S1E64 - Stewardship

This is Ben.

And this is Keith, and this is Main Street Lutherans. And today we have an opportunity to hear from a pastor on a particular topic that lots of pastors either are curious about or hate or anywhere in between, congregations as well, and that is stewardship. And the pastor is Paul Walters. And Ben, you've had some encounters with this guy before we recorded, right?

Yes, Paul actually was part of my, uh, part of my, the team that, that, uh, interviewed me for my entrance into candidacy. Oh wow. That's how we had a long conversation. And so that sort of begun all of this stuff. He's, he is the pastor at Lutheran Church of the Master in Troy, Michigan, down here in the Southeast Michigan Synod. Uh, he's a a consultant for GSB Fundraising, which is an organization that works with churches on stewardship campaigns. And so that's why we're gonna— why we wanna talk. Stewardship is one of those things that we talk about in November. I think often because of Thanksgiving, we think about giving thanks, we think about those sorts of things, giving back. It's also right before the end of the year appeals from like your public radio station and stuff. stuff right before they start to do the clearance sales at the car lots too, right? Right. And so people are thinking about finances. The church is putting, usually putting budgets together either because the church financial year starts in either January or sometimes it starts with Advent. So maybe the beginning of December. And so we thought we'd talk about stewardship and how that happens. Usually when I was growing up in church, stewardship would be like a time and talents survey that would go out and you would commit to how much money you were going to give and what kind of volunteering you would do for the year. And the church would mine that for data on who to be ushers and who could go visit the shut-ins and who could do all this, and that would be your list until the next year. I don't think we do it quite that way most of the places anymore. But I don't know what kind of stewardship, I mean, is stewardship a season? Should we just add it to the church right before Advent? We have stewardship season and we add it to the lectionary.

Right, it definitely feels that way in some ways. And yeah, so St. Matt's, we've actually worked with GSB. So I'm familiar with a lot of the stuff that Paul was talking about, although we had a different consultant, and he talks about the organization a little bit. But yeah, St. Matt's, we used GSB as consultants for 3 years, and now this year, 2026, is the first year that we're kind of trying to, having internalized their method, and we did the Stewardship for All Seasons program that Paul refers to. Having sort of internalized that method now, we're embarking off on our own. to try to do something very similar, but, you know, without, without the consultant's assistance at this point. So yeah, we, we do ours in, um, like fall, so it kind of starts quietly in typically September, like mid to late September, and then becomes a little louder, you know, through October. And, um, we do our Commitment Sunday, the Sunday where folks turn in what they're intending to give in the following year. We do that on Reformation Sunday, which is kind of a— and it—

Does everybody nail it to the door?

We don't. We've talked about that, but our doors are antique and/or glass, and so neither of those is amenable to having nails added to them. But

okay,

yeah, but it doesn't, you know, people wonder if it like distracts from Reformation Sunday, but actually it doesn't. It just adds to it. You know, this notion of the Spirit, you know, reforming the church and the people's response, you know, of sort of reinvesting themselves, you know, in somewhat of a literal fashion in this case, into the lifeblood of the congregation. And so it's actually really cool. Anyhow, that's just my personal argument for that.

I guess you could say that your pledge is, you know, your statement of here I stand.

Yeah, and like, you know, the end of the year— so it is funny that churches have begun to practice the liturgical season of November, which doesn't, you know, but it's like, we're still in the Sundays after Pentecost, that long green season that takes up half the church year. It ends at Christ the King Sunday or Reign of Christ Sunday, which is somewhere late in November, right before the beginning of Advent and the new church year. And so, you know, all of the scripture readings, once you get to about late October, especially if you don't use the scripture readings for Reformation Sunday, by then you've definitely started getting into the like end times gospel readings.

Which is like pre-Advent.

Right. It is. Yeah. And it's this sort of bridge between the end of one church year and the beginning of another. And those those scriptures also really do lend themselves quite easily to stewardship focuses. So it's not really a bad thing. And plus, like you said, it's the end of the year. A lot of churches, their fiscal year is either tied to the calendar year or within a month of it, like beginning of Advent, maybe February, et cetera. So You know, lots of people are, you know, with the holiday spirit, they're in that I'm looking for organizations to give to. So it makes sense that the church, you know, wants to capitalize.

Put its name in.

