St James Church had a problem. Offertories were down for reasons nobody seemed to understand. This had been apparent for five or six months. Church elders had discussed the situation at monthly meetings. In fact the longer the issue had persisted the more time had been taken up at the meetings talking about it. Nobody was falling all over themselves to tackle the problem, but everyone was concerned.

It was a lot like the situation in the old story ‘Bell the Cat’. The mice had come up with a plan to put a bell around the cat’s neck to stop their being surprised by the lethal feline. In the end nothing happened, because no mouse was game to do anything. At St James the minister opted out as he was there to preach and pastor. The elders opted out because they didn’t know what to say. The treasurer opted out because she was there to ensure the money was appropriately accounted for.

But as the shortage began to take crisis proportions, people started to look to Betty the treasurer to say something because, after all, she was the money person. So very hesitantly but courageously, Betty addressed the services one Sunday. Using a graphic of a thermometer she explained that the church was 12% behind budget. The elders had restricted costs as much as they could. Unless everyone increased giving then more drastic cut backs would need to be made.

However Betty brightened and explained that all was not lost. If everyone gave an extra $4.00 a week, just the price of one cup of coffee then the crisis would be averted. Would each congregation member prayerfully consider increasing their giving by that amount?

Well full marks to Betty! At least she did something. However there are a number of glaring problems.

1. It is the senior minister’s job to address the issue not the elders or the treasurer.
2. People don’t give to budgetary black holes. They give to transformational vision. See my article The Importance of Vision.
3. The cup of coffee figure of $4 per member per week may be financially and mathematically accurate, but is actually encouraging the appeal to fail.

I will comment on the Cup of Coffee point here. The reason for probable failure is simple. People don’t all have the same amount of income. Also, people don’t give the same amount anyway. In their book Passing the Plate:  Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money, authors Smith Emerson and Snell state around 20% of American churchgoers put zero money in the plate. Only about 9.4% tithe or exceed the tithe. Everyone else is in between.

So making an appeal for everyone to give an extra $4 per week will make little or no impact on the person who has shown zero inclination to give up to now. At the other end of the scale it gives an expectation to the wealthier members of the congregation that all they need to do is to contribute an extra $4.00 a week, when in fact they could easily contribute much more. They have been let off the hook.

If Betty had wanted to pursue her Cup of Coffee analogy, (and it is not my recommended strategy), it would have been better for her to conclude her presentation with something like the following.

‘If you are mathematically inclined you may have looked at these numbers and thought to yourself, if everyone gave $4.00 a week, just the price of a cup of coffee we would be fine. However I am not asking that because I know that we don’t all have access to the same amount of money. For some of you an extra dollar may be all you can spare. But for others here God has blessed you richly, and you can afford to put in an extra $50.00 a week or even more. Most of you are somewhere in between these figures. So could I ask you to have a family conference, seek God’s will and generously increase your giving.’

Every church has offertory shortfalls. To address the whole issue of raising resources for local church ministry I wrote the book Giving Generously which you can purchase here.

Some years ago I read a wonderful little book called Jesus and Money by Ben Witherington III. He commended John Wesley’s famous sermon The Use of Money and reproduced it in his book.

I pricked my ears up because I was sent by my non-church going mother to the local Methodist Sunday School. One of the heroes of the faith I learnt about, was the famous C18th evangelist John Wesley. As an adult I subsequently read of the wonderful ministry of Wesley and his brother Charles and their equally famous fellow worker George Whitfield in the evangelical movement of the C 18^th. . I grew up singing the hymns of their revival.

So when I visited the UK a couple of years ago, my itinerary took me from York to Cambridge I determined to detour off the motorway and visit the shrine of Methodism, the Epworth rectory where their father Samuel had been rector and where they had been raised by their saintly mother Susanna. It was here that 6 year old John had a marvellous escape from the fire that ravaged the house. 

The volunteer guide was nowhere to be seen but the local Methodist minister appeared from a meeting and took us over the house which was full of fascinating Methodist history. However, by far the stand-out for me was a full size likeness of the great evangelist that formerly was on display in Madame Tussauds wax museum in London. What staggered me was how small John Wesley was in real life (see photo). I remember someone had called him a ‘dapper little don’, but until I stood next to him I hadn’t quite realized just what that meant.

