Churches in Africa do things a bit differently. From what I understand the offering is a time for great joy, as congregants celebrate that they have something to contribute. In remote areas where food and water are a daily struggle, having a li’l something extra to share is truly something special. We don’t really do […]

One of the key tasks in any stewardship campaign is writing The Letter. Sometimes The Letter is written by the committee, but usually by the pastor. Hours are spent wordsmithing, proof reading, getting a fresh pair of eyes on it to make sure nothing was skipped or could be misinterpreted. This year I encourage you […]

Imagine a pastor preaching at his new church the first Sunday in July.  The bulletin has the unison invocation written out word for word.  At one point he prays for the sick and needy, for the missionaries, for the leaders of the church and then leads the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer.  After the closing hymn […]

I was talking church finances with a group of ministers a few weeks ago.  One asked me what our members need to hear more of in order to “get them to give more.”  It wouldn’t have been my choice of words, but you get a feel for where this conversation was going. Those of you […]

Kids are back in school and church committees are once again getting fired up.  Your Stewardship Committee is about to meet to plan the campaign and the conversation will go something like this: What do you wanna do this year? I dunno, what do you wanna do this year? Last year seemed to work. Yep, […]

A week ago my family and I attended The Fest, an all-day Christian music concert outdoors on Cleveland’s far east side.  There were thousands of people there, enjoying the music, relaxing in the decent weather and eating overpriced bratwurst and that fresh-squeezed lemonade that leaves a sugar sludge in the bottom of the cup. It […]

The newest fad in philanthropy is the Giving Circle.  This is a group of individuals who come together to discuss different needs and the organizations that work to meet those needs.  The group decides on a mission project to support and pools the members’ donations to make a larger gift and a larger impact than each […]

Largely lost in the cycle of annual conference was an announcement that the churches of East Ohio had donated  $634,423.74 for relief in Haiti.  This is money that people donated through their local churches to UMCOR for this important cause. That’s a lot of money.  Of the nearly 800 local churches in the conference there are […]

In the last week I had the pleasure of spending more than 24 hours driving on Interstate 70 between home and Kansas City.  There’s not much to see, so in the rare event that something came up, it got our attention. About an hour outside of St. Louis was the American Farm Heritage Museum.  It […]

We’ve had a soggy spring.  My daughter pointed out that the grass is good and green.  She credits it all to the rain. She’s partly right.  Without enough rain the grass wouldn’t be nearly as green. But it’s also true that I have spent my weekends maximizing how healthy my well-watered grass is.  I use both […]