On that as well, right? So, yeah, so it's, and yet at the same time, it's a lot of pressure for church leaders, not just pastors, but laypeople, worship leaders, council members, stewardship teams, you know, all of that, because it is just, there's a lot going on. Right.

Well, and when you sign up to lead Sunday school, you don't think that you're signing up to budget for Sunday school.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And yet you're asked to weigh in on what curriculum you're going to use next year and how much is that going to cost. And the same thing is true for the people on the property committee and the dinners committee or the fellowship committee, whatever that is. And, you know, all these different groups, you got to figure out how much money you're going to use next year, all at the same time that you're just trying to plan your holiday shopping list and invites for Thanksgiving and all of that kind of stuff. And the church schedule is just as busy. You know, we actually— St. Matthew does this thing that we call the Season of Giving that is just a catch-all term for all of the non-financial, predominantly, contributions they're asking for at this time of year. So we've got, you know, Harvest Home, which replenishes the shelves in our food pantry. We give out Thanksgiving baskets to families in our community. We have a Christmas shop that gives out items to our assistance ministry clients for Christmas gifts. And so there's just lots of, you know, we're just, we're asking, it's not asking for money, we're asking for, you know, donate a frozen turkey, donate socks and blankets for the Christmas shop, take a tag off of the tree to buy a Christmas present for a local teenager. All of that happening in like basically October, November, and December. And so to help everybody at St. Matthew, leaders, staff, members alike, keep track of it, we call it the Season of Giving and we just put this kind of calendar of timelines onto it of all these different in-kind asks that are happening. And that's happening at the same time as our stewardship appeal for next year. And it's happening at the same time as we're beginning to point out to folks that yes, you know, as the end of the year's wrapping up, we would really love to meet our 2026 budget. And so there's, there's just a lot, there's a lot going on. Yeah. And, and so the idea of, of stewardship happening as a year-round thing both seems like a lot of work and, you know, is really smart because it takes the pressure off of that one season at least a little bit, right? Even if you still have a stewardship appeal that happens in fall, by having created some energy and interest and discussion around it throughout the year, it just makes it a little bit more just a part of what you do.

Yeah. So one of the reasons we do stewardship too in churches— now I should say the church that I'm with right now at Good Hope, there isn't a stewardship season. They gave up on that because it stopped being effective. And there's some reasons for that perhaps, but it's interesting because they will do a capital campaign. They replaced the roof last year, and so that needed money in addition to what they had in savings. They asked for— they had an appeal for special money for that. I know a church that's closer to my house than the church I work at had a special fundraiser to pay off the mortgage, and they accomplished that in just a few weeks. Yeah. They got people to contribute to that. So, so there are all sorts of reasons why churches ask for money. And I want to add to this that if you're new to churches or if you're new to the Lutheran Church, the budget is an open thing. Certainly at the annual meeting where they approve the budget, everybody gets to see it and everybody gets to see what the actual spending was the year before.

And everybody gets to vote on it.

That's right. And if you're worried about, you know, the pastors taking, you know, 3 quarters of the money, well, if, if the church only has about $100,000, that might be true. If it's a full-time pastor, certainly. But that's a normal income these days. And so, but you can see where the money goes. You can see how much goes toward debt payments, how much goes to benevolence, to the synod and to other organizations. You can see where that money goes. And one of the things that Paul Walters is gonna mention here is that, you know, where your money is, there your heart is also.

Mm-hmm.

And that's true for our congregations. Right? You can see where a congregation's heart is by what things they contribute to. You know, are they contributing to the food bank? Do they have a food bank that they fund? Are they giving money to arts organizations? Are they giving money to, you know, other things? Or are they just, you know, is it going into— I don't know where they would go into if You know, the the famous TV preachers where where their money would be going, you know, into private jets or whatever. You could see all that because we're we're open with the congregation. As a as a member of the congregation, you are an owner of the organization. You get to vote, and and it's a real vote. And so so take the time to look at that if you're if you're interested. And if you're new to the to the church. I would say, you know, ask. Find out. You know, it's ours. Actually, our budget is hanging right outside the church office. So you could just walk up after church and take a look at it. And you can see what the current month's spendings are even and all that. So, so lots of things going on there.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So with no more from us, let's get to talking to Paul Walters. Well, we have Paul Walters here with us to talk about stewardship. Um, when I asked around about stewardship things, people in our area said, hey, talk to Paul. You have a reputation for talking about stewardship.

As I should.

