Margaret Marcuson thinks it’s time for you to face the financial facts in your church.  Do you know the following basic information about how people give in your church? What are the trends in giving and expenses? What is the giving pyramid – how many givers do you have at successive giving levels? What is the pace of income through the year – what percentage comes in during December each year? What percentage of income goes to ministries outside your congregation? She offers seven tips to dealing and working with these facts: Be as open as possible. Even difficult facts, calmly presented...

Mark Brooks writes: If you have not established a culture of generosity at your church you will never raise significant dollars! If you cannot raise significant dollars you will be hampered in terms of the amount of ministry and missions your church accomplishes. If you don’t have a solid base of missions and ministry you are dying as a church. If you are dying as a church you are not fulfilling God’s call to ministry. From 1968 to 2010 the amount of money Americans gave to the church of their incomes fell from 3.11% to 2.4%. That represents BILLIONS of dollars a year lost for Kingdom purposes. One...

Thom Rainer asked post pastors and congregants “If your church budget receipts were to increase tomorrow by 50 percent, what would you like to do with the extra funds?”. Here are the answers he got from his informal survey: Pastors & Other Paid Ministers Laypersons Missions beyond our community Ministry in and to our community Start new churches or campuses Upgrade existing buildings Pay down debt New building Upgrade sound and lighting Increase pay of existing staff Add staff Increase social media presence Add staff Missions beyond our community New building Upgrade existing...

Do you use checks? Do you even know where your checkbook is? (I don’t) Studies suggest that check writing is in rapid decline as people have begun to use them only for large purchases. Mark Brooks shares these stats: Paper check usage declined from 61% of all payments in 2000 to just 26% by 2010. In 2011, the number of checks processed by the Federal Reserve fell at its steepest rate yet, down 17, a third of the volume processed 20 years ago. The average check size has approximately doubled, rising from an average of $879 in 2001 to $1,460 in 2011, as many smaller-value payments are transacted...

I came across this interesting site. If you put in your annual salary, it will show you how you rate compared to everyone else in the world. It’s pretty interesting… and makes you do a little soul searching. Turns out that if you make around $50,000 a year (or a little less) you are still in the worlds top 1% of earners. That’s pretty amazing… and something we don’t consider much here in the States. The site was created by a London interactive media company to ‘challenge people’s perception of their personal wealth”.  They are also hoping to encourage...

According to a new StateofthePlate.info research study, tithers are actually better off than non-tithers. Take a look at this graphic. What are your thoughts? Find out more here… Todd

In one of the coolest stories I have read in quite some time, Community Bible Church of San Antonio Pastor Robert Emmitt felt the Holy Spirit calling him to take a huge step of faith. After hearing about a fire that destroyed Childress Memorial Church of God in Christ he felt led to give the church $100,000 towards rebuilding efforts. We hear a good bit of negative press about churches and money, churches fighting against one another, or church scandals… it is stories like this that reminds me why I love the church, and how cool it can be to see the church step up and be The Church. Have you ever...

The Northeast got hit with a HUGE snowstorm over the weekend.  Some places got over three feet of snow. For churches that are not able to meet on the weekend, that means a week without an offering. And if your church is close on it’s budget… this can be a HUGE deal. Is there something you can do about it? Mark Brooks shares some thoughts: Is there anything you can do?  Yes!  The following are some key ideas you can do right now to make up the loss of a cancelled service.  I recommend the following… Write a snail mail letter to all your donors asking them to this week send in their...

According to CNN, Christians only give (on average) about $35 bucks to their church each year. I have NO idea if that is true (maybe it is if you average out offerings among all church attenders).  But let’s go with that. According to that source, churches receive about $4 billion dollars in donations a year. The article goes on to say that if people tithed, churches would have received more like $25 billion. I’m wondering. What is the percentage of people who tithe in your church? What is the average gift in your church per year per household? Do you keep track of these figures? And what...

Pastor Estate Planning:  68% of pastors aged 18-44 don’t even have a will. How are you doing on your pastor estate planning?  A recent study by LifeWay Research shows that while the majority of pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) have a will, nearly 40 percent possess no type of estate planning document at all. And many younger pastors don’t even have a will. A recent survey conducted by LifeWay Research on behalf of the Southern Baptist Foundation found 37 percent of SBC pastors do not have a trust, will, living will, electronic will, legacy story or durable power of...