 10 percent or more of their income to the Lord's work. (Notice I did NOT say the largest givers. Someone might give thousands of dollars each year, but it might only be 1 or 2 percent of their income).
Each week for four weeks one of the couples or individuals was to give a two-to-three-minute testimony of how God taught them to be faithful givers. When I came to preach, people's hearts and pocketbooks had been touched and softened through these testimonies.
During the next year, that little church's budget grew from $125,000 to over $200,000! The message to the congregation was not the needs of the congregation, but the grace of God in allowing people to become faithful givers to the Lord's work.
In my own church, from time to time, we have people in the congregation tell their giving stories. One Sunday, we had a single mom give her story. She had been recently divorced, had three young children, was making $20,000 a year, and had $24,000 in accumulated debts when she began to have a desire to give at least 10 percent of her income to the Lord's work.
She told how God helped her with this decision, how he slowly began to increase her income, how she began to live on a budget, and that within three years, she had paid off all of her debts. She also explained how after learning to give 10 percent, she increased her giving to help missionaries and support the church's expansion projects.
Many people were deeply moved and deeply motivated to become faithful givers after hearing her story of God's help and grace.
8 - Encourage God's people to personally read and study God's Word
The less someone reads the Bible, the less likely they are to be faithful givers at church. According to Barna Research, 52 percent of the people who read the Bible on the own are givers to their church. To help people learn God's perspective on finances, provide financial teaching in Sunday school classes, seminars or Bible studies. If you want to reap a spiritual harvest of generosity in the future, you need to be regularly planting the seeds of God's financial truth today.
9 - Recognize faithful Christian giving increases with age
Your most generous gifts will often come from older and more mature saints. But your church needs to be actively teaching younger saints God's word in the area of finances and generosity through a multifaceted financial ministry. Barna reported how the church budget was supported by various age groups: 31 percent of Baby Busters, 43 percent of Baby Boomers, 54 percent of Builders, and 61 percent of Seniors.
10 - Don't reinvent the wheel, use available resources for your church
Years ago there were very few models and methods for emphasizing financial faithfulness and biblical generosity in churches. Today there are a growing number of outstanding ministries and organizations ready to help you and your church: Crown Financial Ministries, Willow Creek Association's Good Sense Ministry, Generous Giving, Brian Kluth's Maximum Generosity, The National Christian Foundation, PhilanthroCorp, Christian Stewardship Association and denominational resources.
Brian Kluth is a national and international speaker and writer on biblical generosity and financial matters. He is also a church pastor and the founder of MAXIMUM Generosity, a public ministry dedicated to advancing biblical generosity through inspirational preaching, leadership training seminars, writing, resources and the media. Brian's written materials have been distributed to more than 350,000 Christian leaders in more than 100 countries. For additional materials or to contact Brian, email: bk@kluth.org or visit: www.kluth.org.
