By unSeminary: Do you lie awake and ponder how your church will meet its budget for this coming year?

Are you wondering how to increase the generosity culture at your church?

Is there a gap between the vision for which you believe God has called, and the funding your church currently is generating?

As church leaders, there is a connection between our beliefs on generosity, fundraising, funding, giving, and what happens in our churches. We must identify inherently negative ways of thinking and replace these thoughts with the mindset God desires of us. These negative mindsets can creep in over time, without us even realizing it. We need to actively align our philosophy on financial matters at our churches with what God would have us consider.

I’ve pulled together five negative mindsets I’ve seen within my own life that I’ve needed to uproot and address. These beliefs are also at play in other church leaders. I’ve wondered whether these mindsets are ultimately the cause for other churches’ lack of progress in this area.

Simple Silver Bullet Solution

As leaders, there’s a real temptation to attempt to find the silver bullet to this problem.

It’s tempting to think that simply delivering the right message on offerings or having an impactful year-end campaign would solve all issues pertaining to generosity and the finances at our churches. The reality is that there is no single silver bullet to funding issues at our churches. We are attempting to disciple people connected to our church into leading a generous lifestyle. That takes consistent work and a unified approach over time.

We need to continue to lead our churches towards a lifestyle of generosity.

A single sermon series would not be sufficient to accomplish this objective. We need to maintain a consistent focus on this for an extended period. Effort applied on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis will, over time, create the kind of desired change in our churches.

Our vision can be fully funded and arrive at the point where we have the resources required to accomplish what God has called us to perform. Some churches reach this stage because they applied consistent strategies over an extended period. There is no silver bullet to the issue of funding.

Too Afraid to Challenge People and Ask Them to Give?

I get it. Money is hard to discuss.

This reality is peculiar to our culture. It seems like we can easily discuss the most intimate of human relationships, even talking about sexual relationships. However, we get defensive when thinking about discussing money. People’s approach to their finances is at the very core of how people perceive themselves. It’s critical! We need to find a way to overcome this—whether by abolishing this mindset, using humor or simply calling out the fact that it’s a difficult topic to discuss.

Over the years, many church leaders have found a way to lean in and discuss money, ultimately challenging members to live in a more Jesus-centered way concerning their money. These leaders have been afforded incredible opportunities and accelerated growth on the other side of this approach.

Our ability to persevere in discussing money and generosity, and challenge people in this regard, is directly connected to people’s desire to grow in generosity. This approach will impact how funds are generated at your church.

It’s Unspiritual to Talk about Money.

One of the biggest lies propagated among church leadership is that it is unspiritual to talk about money.

This belief comes from a strange disconnect between our views on faith and its impact on our lives. It’s a dangerous notion that, somehow, our faith only exists between our ears, that it’s only about what we think, about developing the right thoughts and having the right ideas. Some believe it not about how we live, and in this case, what we do with our money. This mindset has led some of us to the point where we believe that it’s somehow unspiritual to talk about money and generosity.

Jesus is clear on this: how we invest our lives and how we invest our money reveals much about what we value in life. [ref] Challenging people to think correctly about money, be generous, and lead generous lifestyles is at the core of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. At the core, Jesus challenged us to live another centered life. In a world so obsessed with money, there are few other, more obvious ways to a centered life, other than being generous and donating your resources to help others get connected with Jesus’ teachings.

Discussing money is incredibly spiritual, plus it is one of the things that people worry about all day long. Striving to ensure that people understand biblical teachings about money, and helping them apply those lessons to their lives, will accelerate your membership’s spiritual growth.

You Feel Like a “Used Car Salesman.”

Why is it that when we consider discussing money at a church, the stereotypical picture of a used car salesman comes to mind?

You know that guy: he’s little and slimy, his hair is greased back, he wears a bad suit, and he’s just trying to rip you off. Why do so many people possess this mental image when considering whether to discuss money in their churches?

Part of the reason that this is the case is that there have been “slimy car salesmen” in the name of Jesus. They’ve ripped people off and used their money for nefarious ends. There is no lack of evidence of church leaders who have abused this privilege and honor to help people with generosity and help them move into a more generous lifestyle.