Yeah, why is that?

As you should, because I do. I help churches have money for their mission and make it happen.

Yeah.

And, uh, and it's, uh, it's a beautiful thing to watch that evolve and watch pastors grow into that space and watch the churches flourish because of it.

So stewardship is a word that we use in the church that probably has other words in other areas. You know, stewardship, you know, maybe giving, you know, if we're doing fundraising for a museum.

It's a code word for money and raising money. Let's be honest. That's what stewardship has become. Although, but that's actually backwards, backwards thinking. Stewardship done well is about mission and story. And when it's about mission and story, and when it's about vision and future, people want to be a part of it. And people know that money makes things happen. Money is a, is a tool. And if we have more of that tool, we'll be able to do more things. Yeah. That's, you know, that, you know, that in your life, right? You know, and that's just true. Now, obviously, there are extremes, but you know, so stewardship is about telling stories really. Now, a couple of statistics that are a little sobering, one from a general statistic and one from my personal experience, and that is that the median Protestant gift by percentage of income according to some studies— now, tithing is theoretically giving 10% of your income. Right? We don't talk about that anymore because the median gift, which means half give more, half give less, the median gift in Protestant churches is less than 1%. It's about 0.6% of income. Wow. Right? Which is a long way from tithing. And if you tell people to be faithful, they have to give 10%, and they're giving 4% or 0.4%, chances are they're more likely to give 0.3% next year than than 10%, right? Um, so, so there's that. Um, in my personal experience, I can tell you that working with churches literally from Connecticut to California, uh, one of the things we ask churches to do often— I ask them to do— is I ask them to, to create a chart that shows how many people give at different giving levels per week, and we break it down by week. So how many people give $400 a week at your church and how many people give less than $5? In most churches, that graph is a ski slope, very few at the top and a whole lot at the bottom. And in almost every single church I work with, 50% or more of the households give less than $20 a week in offering, less than $1,000 a year. Wow. I would also suggest that the one move that people want to make is to talk about how stingy and cheap people are then. But I think that's the wrong move. I think the right move to make is to realize that part— that the real problem is not that people aren't given money. Some of those people are given what they can, and some of those people are at capacity. I'm certain that 100% are not at capacity. 100% are not nowhere near capacity. I think the onus is on the church. The church has not done a good job of giving people reasons to be more generous. And we now live in a nonprofit world where every nonprofit around you is telling stories about why you should help the poor dogs, or why you should help the trees, or why you should help this or that. Everybody's telling stories. The church just says you should just give us more money. And why are you being so stingy? Right? We need to give people reasons. And we need to tell stories, and we need to remind them that just getting together and singing songs on Sunday morning is a deeply moving, powerful, profound experience, especially when on Tuesday when you're having a crappy day, part of that hymn can come floating back into your mind and bring you back to that space of tranquility and peace and hope and grace from Sunday morning. We got stories to tell. We just don't do a very good job at telling them. And we don't do a good job of giving people reasons to be generous. And then we complain that they're not generous because we haven't given them a good reason to be generous. That's not fair.

Right. So how do we do that?

We tell stories. Yeah. So literally, like, like, for example, there's a lot of churches with debt problems, right? Huge, huge mortgage debts. And servicing the debt is limiting their capacity for ministry. Sure. So imagine a church with half a million dollars worth of debt and it's costing them $50,000, $60,000 a year to service that debt, right? And now imagine what you could do with $50,000 or $60,000 a year if you weren't servicing that debt.

Sure.

What if the debt's gone and you got $50,000 or $60,000 a year? Well, maybe you say, well, that was to the building. Buildings are always going to cost money and they're expensive. Commercial buildings are expensive. So we're going to dedicate $15,000 of that $50,000 every year. For the roof and the furnaces. One for the building, for what it is. And so that maybe you don't have to ask people for as much money the next time we have a crisis, or we can like do some things without asking for money. So we're— but then we got $35,000 a year. Well, why don't we tell a story? What can you do? What ministry is God calling you to do in your place for 35 grand a year? What ministry can help expand the gospel and help proclaim the gospel and embody the gospel? What can you do with that money? And then you tell those stories and you say, look, First off, when we get rid of this debt, we're going to take care of the building because that's responsible and we're good responsible people. But we're also going to do this beautiful ministry that we're really excited about, and we're going to tell you the story of that. And then debt reduction campaign isn't about saving money on interest; that motivates very few people significantly, and it becomes about this ministry that's possible because of our generosity. So that so that's you know that's how you tell those stories. We also need to not just tell the stories three times a year, but the week before we ask. people to make annual pledges or return intent cards for stewardship, right? The challenge with that is being able to do it consistently and being able to tell those stories in ways that are sustainable. Very few churches are going to have 52 people who can come up every Sunday and one Sunday a month— every Sunday of the year tell a story about what's going on. Right. I begin worship at my church by saying, welcome to Lutheran Church of the Master where faith comes alive. Faith comes alive as we— and I tell some story about ministry. And a lot of weeks it's really easy.

