Many pastors find it difficult to talk about giving and generosity in their churches, but developing a culture of generosity is essential to Christian living. In this episode, we have a conversation about how pastors can help our churches to embrace generosity.
SHOW NOTES – DEVELOPING A CULTURE OF GENEROSITY PT 1 – 017
Talking about money makes me evaluate my motives more than any other topic… I want to make sure that I am asking people to give for the right reasons…
At the heart of discipleship is inviting people to transfer allegiance to King Jesus… when you name money, sex, and power, we’re talking about the age-old temptations that have to do with how we orient and order our lives… it gets personal…
When worship becomes charitable giving rather than laying our lives on the altar as a living sacrifice, we have lost…
Every time I talk about money, I am having to live down the poor behavior of people I have never met… We have to be aware that we are staring in the face of a bad reputation, and the only way to reverse that is by doing the right thing for the right reason for a very long amount of time…
When you remember what the church is—the family of God, the household of faith—you can start to compare that to what a family ought to be like… when you are in the family, everyone chips in and contributes their strength…
Part of our role is also to help people see giving differently… God is the most generous giver we’ve ever known… the creation is full of excessive gifts that God didn’t need to give… when you understand that the heart of the New Testament is grace, “gift”, then it turns you into someone who becomes like God… you become a giver…
I’ve learned not to be ashamed or embarrassed to talk to people with finances about opportunities to give… but the relationship has to be based on shared trust and mutual love and respect, and if you just see them as a pocketbook, you will never gave their love or trust…
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
– Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability: http://www.ecfa.org/
– Henri Nouwen: A Spirituality of Fundraising
QUESTIONS FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM
- What challenges have you experienced in talking about stewardship to your church?
- Where do you need to develop a larger “frame” for talking about stewardship?
- On a scale of 1-10, how well have you talked about stewardship in terms of biblical, kingdom mission? Why did you give yourself that rating?