The thought that went through my mind was, that relative to Wesley I was a physical giant but a spiritual pigmy, whereas he may have been physically challenged but was certainly a spiritual giant.

Later I visited the Epworth Anglican parish church where Wesley had been briefly a curate for his father.  Later during the evangelical revival Wesley returned to Epworth where he was refused permission to preach within the church by the new Rector. Thus he stood on his father’s tomb and preached powerfully to the crowd outside the church. He is reported as saying that he did more good for the kingdom on that occasion in 20 minutes than he had done in two years as his father’s assistant. 

The tomb is still outside the church and surprizingly with no identifying sign apart from the inscription. I felt I was gazing on hallowed ground (see photo) and thought it would be inappropriate to stand on the tomb myself.

Wesley was a wonderful evangelist but was also concerned to help his converts develop in Christian maturity. As I note in my book Giving Generously, there is little that assists Christian maturity more than a proper understanding  of money.

In his famous sermon The Use of Money, John Wesley bases his message on Luke 16:9.

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

He asked the question, given that money is not evil in itself, what is the appropriate and wise way to use it. His message is in three parts.

1 Earn all you can: but in a way that is honorable.

2 Save all you can. Don’t waste it.

3 Give all you can: remembering that you are a steward of God’s blessing.

It is a wonderful message and while it was preached well over two hundred years ago in another place and another age, the biblical truths it enshrines speak just as clearly today. And with the magic of the internet you can find it with one click on the link below. I heartily commend it.

https://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-50-The-Use-of-Money

Consider this verse.

A generous person will prosper;  whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Prov 11:25

Now maybe you are thinking, that’s crazy. How can giving stuff away be a good thing? How could that be a bright idea? Won’t that diminish me? If you are thinking that you are in very good company. However it a biblical truth and it is a universal truth. It is also found in the writings of sages, philosophers, wise men and women and religions throughout the ages.

There is a recent secular book called ‘The Paradox of Generosity: Giving we receive, Grasping we lose’, by Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson. Smith leads the Science of Generosity Initiative at the University of Notre Dame in the U.S and Davidson has close involvement in the work. The study draws attention to the paradoxical, counter-intuitive nature of generosity. Here is the essence of it:

‘Generosity is paradoxical. Those who give, receive back in turn. By spending ourselves for others’ well-being, we enhance our own. In letting go of some of what we own, we better secure our own lives. By giving ourselves away, we ourselves move toward greater flourishing. This is not only a philosophical or religious teaching, it is a sociological fact.’

This is a book worth buying. It is based on two thousand surveys followed up with sixty focussed interviews with real people, Americans, some generous and some and some self admittedly far less so.

They examined generosity over five dimensions.

• Giving money away.
• Volunteering
• Being generous in personal relationships
• Being a good neighbour and friend
• Personally valuing generosity

A life of generosity is a life where you are a giver not a taker, you are open-hearted with an open wallet. The result: generous people were happier, healthier, had more purpose in life, more friends, less depression, more opportunities and experienced more personal growth. And what’s more, the relationship of generosity with blessings was causal. Generosity was not just associated with blessing; it actually caused it. This point, being controversial, was examined in some detail.

The authors stress that the positive effects of generosity flow to those who value generosity and make it a habit of life. Making a one-off gift in some emergency, performing some incidental community service like giving blood on occasion just doesn’t cut it. The blessing of generosity accumulates to those who have internalized generosity so it is part of their DNA. Consequently it cannot be faked and does not accrue to those who give in order to get or to acquire some perceived advantage. Generosity is more like love: the more you give it away the more abundant it becomes.

They also examined the effect in the negative: the effect of lack of generosity on those who kept things for themselves.

The ultimate opposite is the miser. I certainly don’t want to be thought a miser. The miser hoards, grasps, doesn’t give, doesn’t share. Misers are not just careful with money but tight, skinflint, cheapskate. The miser is not happy.  Our word ‘miserable’ and the word ‘miser’ have the same basic meaning. They both come from the Latin root that means ‘wretched’.

The Paradox of Generosity study found that generous people were happier, healthier, had more friends, enjoyed more benefits, were more prosperous, thrived in life. The ungenerous ones were poorer in spirit and often financially, had less purpose, lived for themselves, were sicker and lonelier.