Yeah.

But some of those weeks I'm reaching. You know, you're looking for— because I got to do that 52 times a year, you know. Right. So what is sustainable? How frequently can you tell those kinds of stories? Who can tell those stories for you? And how can you get the right stories told at the right time to motivate the people? You know, is that a monthly thing? Is that a quarterly thing? Is that, you know, is that something that you do before worship, in the middle of worship, Is it something you do? You know, can you record it with video and then put that on your social media platforms? You know, can you put it in writing and shoot it out in an email? Those kinds of things. The more you can do that. Now, that's the big picture. There are also some technical things that we can bring to bear to help increase generosity, to inspire people. Part of what we have to do is we have to meet people where they are. And we have to treat them as individuals. And, and part of that means that if you're giving $10 a week to the church, you're probably in a different space than the person giving $200 a week to the church. There's not judgment around that. It's just different. You're in a different space.

Right.

And so we need to meet people where they are, and we need to give them an opportunity to be able to grow into more. And so, and so you're— and one of my, one of my colleagues who I— not a client, but I advise him some and we talk and he says, I got this idea for stewardship this fall, but you're going to hate it. I go, okay, well, what do you got for me? He goes, well, what if we just— I just want to tell everybody they should get $5 a week more. I go, you're right, I hate it. It's like, okay, what's wrong with that? I'm like, well, it's, it's not fair. It's actually not fair and it doesn't— it's not appropriate and it doesn't give people autonomy and agency to decide what they should do for themselves. You know, if you're given $10 a week and you give $5 more, you've got a 50% increase, which is great, but maybe that's far lower than you have capacity for. Maybe we should ask you to give a 200% increase at that kind of level. And on the other hand, the person given $300 a week is now giving $305. Like, is that— that hasn't really changed their giving, right? You know, um, and maybe—

You can't feel it.

No, no, no. Um, and, and there are other people who maybe should give less this year. Life circumstances, life changes, stuff happens, right? Um, and, and there are other, you know, and so, and so instead, let's create, um, let's meet people where they are and then give them kind of things to think about for ways to give more, or even better, Look at every single family in the church and write a different letter to every single household and invite them to consider increasing their giving by very specific amounts relative to who they are and where they are in life. Because we know who they are, we know what they're like, and we meet them where they are. We give them a place to grow on their journey.

So that brings up a question about pastors and the finances.

This is the most ridiculous question I ever get.

Is it?

In what world outside the church would the leader of the organization not know their donors and what they give? In what world? And, and, um, and why is it that somebody thinks they can go, uh, to sit down with their pastor and talk about their impending divorce and all of the nastiness that may or may not be present around that But that pastor shouldn't know how much money they give. That's that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and and if money money is also it is Jesus says where your treasure is your heart will be also. Jesus lets us know that money is a spiritual thing. Jesus talks about money as much or more than he talks about pretty much anything else. So it seems to me that your spiritual leader should know something about it. If you are a pastor and you don't know how much money people give, and you when you find out. I guarantee you will learn something interesting.

Yeah.

I don't know what it is, but I 100% guarantee when you find out who gives what, you will find out something interesting. And oftentimes in my— I've been ordained now for going on 30 years. My experience has been almost universally that the people that are most generous and give the most dollar for dollar Give it and let it go. And the people that complain the most and nitpick finances the most are often the ones that give the least.

You know, the— I was a member of a PCUSA church for a bit in southern Indiana. And while we were there, I had smaller kids. I think, you know, kids are about 2 years apart. And so, I think kindergarten and second grade. And a member of this church, he called himself Builder Bob. He was an engineer, and most of the people in that city were engineers anyway. But Builder Bob, he made a lot of money for himself. He was a big donor to the church. But he came to me specifically and he said, Ben, I want you to tell me what I can fund at this church that will make your family more comfortable here, and we'll make it so that other families like yours could be here. I want you to tell me what to spend this money on, and we will make it happen, right? And I don't think that is a rare attitude of folks who, who are committed to the church and who are giving, right? I think, I think what you're talking about proves that out quite a bit.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I

need lots of Builder Bobs.

