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By Carol Balinski and Carol Weiser
Gratitude to God is by far the most powerful motivator for people to give to a church.
So said Herb Miller, nationally known author and church consultant on stewardship, in his presentation to a crowd of over 400 people at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Fleetwood, on September 13. Well over one-third of the synod’s congregations were represented at the workshop.
“The most generous parishioners believe they are strengthening their relationship with God and helping the less fortunate,” said Pr. Miller. “The least generous givers are motivated by maintaining the building and the congregation.”
Pr. Miller used humor and a wealth of statistical information to illustrate how financial giving to churches can be increased by as much as 30 percent or more annually.
“The problem is that we fall into the ‘myth trap,’” he said. Some of these myths are —
- People are giving all they can. In the ELCA, members contribute only between 1 and 2 percent of their income.
- Telling people “Our church needs the money!” produces generous giving. People who say they give “out of a sense of responsibility or obligation to the church and denomination” contribute at much lower levels than people who say they give out of love for God.
- Pastors shouldn’t talk about money. Pastors of high-per-capita-giving churches teach and preach the biblical principles of financial stewardship. Pr. Miller acknowledged that many pastors do not feel comfortable asking members to increase their giving because they say it’s not their “thing.” “Make it your thing,” he said, “It (faithful giving) is one of the ingredients of building mature disciples of Jesus Christ.”
- People will increase their giving to support increased budget needs without an annual request to do so. Without an annual stewardship campaign, most people tend to remain at the same giving level each year, even when their income increases. Pr. Miller used as an example a man who wakes from surgery, sees his pastor standing over him, and mumbles, “Put me down for the same amount as last year.”
What works? Some of Miller’s Ten Principles from High-Per-Capita-Giving Congregations are —
- Conducting a stewardship campaign every year
- Concentrating on “the need of the giver to give” rather than on “the need of the church to receive.”
- Building appeals on a biblical foundation rather than on an institutional or budget-building foundation.
- Stressing the biblical principle of percentage-giving of income and tithing.
- Involving numerous laypersons in executing the annual stewardship program.
- Recognizing that laypersons do not like to visit other laypersons and ask them directly for money.
Pr. Miller described ten annual stewardship campaign models, highlighting several that he says increase church giving by 15 to 30 percent annually.
The workshop focused primarily on Miller’s New Consecration Sunday model. Two Berks County pastors, the Rev. David Rowe, Friedens, Oley, and the Rev. Robert Machamer, St. Paul's, Fleetwood, shared their positive experiences using the Consecration Sunday program. Both pastors said their churches had struggled financially but experienced increases in giving after implementing the program. Machamer noted that the congregation's debt had dwindled from $28,000 to $1,700 in less than two years.
To back up his premise that generous giving has biblical roots, Miller offered this statistic: “The word ‘give’ appears 2,172 times in the Bible.”
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