I recently sat in a committee meeting discussing the challenge of getting church leaders to a training conference on stewardship and fund-raising. The plan is to get a pastor for all the regions churches, along with at least two others from the congregation, for two two-day sessions about a month apart.
Many congregations are less than sophisticated in raising the money needed to meet the costs of operations, staff salaries, mission work and supporting their ministries and those programs they embrace in the world. It falls to a committee each fall to plan and launch a stewardship campaign with a dollar goal that reflects what the next years budget needs, including a dream wish list. If the stewardship campaign is successful, the budget can reflect the anticipated funds come in through pledges and offering plate guesstimates.
Its a thankless task, but many congregations rely heavily on the same volunteers each year to make the stewardship campaign happen. Now, in the new year, church treasurers and finance committees are watching how the giving pattern is unfolding.
Writing for the Religion News Service, Daniel Burke tells how pastors often blanch at the need to talk about money with congregations. The Rev. Stephen Gray, who considered himself a tough S.O.B. or son of a banker, said, I wanted nothing to do with money. The leader of the United Church of Christ Conference for Indiana and
Kentucky admitted, Lets just say that for a lot of clergy, when thy do their one sermon a year on giving and stewardship, they do so with fear and trepidation. For some clergy, it is easier to preach on sex.
But Gray has had a change of heart, according to the RNS article. He is working to get United Church of Christ leaders to become comfortable about solicitations, what is called one of the last modern taboos in the church. The denomination has put together three- and four-day courses to show UCC members skills and to make them think differently about church giving. They are being helped by the 20-year-old Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, which is presenting the courses. Participants are shown where scripture gives them sanction to seek money from others and how to use sociological and demographic data to effectively raise money.
The schools director, Tim Seiler, said pastors intuitively know how to do the work, but theres just a pretty high level of reluctance.
One thing driving it is that American giving to their houses of worship and faith-based work has fallen from half of all philanthropy to less than a third. The United Church of Christ has seen donations to its national office fall from $33.5 million to $28.4 million since 2000.
Center of Philanthropy director said the pattern is the same in other denominations. Reasons include churches often keeping more of what they raise to pay higher utility, operations and staffing costs. There is also an attitude about supporting distant denominational bureaucracies.
As a result, denominations are turning to non-members to help fund projects. But it dont mean a thing if preachers wont talk about the green; surveys say they often wont, writer Burke said. He cites a 2001 study by St. Meinrad School of Theology study that 54 percent of pastors said their flocks were uncomfortable talking or hearing about money in a spiritual context and feared some might walk out the door as a result.
Seiler said stewardship is a pastors least favorite thing to do. They dont like to talk about money at all, and they especially dont want to talk about it from the pulpit.
The courses for pastors and church members seek to break down such hang-ups and help everyone see the important ministries that can happen when there is ample funding. And that it is more than the pastor, in essence, pitching for his own annual raise.
Churches, first of all, need to assure members that money is going to intended purposes and that financial dealings are transparent and secure and that leaders are accountable. Churches need to have all financial dealings sudited and certified by independent outside agencies. Witness all the fraud being uncovered in Catholic parishes and dioceses.