But here’s the thing, you are not a slimy used car salesman. You’re not attempting to help people grow in their generosity because you want to get something from them. You’re doing this because you want something for them. You want to help people transition into a more generous lifestyle. You want them to experience the freedom and exhilaration of a fuller lifestyle through giving. You are not trying to extract cash out of them so that you could fund some new crazy plan at your church. You’re not a used car salesman. You’re a messenger of the peace of Christ, and this is a critical aspect of the conversation that must be communicated to our membership.

Your Personal Finances are in Chaos.

Are you drowning in debt?

Are you living your life with no margin?

Are you not being generous because of the financial decisions that you’ve made?

Too many pastors are living less than paycheck-to-paycheck. We’ve structured our financial lives in such a way that we’re struggling, and we’re not giving generously, and that’s ultimately driving us into debt. This issue of debt is an epidemic among church leaders nationwide.

If this is the case in your life, I strongly recommend that you get help in this area. Whether it’s Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University or Joe Sangl’s Financial Learning Experience or Good Sense, you can take control of this area of your life and get things right in your finances at home.

Too often, people aren’t generous because they have too much debt.

What is debt? Debt is simply living beyond your means. It’s not trusting that God will provide, and it’s leveraging other people’s money to live the lifestyle you want to live. The antidote to an active debt lifestyle is generosity. It is a tool that will break the debt mindset, because what is generosity at its core? Generosity, at its core, is saying that God will provide. That I’m going to give up this money to help someone else, and that I believe that God will provide for me. Maybe the thing you need to do is to be more generous.

Listen, I understand that living and life costs a lot of money, but this might be a wake-up call for you to get your finances in order, to help you speak more clearly and with conviction to your own people and, ultimately, see them take steps towards generosity.

Are you looking for more help to raise more funds for your ministry?

We’ve put together a few resources to help your church build even more in the area of generosity, providing an important example of what you do as a church leader. This free download includes an MP3 and PDF.

MP3 // Increasing Your Church’s Generosity Culture with Steve Stroope // Steve started as the first pastor at Lake Point Church about 40 years ago and has since passed the baton to Josh Howerton. Lake Pointe began with a launch team of about 60 people and has grown to eight campuses with over 15,000 attendees. In this interview, Steve offers practical tips on how we can increase generosity at church.PDF // 5 Free Resources to Increase Your Church’s Generosity // Each of these resources can be used and implemented to help your church see ever-increasing levels of generosity. This “read to apply today” PDF is a great tool get the conversation and action rolling with your team!

Click here to download these two resources and access the information to help your church increase generosity.

Download PDF Article

Source: 5 Negative Church-Leader Mindsets About Funding

The post 5 Negative Church-Leader Mindsets About Funding appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By: The Church.Digital

At North Circle, we’ve said this phrase long before Pop-Up Church became a thing for us. And to clarify, we don’t mean “doing the Sunday church thing but just in a neighborhood.”

We mean loving the people who live closest to you every single day. We mean showing up for the hard times and the fun times. We mean backyard bonfires, borrowing the pressure washer, dog-sitting, making sure all the kids get home safe, noticing someone may need help with the yard work, dropping off an extra batch of cookies, and sharing our lives with each other.

That being said–when we’re in the middle of a global pandemic and our church family misses in-person connection, worshiping together, and hearing God’s Word through our leaders in a live setting–it’s time to get creative. We’ve all spent the last five months finding creative ways to continue church during the time of COVID-19, and I’m thinking that’s not going to end anytime soon. I wrote a blog post for Stadia during Indiana’s Shelter-In-Place order about our team’s creative process for solving problems using our five senses as a guideline, and I want to show you how we used that for Pop-Up Church. But first, let’s talk about what Pop-Up Church means and how we decided to pursue that in the first place.

Before anything else, we reminded ourselves of the mission of North Circle Church. “Together, we are chasing a new way of life in Jesus.” As we looked to examples of what other churches were doing (and doing so well!), we realized that–for us–the goal was to pursue a “new way” of gathering. Rather than spending our energy attempting to remake our “normal” Sundays in the midst of a world of unknowns, we wanted to get creative with gathering in a new way, and we took that challenge seriously. We knew we wanted our people to feel safe, to support our local community, and to continue sharing the beauty of the gospel with the people who are literally closest to us–our neighbors. So this became our plan: to gather every Sunday morning in a different outdoor space each week for Pop-Up Church and to continue our At-Home Studies that are sent to our app/our people’s inboxes every Saturday evening for those who cannot attend in-person. We encourage our church to attend whenever and wherever they feel comfortable and give our Pop-Up hosts the resources to invite their neighbors. Each Sunday, we highlight a local non-profit organization by giving them time to share their vision before matching all financial giving from that day up to $1,000. We spend time in worship, teaching, raising/matching donations, and just being with each other for roughly 45-minutes.

