In a marketing email I received last week, I read the following: Two people pass a beggar on the street. One sees a lazy bum and feels indignant. The other sees a victim of circumstance and feels compassion. Same beggar, same street, different perception.  To each relationship we bring a lifetime of our own experiences, values, […]

The Board of Directors at the Foundation has spent the last year in a strategic planning process.  We are a much different organization than when I got here seven years ago and we were trying to get a handle on what exactly our role should be. My elevator speech has always been that the Foundation […]

I posted this last December and I’ve received so many positive comments about it, I thought I’d bring it out again.  Keep this in mind as you begin your festivities. A friend was telling me about the annual Christmas parade in a small town in Amish country.  He said it was in no way a […]

Last week I talked about whether your endowment should support new programs, that is be a vehicle for the future or support legacy programs, a bridge to the past or to the traditions of the church. Judging from your emails, this resonated with a number of you.  One of the themes seemed to be why I […]

It was a question I hadn’t had before.  I like that kind of question. “So what makes for an effective endowment?” The questioner was a woman who is new to the Endowment Chair position.  She and I had been talking about endowments and policies and procedures.  When she asked me, I was about to launch […]

I guess I have been following the Ebola outbreak in Liberia closer than most have.  I check the news articles to see if I recognize the name of a city I visited and see if it seems to be a problem near Camphor Mission Station where I spent a lot of my trip in February.  So […]

After seven years at the Foundation there aren’t a lot of phone calls I haven’t had at least once before.  But six months ago I got a new one.  It was from an endowment chair at a local church vetting what he was trying to decide was an opportunity or a big problem: A member […]

Last night I met with a local church’s Finance Committee.  They spent a few minutes going over the financials, discussing the pluses and the minuses.  They they got to me to talk stewardship. Here’s the problem.  It was the Finance Committee.  They had just looked at financial statements.  And they wanted to talk about money.  […]

I’ve been interested to see the ads in favor of Issue 7 in the Cleveland area.  This is a renewal of the tax on tobacco and alcohol to pay for improvements to Quicken Loans Arena, First Energy Stadium and Progressive Field. Raising taxes to improve a place where a bunch of millionaires, employed by a […]

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! If our social principles allowed gambling I would bet $5 that this phrase will be heard in practically every United Methodist Church on Sunday.  I thought it was required in the Book of Discipline but I can’t seem to find it. But there is another phrase that should […]