Navigating the Path to Stewardship Growth (Part 5)

Recommendation #5: Balance

The fifth and final blog in our Navigating the Path to Stewardship Growth series recommends employing a balanced approach to our recommendations. An effective strategy includes all of: financial education, planned and clear messaging, Sr. Pastor involvement, demonstrating impact and TRUST IN GOD.

As you evaluate the progress of your current stewardship strategy and plan for next year, determine if you included a mix of approaches. Plus, what steps you have taken to meet and measure against those goals? The survey revealed that while most churches had well-defined goals, there was room for improvement on measuring the results.

Ensure Accountability

Even if you don't have resources for a full-time Stewardship Director, make sure someone is accountable. This can be a shared role across church leadership, a part-time hire or a volunteer with expertise in the area. In addition to assigning accountability, involve the Senior Pastor.  As the most visible and influential leader, their presence or absence will impact your efforts' success.

Prioritize Stewardship

Prioritizing generosity (giving) may produce short-term lifts in giving, but effective financial discipleship strategies provide healthy foundations for long-term, consistent giving and a culture of generosity. The goal is moving beyond developing obedient owners to love-inspired stewards who view everything they have as God’s and give him total authority over 100% of it.

Communicate Effectively

As noted in blog 4 of the series, talking about money isn't just important, it demonstrates our faith in God. Develop clear messaging that is adopted across leadership and communicated across multiple channels in a well-planned approach throughout the year.

Settle on a Curriculum

Avoid getting sidetracked by what programs don't offer to conclude the need to build your own. Effectively curriculum is difficult to create. Select from existing resources, including both financial and biblical stewardship content, and retro-fit them for your church. 

Demonstrate Impact

Of the surveyed churches that reported being on track to meet or exceed their goals, over 50% attributed demonstrating the impact of gifts as the top factor in their success. This can be achieved by giving software that supports impact messaging and engaging imagery, and sharing stories in assemblies, emails, and social media. Re-thinking the framing of your budget can also help by including the impact of items in addition to the line item spend.

Measure Everything

This step may be listed last but offers the greatest opportunity for improvement. Measuring for effectiveness provides insight on what is or isn't working so we can continually adapt. And be sure to measure beyond your givers.  Understanding the objections or hesitance of nongivers can provide vital insight for ministry opportunities you hadn't considered.

While this wraps up our blog series on the 2023 findings, we are continuing to share insights including Soundbytes from the podcast that you can access here.