Yeah, uh, you know, um, and they give, they give without reservation, and they give because they want to see good things happen. And they, you know, in churches with a high degree of trust, there's more generosity too. Okay, if you don't trust the money's going to be spent well, you're not going to— why would you give,

right?

Um, one of the— a couple of, you know, some of the things that people like to do that are not always helpful, uh, one of the things people love to do is they like the idea of doing time, talent, and treasure, and we do it all together.

Yeah.

And that sounds all wonderful because it's all T-words and everything else. But ultimately what that does is it gives people an excuse not to be generous. I don't think Jesus and God just wants our time. I think God wants our money too. I don't think it's an either/or. I think it's a both/and. And some of your biggest volunteers are going to be the most generous people. And combining all those things just gives people an excuse not to be financially generous. And so, and so, you know, that we talked before we started this, we talked a little bit about grants and things like that. Grants can be a great tool, but they're going to come and go. And ultimately, you're going to fund the ministry from the people that are there. And grants are also kind of a pipe dream for finding ways to fund your ministry without actually funding your ministry. Right. So you use OPM, right? Other people's money. You know, it's like when I take my kids out to dinner.

Yeah.

You know, I don't— I don't think they upgrade everything when they're on their own. But man, that extra bacon strip is always on the table. that I'm buying.

Maybe the first time they eat out at college.

Yeah.

They go, whoa, whoa, whoa, where'd that come from? Yeah,

absolutely.

Yeah, so, you know, as you're talking about this, this seems like something that would build the strength of congregation, that people understanding the vision, understanding what the church is doing for the congregation itself and for the community around it, seems like what we're talking about being a church is all about anyway.

Right, and it can, you know, now they're, so they're really kind of, they're kind of 4 places of giving. There's the annual appeal. Every year we need to remind people we got more ministry next year that we're excited about and we want you to support and we need new money to make that happen. Every year we need to do that. Yeah. There are special appeals where those tend to be like upwards of 50% of the annual budget, maybe less, often less. for like a one-off project. You know, we need to replace the roof, it's gonna be $75,000, we need to raise that, right? So those are typically like a shorter timeframe, 3 to 4 week kind of process. Capital campaigns are, you know, 2 to 5 times the annual budget, depending on the context and the projects involved and all that kind of stuff, casting a bigger vision and a longer-term buildup to get there. And then the last version is like estate and planned giving, kind of that sort of final gift, often funding endowments and things like that.

Sure.

But with annual giving, special appeal, and capital campaigns, ultimately what you get to do is you get to kind of focus on your ministry and what you're doing. And you get to be, especially with the capital campaign, you got to be crystal clear about what you're going to do with that money when you get it. You know, what is this for and how's it going to impact it? How's it going to make a difference? And then And then, and that, that really can be energizing for the congregation. There's nothing like kind of laser-focused on one thing, right, to see happen. And if you do it right and you have kind of a soft opening and you get some of those large gifts early and you create a gift chart that shows people how we get from $0 to $1 million, right? Yeah. No, you don't get a thermometer out. You don't do thermometers anymore. And you don't do this $5 at a time. What you do is you get people to commit 10 to 20% of your goal at the front end of your project.

Okay.

And then you slowly announce those gifts out and build energy so that by the time the whole congregation finally gets to return their intent cards, they see huge build, they see huge buy-in, and they see huge momentum.

Yeah.

Yeah. But it can be really life-giving for a congregation and really energizing, and especially, and even in, you know, I'm working with a congregation right now that's a small congregation. They need about $175,000 to redo a bunch of stuff in their building. And they were pretty sure nobody was going to give them a big gift and pretty sure nobody could, that they weren't really going to be able to do this. And before we publicly launched the campaign, the pastor had some conversations and We haven't told the congregation everything yet because we're dribbling out the information, but she secured almost $100,000 in gifts before we launched the campaign. And every week as that campaign builds, that pastor gets to announce another $30,000 gift, $15,000 gift, $20,000 gift that's going to validate the whole thing.

Yeah.