Jesus  said’ It is more blessed to give than to receive’ and it is obvious he knew what he was talking about.

To investigate this topic further see my book Giving Generously: Resourcing local church ministry.   https://givinggenerously.com/

So here is my point from the scripture, tradition and reinforced by modern sociology

Be generous. It’s good for you. It will give you great joy. It will bless others and the bible adds that it will give God glory (2 Cor 9:11).

In my book Giving Generously: Resourcing Local Church Ministry I stress the importance of asking for resources. This is in contrast to fretting, wishing, hoping, complaining or dithering. I know history records certain great believers who simply waited on God for their ministry needs.  I, for one, do not wish in any way to decry their efforts. However, when I look at the bible I see a number of examples where some the greatest leaders of the scripture, when faced with the necessity of funding a godly cause, asked God’s people clearly and confidently but not coercively to give.

Consider Moses who was charged by the Lord with building the tabernacle during the wilderness wanderings.

From what you have, take an offering for the Lord. Everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering of gold, silver and bronze; (Ex 35:5)

There are more ways to give mentioned in subsequent verses. While this is a command of the Lord, Moses was not coercive. Note the words, everyone who is willing.

People were also asked to give their time and talents.

All who are skilled among you are to come and make everything the Lord has commanded:   (Ex 35:10.)

The people responded with such enthusiasm that Moses had to tell people to stop giving (Ex 36:6). The appeal was oversubscribed!! Now that is a happy thought and a prayer point for church leaders with a project.

When King David needed to raise money for the building of the temple he first led the appeal by personal example and asked people to follow his lead with these words:

Now who is willing to consecrate himself today to the Lord. (1 Chr 29:5)

Again there was a great response, great rejoicing and they all partied hard (in a godly way).

When the apostle Paul wanted to raise money for the collection to relieve the distress of the believers in Jerusalem he held up the example of the generosity of the poverty stricken Macedonians and said,

‘See that that also excel in this grace of giving’. (2 Cor 8:7)

And then after speaking of the lavish grace of the birth, life, ministry and death of the Lord Jesus that has brought such blessing, Paul urged believers to finish the work they had started. However the apostle wrote, ‘I am not commanding you’. He wanted them to give freely and voluntarily because they loved the Lord and loved the Lord’s people.

In each case above the appeal was clear, it was confident but it was not coercive.

There is something else in common in each case. The leader, whether Moses, David or Paul made the request. In churches today, this is a leadership function that should not be farmed off to the church treasurer. Treasurers are important and do a wonderful, often unheralded ministry. See you need a good treasurer https://givinggenerously.com/need-good-treasurer/ . Also, there may be a very good reason for the treasurer to explain the financial facts, but pastors should not pass the buck in this task, which is one only they should do.

In 1995 my wife Helen Irvine and I went on a trip to the US where we visited a number of churches and I went to two conferences. One of the speakers I heard was Rick Warren, the Baptist pastor of Saddleback church south of Los Angeles. He spoke of a large Capital Works campaign to finance the construction of their building. It had been called ‘Time to Build’. The campaign had raised an amazing $US22 million in money given on the day and pledged over three years.

I found later that Rick had conducted a number of such campaigns, the first being ‘Possess the Land’. Saddleback church had commenced in Rick’s lounge room and as the church grew had met in a variety of properties that the church didn’t own. As the titles suggest the ‘Possess the Land’ campaign was to finance buying of their first property, and then ‘Time to Build’ was to finance the erection of a suite of buildings. Later Rick ran a further campaign called ‘Build for Life’. In fact conducting campaigns for a variety of purposes has become a hallmark of Saddleback’s ministry. The campaigns 40 Days of Purpose and 40 Days of Community have been used fruitfully all over the world.

As I discussed in my book, Giving Generously , when I came to financing Figtree Anglican Church’s building development I thought that I would need professional assistance to help raise such a large amount of money, many times the church’s annual operating budget. However, such a professional needed to be chosen very carefully. I believed they needed to have a good track record with engaging with churches as opposed to schools or other not-for-profit organizations. They would need to fit the culture and theological ethos of Figtree Anglican. A cultural mismatch in theology or methodology would be counterproductive at best and disastrous at worst. And of course they needed to be available and willing to come. My problem was that I couldn’t find any who met all three requirements.