Obviously, it’s not all about numbers, but we’re a church plant so we tend to pay way too much attention to those. In the four weeks before our lockdown, we ministered to 66 individual people through our Sunday gatherings. In the first four weeks of Pop-Up Church, 85 people have been reached, and we have seen a 125% return ratio. This isn’t including all of the digital connections we have fostered and the individual meetings that we have continued safely–it’s important to note that not every person in our church will feel comfortable gathering anytime soon, and those completely valid concerns just mean we need to be intentional about connecting with them in other ways! God is moving in our people in the middle of an unpredictable world. There’s something miraculous about this “new way” of life we are pursuing.

So what does our Pop-Up Church experience actually look like? Let me break it down by using our trusty old five senses as a guide (this concept is explained in that first Stadia blog post that I mentioned!):

SIGHT

We want to make sure that all of our branding, hospitality, merch, and social media point first and foremost to our goal of chasing a new way of life in Jesus and being the church in our neighborhoods. We want it to be obvious for people who happen to catch us out in the wild that we are North Circle Church, and that this is our mission.

Speaking of sight, it’s important to us that anyone who attends Pop-Up Church sees our leadership practicing the courtesy of social distancing and mask-wearing. We trust experts, and we believe that adhering to safety measures in the midst of a pandemic is a tangible way to actually love our neighbors.

SMELL

I’ll use this category to rave about our host homes. The smell of newly cut grass and fresh air reminds us that people have taken great care to invite others into their space, and they’ve prepared their lawns, driveways, and front porches to accommodate this wild idea of ours. Some of these hosts consider themselves a part of North Circle, and some just love their neighbors. We’re thankful for them all. We’ve also been attuned to how our people have felt the past few months, and the choice to be outdoors rather than inside a building has been appreciated by those who feel more comfortable.

And can we talk about the smell of after-it-rains? That petrichor? Or the distinct pre-storm scent? Weather in Indy can be a little unpredictable in the summers, but our Gathering Guide on our app and website gives people live-updates on any changes as well as all information anyone could possibly want about our gatherings.

TASTE

We. Love. Coffee. It’s just a part of who we are. So when we determined that, in accordance with our governor’s recommendations, having our usual self-serve coffee station may not be the smartest decision, we may have panicked a little. Enter Indie Coffee Roasters, one of our favorite local shops. During lockdown, they began bottling their cold brew for their customers, and this became the perfect solution. Pre-packaged cold brew in the summer heat that supports a local business? Sign us up. Well, we already signed up. We’re doing it.

Also, we have snacks.

TOUCH

HAND SANITIZER HAND SANITIZER HAND SANITIZER. We continue to support small businesses, down to the last detail. 1205 Distillery in Westfield came through with their locally-made hand sanitizer, and our health thanks them.

Now is a good time to remind you of the children. Our North Circle Kids are an integral part of our neighborhoods, and we want them to feel thought of at our Pop-Ups. Our activity bags are the perfect thing to keep anyone entertained, complete with a coloring sheet of our favorite local businesses and some free Chick-Fil-A! Our host homes have also provided sidewalk chalk, basketballs, and their backyard swing sets for all the fun.

HEARING

I made this playlist that I personally refer to as “lo-fi worship,” and honestly it simultaneously gets people hype and makes everything feel like a chill party. We’ve also missed live worship SO MUCH. Maybe it’s because we no longer have to sing along to a video in our living rooms with our families who can’t carry a tune (even though that span of time will definitely be missed), or maybe it’s because there really is something beautiful about gathering with God’s people and experiencing a little taste of Heaven in that way. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

And on a final note, it really is just incredible to hear the voices of our community again. To talk to people and not hear them talk back through a laptop speaker? It’s amazing the things we take for granted. Our Pop-Up Churches have been a safe yet extraordinary space to reconnect with our neighbors, and we are seeing God work in unexplainable ways through our people’s lives.

Source: The Church In Your Neighborhood

The post The Church In Your Neighborhood appeared first on Passion for Planting.