And going to open up more generosity and more people.

And gets more people to be able to participate too. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's, that's, that's great. Um, so we, we've talked about how this, how this works. Um, how does, you know, I'm thinking of the, the context I'm in, you know, I'm a part-time, uh, pastoral presence in a church. You know, I don't have, you know, I barely have time to, to get the, the required stuff in. Oh, as you know, pastors are overworked in all sorts of ways. What kind of resources are there for folks to be able to—

Well, I think as a pastor, you have to choose where you're going to overfunction.

Sure.

And I think, you know, there are things that you could— you need to let go, right? And things you can let fail. There are other places where I think you have to choose to overfunction. And I think stewardship and the annual appeal is a place pastors need to lean in and choose to overfunction. Now, it's always nice to have a team. The reality is the pastor is always the best writer in the house, almost always the best writer. They have the most skin in the game and are in the best position to oversee some things. So I work with GSB Fundraising, used to stand for Grunther, Sayer, and Bronkow. Grunther is deceased, Sayer and Bronkow are now emeritus and retired, so now it just stands for GSB. We have about 2 dozen about 2 dozen consultants across the country, some 6 partners, some full-time, some part-time like myself. And we have a couple of different programs we work with for annual appeals. One is called Building a Culture of Generosity. This is, it is relatively low cost. You get access to a website, you get downloadable Word documents that you get to customize. Or rewrite, kind of get an outline of what you're supposed to write and you make it your own. So we kind of give you the templates for all those pieces. We have 6 Zoom meetings that are, are a cohort-based, national cohort-based meeting. So you attend these, these 6 different meetings through the court from August through November, which keeps you on track, right? Once when you have a meeting, there's accountability kind of built in. Right. Those are recorded. So if you can't make the meeting, Go watch them later. Laypeople are encouraged to be part of that. And we walk you through the process of informing, inspiring, inviting, and sharing impact. We walk you through that process and give you the tools to be able to do that. Even with that program, we tend to see 5% plus increases in giving over the course of a year. And then we give you access to— the Zoom meetings are live. You can, like I said, you can watch the recording and then we give you access to myself or one of the other consultants. Like, so if you need help, you know, jump on my calendar and we'll talk you through whatever challenges you have on that journey. And that is a great program for smaller congregations and for congregations that haven't done anything in a long time and just want to get started. Yeah. Our flagship program for annual appeals is called Stewardship for All reasons. And this one is much more customized, much more intimate. Instead of a cohort with 20 or 30 churches in it, you have a cohort with 10. They're more regional and less national cohorts. You don't get— you get fully customized and individualized bulletin inserts with your own pictures, your own logo, your own stuff, bulletin inserts, intent cards, all that kind of stuff. We do all that work for you. You have to write the content because you got to tell your story. And we're very intentional about 3 goals for the coming year that you need new money for, help you figure out, make sure they're goals and not tactics, help you tell your story well with that, and then walk you through a process of telling your story, sharing that, inspiring people, inspiring people some more, and then one more time inspiring them. Yeah. And, and walk through that. And because it's stewardship for all seasons, it's a 12-month program. So, We start in May or June, get you prepped for all that content you got to produce for the fall, and then, and telling your story and all that energy around that and celebrating the increase you see. And often with that program, we see 10 to 15% increases in giving.

Hmm.

And then, and then in the winter months, we put you into a winter track. So I lead one on having an awesome congregational council. We have one on volunteer recruitment. which is also about identifying, informing, inspiring, inviting people. We have one on planned giving. We have a track that focuses on storytelling. We have, you know, a number of these different kinds of tracks to give you one thing to focus on to get better at in the coming year. And in all of these, we want you to do it more than once because it's not about— it's not just about It's not just about having a great annual appeal one year. It's about changing culture from scarcity to abundance and seeing where God is at work in the midst of everything you're doing.

Yeah. So if, if somebody's, you know, not everybody listens to this is a pastor, but if, say, say somebody's on church council, what's one thing they can take to their church council you know, this month?

Aside from calling me?

Well, yeah, but, you know, what could they, what could they tell their,

you know— I would love to— the question, the most important question I think to ask is, what, what do you, what do you love about your church and what are you excited about? And what new ministry are you not engaged in because you don't think you have enough money for? Or another fun question is, If you had $1 million and you had to spend it this year and you couldn't put it into an endowment, Yeah. What would you do? And what, what would you start? What would you make happen? You know, some of those kind of pieces. Really, what's our story and what are we excited about? I know a pastor who every council meeting starts the council meeting by saying, where did you see God at work in the world this last month? Because we're not good at having those kind of conversations.

