Don’t Emulate These Church Fundraising Strategies This Easter Weekend (Or Any Weekend)

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Pastor Foley

As we get ready to make a big deal out of worship this Easter weekend, let me commend to you Bruce Reyes-Chow’s piece, Why Churches Should Stop Making a Big Deal Out of Easter Worship:

The problem I have is that we too often put on a “show” for visitors rather than invite them to experience the community that is the church. How powerful would it be to have an Easter worship service that is inspiring, energetic, moving and transformative and be able to say, “If you have experienced something profound today, do come back, because this is what is like every Sunday here at …”

You see, by creating these “productions,” especially around Easter, most churches only perpetuate the practice of coming to church only on special days because we have, in fact, said that this day is more worthy than any others.

You could build a discipleship strategy on that thought, you know.

Whether you choose to make a big deal out of worship this Easter weekend or not, here are two church fundraising strategies to definitely avoid on this and every other weekend:

So what’s the alternative to calling your members devils and demons or giving them money for showing up?

To remember this:

Easter is more than just a day to be commemorated with our finest clothes and a trip to the local church for a special service. It is the starting line for discipleship.  In the early church, Easter marked the day new believers were baptized and set apart for a life of structured, methodical discipleship intended to lead to fullness in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Happy Easter, dear reader.

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Is There a Downside to a Spontaneous One Weekend $5.6 Million Church Offering for the Homeless? Er, Yes.

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Pastor Foley

On March 12 and 13 of this year, First Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida had Bruce Wilkinson come in and speak, and he challenged the church to respond to the “new homelessness” afflicting Central Florida due to the economic downturn, rising foreclosure rate, job loss, etc.

And the church, which has a history of responding in big ways to disaster appeals, responded in a big way to Wilkinson’s challenge, giving and pledging a total of $5.6 million.

Wilkinson, in his messages, laid out the dire need of the people of Central Florida and urged the congregation to contribute whatever they could. The results were individual contributions ranging from one dollar to thousands of dollars and one as a high as $1 million.

“We’ve got to help Orlando and let them know there is help,” Uth said. “We have to say to them, ‘God placed us here for you.’ This church started in 1871 and we believe God started this church here for a reason. I believe He knew this day was coming and He positioned us so we could make a difference.”

Where will the money go?

First Baptist Orlando has had a long partnership with numerous Central Florida Christian organizations, just about all of which will receive funds from the weekend offering.

“These ministries are equipped to help with the issue of homelessness,” de Armas said. “Some of those organizations include the Coalition for the Homeless, Orlando Rescue Mission and Christian Service Center. All of them are really trying to help people who are facing the problems the 60 Minutes story highlighted.”

And it’s the first line of that previous paragraph that has me wondering: Is there a downside to a spontaneous one weekend $5.6 million church offering for the homeless?

Er, yes.

Agencies are “equipped to help with the issue of homelessness.” But what about the church members themselves? Are they equipped?

Besides distributing the money to those who can best get it to those in need, de Armas [the church’s senior associate pastor] also wants to see members of the congregation getting involved.

“We’re looking to deploy our people,” he said. “We have an army of them who want to serve and we’re going to give them a way to do it.”

Good, good. But rather than deploying our people, what about calling upon our people to deploy their homes, and training them to do so even before we ask for their financial commitment?

After all, Christ in Matthew 25:31-46–the parable of the sheep and the goats–points not toward our giving to agencies equipped to help those in need but toward our personal involvement, in our own homes:

…I was a stranger and you invited me in…

So raising $5.6 million for the homeless in one weekend?

Good.

But better yet, how about a regular program of training our congregation members how to open their homes to care for the “new homeless” (and maybe a few of the old homeless, too) prior to the financial offering?

From The Whole Life Offering book:

In addressing his parishioners’ claims that the church was able to provide hospitality through special apartments, hospitals, and hospices, Chrysostom argued that it also remained a personal, individual responsibility. Even if the stranger could be fed from common funds, he asked, “can that benefit you? If another man prays, does it follow that you are not bound to pray?”

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A Modest Counterproposal to The New Tithe

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Pastor Foley

You perhaps have seen by now the winner of the 2011 Project Reason video contest, a piece entitled The New Tithe:

Mega-churches have used religion as fund-raising tool for too long. They shower their followers in sanctimonious platitudes, then clamor for their cash. This video encourages a new definition of tithing by giving to causes with accountability.

A few thoughts, and then a modest counterproposal:

  1. I admit it. I like the video. I think much of it is absolutely true. (Up to about the 2:08 mark, anyway.) As Generous Church notes, 97% of the money donated to churches is spent on those who give it. That’s not good, and we Christians should be publicly spanked for that. The New Tithe video is a well-done spanking. (Well, up to 2:08, anyway.)
  2. At the 2:08 mark, the video begins to tumble unceremoniously off a cliff with its assertion, “You don’t need church to give.” Instead, the video suggests, give to “causes with accountability.” As those of us who have worked with “causes” for many years try to stifle our amusement at the idea of nonprofits being regarded as bastions of programmatic and financial accountability, the video proceeds to list of representative causes. One of these is “Yoga”. Yoga?
  3. Questions of religion aside, what the video overlooks is that causes have historically made very poor accountability agents (see “fox guarding henhouse”). This is why giving circles continue to soar in popularity. And churches have the potential to become the best giving circles–and accountability agents–of all. Well, once we stop spending 97% of our money on ourselves.

So we offer a modest counterproposal to The New Tithe–one we practice in the .W church plant we started in January in Colorado Springs and Seoul. We wrote about our own “New Tithe” earlier this year in a post entitled Don’t Wait for the Government to Repeal the Charitable Tax Deduction; Instead, Repeal it Personally:

Rather than taking an offering each Sunday, we as a congregation prepare to make our offering once a month, on the last Sunday of each month. A month’s preparation has a way of keeping the offering from being a tip for services rendered (literally).

But what I’m most excited about with regard to our offering is that each member commits to offering a tithe, of which 30 percent is given to the church (with a third going to the church, a third going to our denomination’s regional conference, and a third going to the denomination) and 70 percent is consecrated at the altar…and then immediately received back again by each member, to be disbursed personally by that member as the church’s minister within his or her own sphere of influence.

70 percent of the tithe, in other words, is not tax deductible because it doesn’t go through the church. It’s consecrated at the altar and then given directly by the church member to those to whom the members learn to personally minister. (Training in giving embedded in service is a key part of what the church program is all about, even for the congregation’s children. Giving and serving should be done by the family jointly, after all.)

Forget giving to causes with accountability. Instead, distribute your philanthropy directly and personally, and meet monthly to be held accountable by others doing the same thing, in order to ensure that your giving really is making a difference.

For Christian and non, that is truly The New Tithe.

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