Unparalleled needs and opportunities are confronting local
churches today. The ability of the local congregation to respond
constructively is in direct proportion to its available
resources. The resources, both individual and financial, depend
upon the effectiveness of its stewardship program.
Few congregations have effective year-round programs stewardship
education, tithing and planned giving. Most need help. SALT will
help supply that need. SALT, through information provided by
ChurchSupplier.com will meet the needs of your church by
bringing you articles of what others are doing in the
stewardship field, suggestions on new programs, displays,
literature, electronic medias, and training materials. It will
give you and your congregation the satisfaction of more
effectively meeting the needs of the work of Jesus Christ.
You can help! Share with others the ideas you have found
effective. Send you ideas to Editor
SALT@Neibauer.com.
SALT addresses itself to a long-felt practical need: to help the
pastor or chairperson as a stewardship leader in the local
church. It can spare them that desperate, once-a-year plunge
which they have often found to be ineffective. It will help them
to project goals with checkpoints for progress in stewardship
training. People of considerable stewardship experience and
creativity from many denominations will share the benefit of
their knowledge. Contributions from your stewardship experience
should also be shared. Thus, there will be a stewardship of
tried and tested ideas that will enrich all of us.
The difference between the success and failure of bringing
families to full stewardship stature is vested in local
leadership. As the chief steward under God, you hold the key of
leadership. Use it or lose it!
Church Publishing Editor |
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There was a time when the benevolence budget of the average
church was determined by an oratorical contest. College
presidents, board secretaries, pleaders for the orphans and the
Eskimos came to the congregations to beg for gifts and take up
collections. The support they got had little connection with the
needs. So a central benevolence treasury was worked out to be
administered by those
who saw the whole picture. They could know better than most
donors whether a hospital in Korea needed X?ray equipment more
than a missionary in Alaska needed a car. Gifts for special
interests were encouraged, but in general the work of the church
was done by the whole church and shared by all contributors.
There is danger that this method will be less emotionally
satisfying. "How many percentage points can we add to our
general mission quota?" is less moving than "How many children
can we save?" "Interpretation" is continually needed to help
people see the faces behind the percentage points. We need an
emotional response to statistics. One death by starvation is
heartbreaking; a hundred thousand deaths by starvation is not a
hundred thousand times as heartbreaking?it is an agricultural
statistic. Christians learn of the human realities behind
statistics so that the items on a church budget will rouse
agony, or desperation, or joy.
Another problem in giving to a treasury is that it requires that
a donor buy some things he does not want. Organizations can
never be perfectly tailored to any one member's wishes. This
mixture of good and bad is one reason for giving through a
treasury that supports many causes. If someone invests all his
savings in one company and it goes bad, he is ruined. But, if,
through a mutual fund or one's own devising, money is in a wide
variety of enterprises, some of them can go bad while the
investor still does pretty well. If, in the main, the money you
give is well used, you can be satisfied even though there are
some items you oppose. You may need to protest and criticize,
but financially you should not feel you are too badly treated.
People feel deeply about the money they give the church, and
this is good. It expresses their love of Christ; it is the
channel through which they pour their lives into His service; it
makes their daily labor holy. That is why, when even a tiny part
of their giving goes for something of which they disapprove,
their reaction may be more emotional than seems warranted by the
amount. When a church member is irritated, the first thing he
thinks of may be his pledge. This is not because he is obsessed
with money, but because he has been trained to express his
emotions through his contribution. Thus a virtue becomes a vice
when every disagreement with something the church does sets us
to dashing off angry letters to the treasurer.
Some people seem sad and reluctant when they cancel their
pledges because of something the church did. But there is no
mistaking the vindictive spirit of some others. There is the joy
of punishing someone and of gloating over the suffering of
church officials when the money ceases to come in. Some seem to
regard the money they have dedicated to the Lord as a club. They
threaten with it; they swing it menacingly to force other church
people to do what they desire. This is surely a sad distortion
of Christian stewardship.
Some irritated members declare that they will give for their
local congregation but not one cent for general mission. But it
is not that simple. The duplex offering envelopes marked "For
Ourselves" and "For Others" are wrong. They should be triplex.
We really give (1) For ourselves directly, (2) For ourselves
indirectly, and (3) For others. The last two are in the mission
budget. The subsidizing of church literature, the education of
ministers in seminaries, the salaries of Christian education
experts, the youth conferences, and a great deal more are just
as much for the local church as are its heating costs, even
though the former items are paid for from general mission funds.
A participating member who does not give to "missions" is being
carried by the other members of his church.
People naturally dislike paying for what they think is useless;
even more do they resist paying for what they think is wrong.
Some items of which one strongly disapproves can be accepted as
inevitable in a church which allows a wide range of views. When
a considerable portion of a person's giving seems to be used
improperly, it is a hard moral problem. Fortunately, there is
always a way out. Selective giving is never frowned upon. The
courage to say no is essential to good stewardship. A person can
be a perfectly loyal member of the church without giving to
anything he does not wish. It is not as easy as checking a
pledge card, but he can designate all the objects to which he
wishes to give.
The guidance of the Holy Spirit is given the church through its
members' consciences. Correction and reform would lag if there
were no way the members could express their views. They can vote
through their giving. If this is to be valid it requires
information. Impulsive prejudices are not worth expressing. But
unconventional opinions based on study and prayer will save the
church.
If you wish to give to everything in your church except the new
drapes, which you consider a sinful extravagance, you can do it.
It may require a special sort of payments, or of instructions to
the financial secretary, but it is not too complicated. You can
write checks to every mission cause you wish to support, and
leave out just one.
The trouble is that most disapproving church members do not take
the trouble to be really selective givers. They do not identify
their dislikes, It does not make sense to show anger about the
church and society report by punishing a hospital in Africa,
which is what most people who talk of changing their pledges are
threatening. We vote with our money by giving less to the
specific things we dislike and giving more to what we like.
An amateur who is trying to decide where to put his savings
needs an investment counselor. This adviser, who spends all his
time learning where money gets the best returns, will make fewer
mistakes than would most of us. The church is a
benevolence?investment counselor. It has a worldwide view and a
centuries long experience. Its administrators have a knowledge
none of us can match. They know what at present is doing well
and what offers a poor yield. It is the church which teaches us
what loyalty to Christ should make us want to accomplish. The
church lays certain opportunities before us and says, "In these
you can get a good return on your investment."
It is natural to like to spend your money close to home, but if
what you really want is the most Christian accomplishment per
dollar ? in the relief of suffering, in teaching the gospel, in
training Christian leaders, let your church show you some
possibilities you would never see.
The church was never more needed than it is today. When people
who use sacred money ? the product of their dedicated lives - to
express their anger, they are crippling all the good things the
church ought to do. The elastic walls around what the church is
doing are always heartbreaking. The needs and opportunities are
endless. A budget is a fictional limit; it is based upon the sad
assumption that no more can be expected.
Christians have always believed that the world is lost without
Christ, but it looks now as though a time limit has been set. In
a revolutionary age, with a world of suffering, with dire
possibilities looming over us, we know Christ has the answers.
He is the way. Through the church His guidance can be given to
Christians, and through Christians to people everywhere.
See the whole picture. Nine?tenths of your experience of the
church is in your own congregation. Do you find the power of God
there? Then think of the whole worldwide church of Christ ?
healing, teaching, feeding, preaching, condemning, saving,
comforting. Supporting it is the most important work in all the
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