Taking Up the Collection in Church
Taking Up the Collection I can still vividly remember sitting in church as a teenager during the 60s. The time would come for the offering. A very worthy elder (normally the same one) would start and somberly intone, ‘Your frugal offering will now be received’. Frugal! Seriously! Did he really say that? Actually he didn’t […]
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52 Years and Counting
Fifty Two Years and Counting Helen and I have recently celebrated fifty two years of marriage. It has prompted me to reflect on marriage in general and our marriage in particular. Many years ago, in 1995, we visited the then famous Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles, where I was attending two weeks of seminars in […]
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Prayer For Healing
Praying for Healing This year a close and treasured member of our immediate family became seriously ill. I mean seriously ill. She was really walking through the valley of the shadow. Of course I was moved to pray for her but exactly how? A number of verses jumped into my mind and I found that […]
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Learning about life and money from Dad
Learning about life and money from Dad I was blessed with a good father, Arthur Edward Kinkead Irvine. He was born on Sept 4 1910 in the Post Office at Nundah, Queensland where his grandmother was post mistress. So he would have been 113 today as I write. He in turn had been blessed by […]
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Dealing With Debt
Dealing with Debt Recently I was in another state and went to a new church one Sunday. It turned out that they were in the middle of their annual end-of financial-year vision series. The pastor spoke enthusiastically and gratefully about how the church family, by their generosity, had reduced debt on their building from over […]
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good, the Bad and the UglyOn holidays some years ago I attended a church service at a church I had never previously visited. Afterwards in the foyer I was chatting to the minister and it emerged in conversation that I was a fellow clergyman. He asked for my frank assessment of the service. ‘Tell […]
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The Essence of Running a Commitment Day
The Essence of Running a Commitment DayIn my book Giving Generously: Resourcing Local Church Ministry, I advocate running an annual commitment day, where the minister asks the people to do two things: First to sign a card indicating how much the person intends to give to the church over the next year. The second, was […]
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How to overcome the end of year financial crisis
How to overcome the end of year Financial CrisisIf you have been around churches long enough you will have seen or experienced a scenario something like the following. At the end of the year either the treasurer or the senior minister stands before the congregation and tells them that the church is behind budget and […]
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Midyear Appeal
Midyear Appeal.A church that my wife and I attend is having its annual midyear appeal. Yes we are asked for money. If fact the congregation was asked for an eye watering amount of $1.7 million. But as far as I know people do not seem to be aggravated, offended or annoyed. In fact there is […]
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No Regrets
No Regrets: In 1987 I received the invitation to become the senior minister (Rector) of Figtree Anglican Church in Wollongong. At that time, we were living in an old Queenslander in a very good street in Brisbane very close to where we had both grown up. My wife and I had bought this property as […]
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