Yeah,

we don't. We're not good at thinking theologically about the random events of our lives. And that question helps frame that for people. So how can we kind of help people see God in the midst of what we're doing and what's happening?

Yeah, you know, I had— I didn't even think about this. I just a couple of weeks ago was at our church, Good Hope. In Garden City has, um, we, we rent out some space to a Pentecostal, a Black Pentecostal church, right? And they, they have like a dozen seats, and they, they, they, uh, basically livestream every other week, uh, from there, and they do this thing. But, but their pastor was installed in this, in this, uh, Pentecostal denomination, um, uh, a few weeks ago, and it started with an appeal for gifts. And they had their, their, you know, QR code so you could get on Venmo and do it, Cash And all these things, and then they they made it very clear: This is to get this church started under new leadership, right? And this is this is their their startup money. The money that we're going to give them personally is going to come at the end. So they did two very specific appeals for money there, but also the the the experience of the service was very opposite to what we're used to in Lutheranism, right? It was very open to the Holy Spirit in a way that we just don't see. in, in our churches so much. And, and so just seeing that the stewardship approach and, and the, the worship experience itself were so very polar opposite to what we do. And I don't— I'm not saying that, that we want to go that way, uh, with things, you know. I think there is a balance in there, um, and that we could be more open about talking about how we fund our ministry. And we can be more open to the Holy Spirit.

Well, yeah, and again, we need to help people see how we get there.

Yeah.

And we also need to create expectations. So, so a friend of mine in Virginia, he, his church, he said, oh, we got our, we got our baked potato dinner coming up. It's gonna be great. We're funding the youth. We're gonna make like $300. I don't know why we do this. I was like, well, how about you do that differently? Mike Ward's a senior partner at GSP. He calls it the $10,000 car wash. So most of the time when we do funding for youth ministry with a meal, what we say is we have a mediocre meal.

Mm-hmm.

And we're gonna ask you to give us like $3 a person, $20 for a family, and you can come and have a mediocre dinner. And oh, by the way, the money we raise is gonna help the youth. Woohoo, we raised $332 this year. Isn't that great? Right,

out of the $10,000 it'll take to go to Minneapolis. Yeah,

or yeah, whatever, you know, who cares? $300. I mean, good Lord, you take, you take a family of 4 to Five Guys and you're out $1.20, you know, $100, you know, out $120 at Five Guys for family to go out to dinner, you know.

Yeah.

Um, so, uh, Instead, he— the next year, he did it differently. He said, we've got a couple of things. We've got a couple of things we need to have happen. Kids are going to the National Youth Gathering. Something else is happening. We actually need $10,000 to make that happen. And so, this year at the pancake supper— so, before the pancake supper, he found a donor to give him $2,000. And he built a gift chart that said, our goal is $10,000. That means we need one person to give us $2,000, somebody else to give us $1,000, a couple people to give us $500, a bunch of people to give us $250, and some people to give us $100, and then any other gifts. And that's going to get us to $10,000, right? Mm-hmm. And he got the first, the lead gift, the $2,000 secured before the event even happened. And then he said, oh, by the way, not only that, I got somebody else to donate all the food. So the meal's free. The meal is free. So come eat, have a great meal. It's going to be fun. We'll have baked potato bar and we'll do it up. You have all the fixings and all the sides and Bring the kids. It's 100% free. We are trying to raise money for the youth. We need $10,000. It's going to give them a life-changing experience. And the kids are going to write what they hope to experience, you know, on a placemat that's going to be in front of you. And we're going to remind you time and time again that this is going to change their lives for the better. Maybe we're even going to get some parents who remember going to the National Youth Gathering when they were kids and why it mattered to them, and they're gonna tell their stories on Sunday mornings. We're gonna spend a couple weeks telling people about this thing coming up, and then we're gonna remind them that we already got the hardest gift, the first gift. Somebody's already in for $2,000 for this. This is now a multi-year tradition in his church. The first year they raised $10,000. They've raised around that every year for different things like that. And the other thing is he has people calling him in January saying, hey, are we doing that baked potato thing in February again like we did last year? Do you have somebody for the lead gift? Because I could do that if you need me to. He's flipped the whole culture and the whole mindset because the point isn't a cheap dinner to raise a little bit of money. The point is we're going to get together and have fun and we're going to make a difference in our kids' lives and people are willing to invest in that. Yeah. And so, if you flip that script on those things, silent auctions, charities love silent auctions. And every— and everybody walks up to a silent auction, looks at the basket and thinks, well, that's worth $100. I wonder if I can get it for $50, maybe $25, right? Your goal is to spend as little as possible. Well, well, how about what if you got— you said we've got baskets, got 10 baskets. I don't know what they're worth, but I've got, um, I got a donor that's going to give me $500, going to match up to $500 per basket. Right. So I got a donor to give $5,000. I'm going to match up to $500 per basket, right? So now you've flipped people's thinking,

