For years, I looked at annual church budgets and monthly reports. I paid attention to a few key numbers that I could wrap my head around. When giving was up, I spent no more time on it and just moved on to other things. When giving was down, I asked a few limited questions to try to help me understand better. Maybe based on what I heard I would attempt to do something differently, even if I wasn’t sure why. Truthfully, I didn’t have a great grasp on our church’s overall giving. It felt like I was missing something in this area, but I wasn’t sure what.
Every church leader I know wants to raise generosity in their church. But, how do you do this? What do you focus on? Doesn’t it feel like there are so many moving components? How do you know which ones to focus on?
Today’s blog is written by our friend, Phil Ling, founder of The Giving Church. Phil’s team has not only helped raise the generosity levels in more than a thousand churches, but they’ve also commissioned their own study of more than 4000 churches and uncovered some shocking data. On August 11th at 1 PM CST, I’ll be joined by Phil Ling in a FREE webinar, and I guarantee you that you will learn some things related to church giving that you’ve never heard before! And here’s another promise: pastors, you will have a much greater understanding of your role when it comes to your church’s giving. This webinar is not an infomercial, and there are no strings attached. It’s simply a one-hour conversation with an expert in the field who shares the same heart as me. We want to help churches thrive and be filled with greater disciples!
I’ve flown many times, but truthfully, I’ve never thought about the intricacy of the airplane until I read Phil’s words below. I know they will be helpful to you.
A Boeing 747 is made up of 6,000,000 individual parts that are designed to craft, propel, fly and safely land hundreds of passengers and crew members.
Let’s say you had access to the 6,000,000 parts. Could you build your own 747?
The answer is no. There are thousands of specialists- fabricators, installers, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, and more involved in each 747 construction.
You couldn’t afford the risk of building your own 747 because you can’t afford to fail in these three critical areas:
It’s not good enough to be able to do any 1 or 2 without being able to do all 3. Think about it. If you take off but can’t land, you haven’t achieved anything except for total failure and disaster.
You are creating a culture of generosity in your church in the same way. Whether engaging in a capital campaign for a particular project or attempting to grow your general fund, there are intricate, delicate, and dedicated steps to take in the construction to ensure your success. It takes time and expertise to craft and rely on the same three critical components as the flight of a 747.
If you launch well but don’t maintain the altitude, speed, and direction, you crash. If you launch and can’t land or run out of gas, you crash far from your destination. We want to help churches thrive in all three areas.
At The Giving Church, we have guided nearly a thousand churches to success and raised well over a billion dollars for churches of all sizes, shapes, and denominations with custom-built capital campaigns to fit the DNA of each church. We want to share with you some tips and tools we have learned over the years. Not only this, but we commissioned a study of more than 4000 churches nationwide in more than 30 different denominations and uncovered some shocking data. I guarantee you will see the potential to raise generosity in your church once you hear this data.
We will be sharing all of this and more in our FREE Webinar- Fund Your Vision: Don’t Let Money Limit Ministry- on Thursday, August 11, 1 PM CST. You can register for FREE by clicking this link.
Take the next step of growing a culture of generosity in your ministry!
About Phil Ling
Phil Ling is the founder of The Giving Church (www.thegivingchurch.com), helping churches leverage vision to grow cultures of generosity. Before providing energetic leadership and strategic direction to The Giving Church, Phil served as Vice President of Development for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and as Executive Vice President for INJOY Stewardship with John C. Maxwell, leading the mega-church capital campaign division. Phil has helped nearly 1000 churches realize their vision for generosity.
