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 […]

I’ve had many requests for copies of the information I presented at Annual Conference last week.  Below is my report in its entirety.  Take what is helpful and leave the rest. They say it’s good to summarize at the beginning of the presentation.  So here’s my summary.  This is the fourth consecutive day you have […]

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 […]

Last week Rev. Fred Leasure, my counterpart from Western Pennsylvania, was talking with our board about a number of issues around church finance, stewardship and UM Foundations.  He had 10 great bullet points and one of them really stuck with me. Seek the Kingdom, not the Castle. He was saying that churches should not get […]

“When I was a young man I was too shy to kiss my best girl.  Boy was I hopping mad when I found out that she wasn’t shy and had been kissing all the boys in town.” I have had lots of conversations with lots of people in lots of churches, but that was my […]

I believe that in most of our churches the problem is not that the people do not have enough money. I believe the problem is the church doesn’t have enough vision

If this blog piques your interest, you can click on the “sign me up” button on the right to subscribe and have the weekly update sent directly by email. In his book Linear Giving Rev. Neil Orchard goes directly against some of the most widely-read stewardship experts of our time. And I think he’s dead right. The […]

I offer a mid-week blog entry, a nuts and bolts edition to make sure your campaign isn’t caught flat-footed at the last minute. With school vacations starting in just more than a month we know that many church committees will soon be shutting down for the summer.  Before you let your stewardship committee start applying sunscreen make […]

Last week I was chatting with the pastor of a growing church. Not surprisingly the conversation turned to stewardship and he asked me an interesting question: Why are churches so far behind other nonprofit organizations when it comes to raising money. I took an extra drink of my iced tea. It gave me a chance […]

Last week I attended a fund raising conference.  In the vendors’ area were more than a dozen services that provide donor profile information.  A nonprofit would submit its donors’ names and addresses and these services would compare them to public information databases.  By matching your donors with the property they own, the cars, boats and […]