December is one of the busiest seasons for church leaders, so it’s easy to put fundraising on the back burner. But the truth is, if you’re not making a year-end-appeal, you’re leaving money on the table.

December is one of the busiest seasons for church leaders, so it’s easy to put fundraising on the back burner. But the truth is, if you’re not making a year-end-appeal, you’re leaving money on the table.

As you plan ahead for stewardship season, we hope you’ll find time to be intentional about celebrating All Saints Day. This is an opportunity to provide pastoral care for families who have lost loved ones, and it’s also a time to lift up and celebrate the ways in which our ministry continues to be enriched by members who have gone on to glory. Done well, it becomes a gentle reminder about the opportunity for bequest giving.

Our friends and colleagues at the Mountain Sky United Methodist Foundation have developed a comprehensive resource for All Saints Day. This resource includes templates for letters to the families of the saints, worship elements, bulletin inserts, and more. You can download it in either PDF or Word:

No one has the pat answer on how to do stewardship in a time of pandemic. But one of the strengths of our church is our connection with each other. Leaning on that connection makes us stronger and wiser as leaders. Instead of listing the usual stewardship resources this year, we’d like to share some samples of what your colleagues have created as a resource for you in planning your church’s stewardship this year. We are thankful for our contributors: Rev. Cara Scriven at Puyallup, Rev. Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen at Tigard, Rev. Peter Perry at Olympia and Rev. Geoff Helton at Audubon Park. You’ll need to consider both your leadership strengths and your congregational culture to help shape your plans, but I hope these resources will be a helpful reference and inspiration. Perhaps an idea will spark that is relevant to your setting!

I recently got one of those emails that I love receiving: “I’m retiring soon and I’d like to set up the person who follows me for success. We still don’t have online giving. Can you help me figure out how to make it happen?”

Let me first say, BRAVO! Not only to tackling online giving, but for being so kind to the person who follows you. Again, BRAVO!

This person also indicated that some folks still weren’t sure that online giving was the way to go.

Here are a four things to remember about the importance and reality of online giving:

When we began this journey with the COVID pandemic late last winter, almost everyone thought we’d be through this by now. We are blessed to have pastors and laity in our churches who have led effectively and learned more about technology and video production than they could ever have imagined. Now, into September, we still, with good reason, are a virtual church and stewardship season is just around the corner. The pastors we’ve talked to are mostly going with a modified version of programs they’ve used in recent years. Some are using components of Herb Miller’s Consecration Sunday (see resources below). Others are using letter writing campaigns and lay testimony shared via letter and perhaps video. Most of the published stewardship curriculum is designed for in-person gatherings and small groups and most of this curriculum can be modified to work online. We list a few…

This month we are praying for pastors who are getting to know new congregations while social distancing. An appointment change can be stressful even without accounting for the physical and emotional strain of the pandemic. On top of everything else, if giving is down due to the lack of in-person worship, new pastors may be forced to address stewardship earlier and more seriously than they might have otherwise.

Cesie Delve-Scheuermann, author of the excellent blog, “Inspiring Generosity,” encourages pastors to “take the bull by the proverbial horns” and face the topic head-on.

December is one of the busiest seasons for church leaders, so it’s easy to put fundraising on the back burner. But the truth is, if you’re not making a year-end-appeal, you’re leaving money on the table. An appeal doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, you could:

send out a letter from the pastor in the mail this week (template below)

print a brochure to use as a bulletin insert on December 15th (the linked file is print-ready, and includes crop marks for your local printshop to use) and make a brief announcement about it during worship

send a brief email on December 31st (template below)

If you haven’t made a plan already, you can adjust these templates, calendar them, and delegate them today. Then, let your year-end appeal run on autopilot while you focus on the coming of the Christ child.

With fall rapidly approaching, we sit on the cusp of another busy ministry season.  Last week we published a review of seven popular stewardship campaigns. They fell into two broad categories: the small group study campaigns, and the commitment Sunday campaigns. Choosing the right campaign for your context is important. But the financial culture that your congregation develops year-round is even more important. As you begin your work towards a successful campaign, here are a few learnings that I’ve gleaned over the years as pastor and superintendent that have shown to be relevant to stewardship in our local churches:

It’s August! With people returning from vacation, Sunday schools starting up, choirs beginning rehearsal, and committee groups reconvening, our churches will soon be buzzing with activity. Amidst this there is, of course, the 2019 annual giving campaign that must be planned.

Before diving into the seven specific programs outlined below, let me share a word about annual stewardship campaigns.  Most of them include 4 weeks of material for a program, but please consider your context. How long will it take to get ready? What will need to be prepared ahead of time? What about…

• Small groups?

• Guest speaker?

• Pledge letter or pledge cards?

• Community meal?

• Promotion via website, social media, newsletter, emails, and worship bulletins?

All these require some planning ahead of time, preferably with a team and a chairperson.  If you don’t have one, begin recruiting a chairperson right now. Meet as early as possible with your team to get the planning going.

Love it or hate it (or just scratch your head at it), the new tax law has changed the way that a lot of us are filing our taxes this spring. The standard deduction has increased dramatically, which means that many people who itemized deductions in the past will no longer have the incentive to do so. If they don’t itemize, they won’t get a charitable deduction for any gifts that they made from a checking or savings account in 2018.

People shouldn’t have to pay taxes on money they give to charity…