However all was not lost. I found that Saddleback had produced a relatively inexpensive Time to Build kit showing in great detail precisely what we needed to do. With the invaluable assistance of my extraordinarily capable administrator Karen Dixon and a legion of wonderful volunteers we bought the kit, put it into practice and conducted a very fruitful campaign. Three years later we needed to repeat the process and by then the kit was called Build for Life. It contained very similar material.

Until quite recently the Build for Life kit was available to be purchased from Saddleback but it appears to have been withdrawn from sale. However, very similar material can still be accessed. As I noted above, conducting campaigns and helping other churches conduct campaigns is a feature of Saddleback’s ministry. An overview of what needs to be done can be found on the Campaign Central section of the Saddleback website. See https://store.pastors.com/pages/campaign-central

For more detail go to the free 33 page Campaign Success Guide

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0545/9317/files/Daring_Faith_Success_Guide.pdf?3657149131282000050

This is for a series called Daring Faith but the material in the Guide relates to campaigns in general.

Each of these campaigns has, at the core, a related sermon series of approximately six weeks. I found such series invaluable because at the start I had no idea how to preach in such a campaign. What I needed was simply to listen to other preachers to see just what they would say, and find a way I say something similar in my own voice and in my own context.

The original Build for Life sermon series is still available for purchase at: https://store.pastors.com/collections/building-for-life

They are certainly worth hearing.

Finally of course, read my book Giving Generously, especially chapter 14, where I explain in some detail how we applied these concepts at Figtree Anglican Church.

Great Redeemer Church was centrally situated in a regional town that was experiencing considerable population growth. Numbers at church services were steadily increasing and the auditorium was ancient and obviously too small. The projected cost of a new worship centre was in the vicinity of $ 2 Million. The operating budget was $750,000. How could they fund the new centre? Again after wrestling with the problem in prayer and dialogue, the board thought the solution was evident. For as long as anyone could remember the church had owned a large block of land adjacent to the church, currently used as overflow parking at Christmas and other large services. This property was becoming increasingly valuable. Why not sell a large portion of this land and resourcing the new auditorium would be straightforward?

The above examples are typical of decisions regularly being made by churches desiring to upgrade facilities or construct new buildings. Those decisions are often very ill-advised. I say often because there is no hard and fast rule and sometimes selling property is the only way to get a project up and going. I have known some outstanding ministers who have sold property for this purpose. But very often it is not the only way to proceed, and parishes sell valuable property in prime positions that they will never get back, in the process compromising future development.

In my book ‘Giving Generously: Resourcing Local Church Ministry’, I discuss conducting a capital campaign: one that involves sums in excess of the church’s annual budget. In my time at Figtree Anglican Church we conducted three such campaigns and they all were very fruitful. Under my successor Ian Barnett, Figtree church has now repaid a multimillion dollar loan that helped fund a wonderful auditorium. The Figtree project was so large it needed even more than capital campaigns could realistically raise.

Conducting a capital campaign is very daunting because of the large sums involved and because often ministers don’t know where to start. I completely understand this because I led the three campaigns mentioned and initially had no idea what to do. So if you read this and are feeling nervous, I totally empathise. However, there are many, many positives in attempting to raise the money.

 A successful church capital campaign is based around vision, mission, generosity and then asking for support sensitively and confidently. It is simply a marvellous opportunity to crystallise what your church stands for and where you are going, and to build faith and hope and generosity into the congregation. These are opportunities too good to be missed.

Recently Helen Irvine and I were asked to give money at church and now that process is over I reflected on why we gave and why we were happy to give.

Fourth, the message itself was based on a famous passage of the bible, 

It takes courage to raise money.

One of the major reasons that ministers don’t attempt to raise money for kingdom ministry is, to be frank, we are afraid to do it. Let me explain.

A couple of years ago while on holiday in the UK, I paid an unexpected visit to Carlyle Cathedral, unexpected because my wife and I had to detour through Carlyle to find an urgently needed dentist. In the crypt was an impressive display detailing the history of the Christian faith in the region over a period of around 1500 years.

I read there the story of a World War 1 Anglican chaplain, the Rev Theodore Bayley Hardy who amazingly won the Distinguished Service Order, the Military Cross, and the Victoria Cross for extreme gallantry on numerous different occasions, caring for and rescuing men under heavy fire. He was finally in action yet again and wounded and later died less than a month before the armistice in 1918. I was incredibly moved by his raw courage and emerged from the exhibit and said to my wife, ‘Now that’s my sort of Anglican clergyman’.

