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Often church members and pastors feel that raising the subject of giving, especially giving beyond the offering plate, is taboo. Experience has shown that however delicate the topic, people want to talk about giving as part of their Christian faith. Church members don’t necessarily want to be told how much to give, but they want to understand how to bring their personal finances into the rest of their Christian life.
We don’t have an easy answer. But we do have some suggestions on possible approaches your church might take.
1. Have an adult Sunday school class take on stewardship as a topic. There are several good resources from Cokesbury, particularly the new Steward 12 week study.
2. Use one of the many books on stewardship and/or giving as devotion material at your Administrative Council, Finance and Trustees meetings. Take one chapter a month and discuss it. Getting your leaders talking about giving will get others talking and thinking about giving.
3. Explore ideas such as moving to a program budget instead of an expense type budget. Moving your annual campaign to the spring instead of the fall. Trying a very different annual campaign by asking low or non-giving members to give only $5 dollars a week.
4. Invite the Foundation to do a seminar on the ways people can give. This hour and a half presentation looks at how we think about how much we can give and the many ways we can make substantial gifts during our life and through our estate.
5. Include articles on giving in your newsletter once a quarter. See our section on articles we’ve written that you can use, particularly the article entitled “Why Do We Give?”
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