—
24 OCT, 2013
If you want your church to grow, you must learn how to
motivate believers to invest their resources into the kingdom for ministry and
for facilities. It is a key responsibility of leadership. Whoever writes the
agenda must be able to underwrite the agenda. If you’re going to form the
vision you also have to be able to fund the vision.
A lot of pastors, a lot of elders, lot of church leaders
have a real hangup about asking people to give. They allow personal
insecurities and personal fears to limit the ministry. You don’t need to be
embarrassed about asking people to give. There is nothing greater than the
kingdom of God. There is no more significant cause than the church.
I am very much against fundraising, but I am in favor of
teaching people to give. Fundraising is what I call collecting money from
other people in return for a product, service, reward or recognition. But in
giving, we simply challenge ourselves to give out of our own resources for
spiritual reasons. The result of fundraising is that funds are collected.
The results of teaching people to be givers is that funds are collected and
disciples are developed.
And to develop generous disciples, you need to understand
why people give.
1. People give
when they trust the leadership.
John 10:1-11 says, “The sheep listen to the shepherd’s
voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. He goes on ahead of
them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice but they will never
follow a stranger. In fact, they will run from him. The good shepherd lays down
his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd.” Study after
study has proven that in the hierarchy of giving, people give first of all to
people they believe in. Then they give to purposes. Finally they give to
programs. That means that the most essential elements in teaching people to
give are relational, not functional.
Even if you use a consultant to help you raise money, you as
the pastor still need to be out front. Because the person who asks for the
giving needs to be the person with the most credibility. And if you are a
Pastor and you are not the most trusted person, you have a leadership problem
and you’re not ready to teach people to give yet. You need to be the most
visible because the person who is the best qualified to ask for money should be
the person whose the most trusted.
2. People give
when they catch a vision, not when they see a need.
The Bible says, “Where there is no vision the people
perish.” Did you know that Ivy League schools usually receive the largest
endowments? And they are the schools that need the money the least. Why? People
give to success. They give to vision. They don’t give to needs. That’s
why in fifteen years we have never had a bulletin with our financial reports in
it along with how much we need. Why? Because bills do not motivate people to
give. People give when they catch a vision and they get the big picture.
You must be very clear about what your vision is. At
Saddleback, we’ve never had a vision for a building, but rather for what the
building can help us do. We’ve never had a vision for raising money, but rather
for what the money can do. Emphasize the lives that will be changed as people
give – the marriages that will be saved, the broken people that are going to be
put back together, the people who will break addictions, the changed lives that
will happen. That’s the vision!
3. People give
to experience the joy of generosity.
It feels good to give generously – it really does. A person
who doesn’t understand that has never given generously. The happiest people in
the world are the most giving people. Guilt never motivates people to
give. Giving that is motivated by guilt only lasts as long as the guilt does.
So you never use guilt to motivate people to give. You use joy to motivate people
to give.
I absolutely do not accept the health and wealth theology,
which teaches that God wants everybody to be rich. But the fact is, there are
more promises in the Bible related to giving than any other subject. You cannot
out-give God. If you’re going to be Christlike you’ve got to learn to give.
4. People give
when they are inspired by models.
We learn best by watching models. That’s why
a testimony about giving is a thousand times more effective than a sermon
on giving. Models motivate us. Giving is contagious. So I encourage people to
write down and send me their testimonies, how they decided to give, and what
they were giving.
5. People give
when they are involved.
Paul told the Philippians, “I thank God because of your
partnership in the gospel.” The fact is those who are most involved in
the campaign will be those who sacrifice the most. One of our gauges of
involvement at Saddleback is how many people have completed our CLASSes (and
you can get our CLASS
material here). And the more CLASSes people have completed, the
more involved they are, and the more they tend to give. The average gift in our
church from an attender during one of our giving campaigns was about $7000. For
the people who had gone through class 101, the average gift was $8500. The
average of gift for people who had been through class 201 and 101 was over
$11,000. And the average gift of people who had been through 101, 201 and
301, which usually indicates they are actually involved in the ministry of the
church was over $15,000.
6. People give
when you ask them to give.
James says, “You have not because you ask not.” The
Bible says ask and seek and knock. God asks people to give. The fact is we’re doing
people a favor when we ask them to give because they grow in faith, they grow
in love, they grow in sacrifice, they grow in commitment, they grow in
character as they learn to give. They will be blessed in return. Never say no
for anybody. Your church will be hurt more by those who would have said
yes and were not asked than by those who were asked and said no.
7. People give
when you make it possible for them to give.
2 Corinthians 8 says, “For if the willingness is there the
gift is acceptable according to what one has not according to what one does not
have.” That means you need to make it possible for people to give in as
many ways as you can. Teach people how to want to give and they’ll figure out
how.
Teach people that they can either give by reason or by
revelation. Giving by reason means this – I look at what I have, I figure out
what’s reasonable and I commit that amount. It doesn’t take any faith to give
by reason. I just figure out what can I afford to give. Giving by revelation
means I determine my gift by praying “Lord, what do You want to give through
me?” This requires faith. When you give by revelation, you’re committing an act
of worship and saying, “How much am I willing to trust God?”
8. People give
when their gifts are appreciated.
The whole book of Philippians is just a thank you letter
from Paul for their offering, for their financial support. Figure out seven
ways to thank people for their gift – a card, a call, a banquet, etc. A little
appreciation goes a long way in encouraging people to be generous for the long
haul.
If you want a model for teaching people to give, check out
our Building for
Life kit, which includes tons of practical helps in the area of
stewardship.
— Rick Warren
Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.,
one of America's largest and most influential churches. Rick is author of the
New York Times bestseller The Purpose
Driven Life. His book, The Purpose
Driven Church, was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed
the 20th century. He is also founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet
community for pastors.
Ref: http://pastors.com/8-reasons-believers-give-to-your-church/
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