Rev Theodore Hardy DSO, MC, VC

I am just so used to seeing television Anglican vicars, the sort invariably caricatured on Midsomer Murders, as weak and emasculated, unbelieving or fanatical, puritanical or lecherous. I just wished someone, somewhere would create a vicar who has some vague resemblance to Theodore Hardy. Maybe Mel Gibson could give it a go.

I stand in awe of people like Hardy. I think I would go to jelly in the type of situation in which he regularly found himself. Yet there is another sort of courage. In his book Path to Leadership Field Marshall Montgomery spoke of both physical and moral courage.

‘It is not given to everyone to have great physical courage … but we can all have moral courage, which to me means standing firm to what you believe to be right and giving a firm lead to others in that direction.’ p114.

There are some Christian leaders and believers who do need to show physical courage as they live out their faith in perilous places or under intimidating persecution. Average parish ministers are more likely to be called to exhibit moral courage in their preaching, leading or pastoral duties. One such area is the issue of raising money for ministry.

This is challenging because there is the risk of alienating people, losing friendships and looking like the worst kind of television preacher. There is the fear of people saying you are only ever asking for money. There is the possibility of looking totally uncomfortable and thus ineffective. There is the worry of being accused of feathering your own nest.

When I was first called to speak on giving. I was very apprehensive as I didn’t really know what to do and I was very uncertain on what to say or how the congregation would react. Sadly I believe that some clergy put it in the too hard basket.

The reason I wrote the book Giving Generously was to give pastors practical steps to raise money. But even when you know the practical steps it still takes moral courage to stand up in front of a congregation and ask clearly and graciously. I understand because I can certainly remember the knotted feeling that comes in the stomach. And yet after raising resources in a local church context for many years I can honestly say that if you ask graciously and with integrity, the outcome will not be congregational wrath but real joy that lives are being blessed as kingdom ministry is being funded.

So whenever I felt like wimping out I used to think, ‘Rod you are not being asked to be crucified like our Lord or whipped, shipwrecked, stoned or executed like St Paul or to go over the top at the Battle of the Somme. You are simply being asked to stand before God’s people and ask them to give to the greatest cause in the world. You can do this!’

In my book ‘Giving Generously’ I discuss the role of vision and use the quote ‘Money Follows Vision’. This is not the only factor in raising resources but it is a vital one. I believe the vision must be inspirational. It must engage the hearts and minds of the congregation. This encourages them to sign up for ministry and give to support the vision.

I am not a detail person so I have never believed the vision needs to be overly detailed. I remember being at a meeting once where the minister shared his plans for the church over the next five years. It involved a large spreadsheet that included detailed numbers of how many people would be in each ministry. While that sort of detail may be helpful to some, I have always been inspired by vision painted on a large canvas with broad brush strokes.

 At Figtree Anglican Church (FAC) we had a visionary slogan that appeared on our documents:

 ‘Impacting the region, modelling to the nation and sending to the world.’

We then explained to the congregation that in ‘Impacting the Region’, we wanted FAC to be known positively all over the Wollongong Region, which is largely a self-contained geographic space. It also meant that we wanted to be a blessing not only to our own church members but to the wider community.

‘Modelling to the Nation’ may sound a little pretentious, but what it meant and what we explained was that we wanted to be an adventurous church trying out new ministries and sharing  new ideas with others. For many years the Figtree elders set aside money for ministry staff, including me, to visit other dynamic churches interstate and overseas. We then tried to take the inspiration we had gained, Australianise it, and put it into practice. From time to time other churches would ring up and ask for assistance and we were glad to help them. The material on raising resources found its genesis on my first study tour to the US in 1995.

‘Sending to the World’ was a way of expressing the idea that FAC had a mission and evangelistic heart. For many many years there has been an annual mission trip conducted by Figtree members trained in Evangelism Explosion. That was only one expression of missionary activity and we wanted to say to our congregation, ‘this is who we are’. It also meant that while our local ministry might have suffered a setback if a talented person left to do mission elsewhere or go into theological college, we would actively rejoice in their calling, as sending people out to God’s work elsewhere was a core value for us.