right?

You know, and so the more you give, every dollar you give is matched by somebody else. So your dollars are actually going further towards that. And oh, by the way, you get this basket. And the point of the auction isn't the basket. The point of the auction is the ministry, the thing happening, right? The charity or what they do and how they make lives better. Right.

Right. And our youth sports groups have figured this out, and our, our, um, you know, arts organizations have figured this out.

I don't know. My kids played soccer, and they were just— they were almost mercenary with the way they did that, you know. They had this— oh, they had the, the— you— they, uh, they said— oh no, no, they had a car wash. Their car wash was brilliantly evil for the, for the soccer club, the high school soccer club. They told you Bring your checkbook to this meeting. And one of the checks you had to write as a parent was $100 towards the car wash. Then you got 10 tickets that you could sell to people in the community to go get car washes. And you hand these to your kid who is 100% unmotivated to sell a single car wash ticket to anybody because mom and dad already shelled out the $100 and they're good.

So, everybody at the office is getting You know, $3, I'll give it to you for $8.

Just, yeah, no, I didn't make you.

Yeah.

Anyway, so there are, but there are ways we can, we can do those kind of things and we can make it, we can make it fun, but we can make it about ministry.

Right.

And even capital campaigns can be really focused and energizing around that, around who you are as a congregation, who you want to be and what you want to make happen. and can, can be life-giving in congregations. Well,

I think that's a lot of work congregations often need to do anyway. Maybe, maybe they did it 20 years ago and, and it changes.

Yeah, yeah. One of the, one of the other experiences, you know, church giving is cyclical, right? People, you get different amounts in different months and expenses are cyclical and those don't always match up. And occasionally there are people that want to write the, oh my gosh, we have no money, letter. Right. So a couple of things that I always tell people. One is the boat can only sink once. If it's a crisis, it better be a real crisis because you can't keep having crises every year because people aren't going to reengage. And the other thing about that, oh my gosh, we have no money letter, is we need to find out why we don't have any money. Do we not have money because the most generous, the biggest giver in the church has moved or died? and isn't giving us money anymore. Mm-hmm. And maybe everybody else has stepped up, but that generous donor is no longer there. So there's a hole. That's a problem. But let's at least be honest about what the problem is, right? You know, the other thing is oftentimes that letter is about guilt and shame, and the letter goes out and says you should give more, you should step up, which is the worst message you can ever give. Yeah. If you want to send out that letter, the message has to be join us. And the way it becomes— it goes from you should to join us is when every— when the letter says that everybody on council and everybody on the finance team has given a meaningful gift towards reducing this deficit. Join us in giving a meaningful gift that helping us reach our goal of whatever. Then you can write the letter, right? Because it's not shame and guilt. It's about join us and making a difference.

Yeah. And I would think if my experience is that folks who are on boards who give a meaningful gift, you don't need to write the letter, not because you don't need the money, but because it's obvious to everybody that those people have given a meaningful gift.

Yeah, probably. Probably. There's, I mean, there's opportunity, but it needs to be an inspiring thing. Better than that is don't write the letter at all and just Just spend the entire summer telling people stories about how your church is making a difference in the world and why they love their church.

Yeah,

every Sunday have a new layperson spend 3 minutes saying why I love Good Hope Garden City and why it changes my life and why I show up here every Sunday morning. Get somebody to stand up there and say, this is the best hour of my week and let me tell you why, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. And if we all do that, we have a much stronger church.

Absolutely, absolutely. And funds for ministry.

Yeah, it's always good to have it too. All right, well, this has been great. I'm so glad we, we talked about this and everyone said we should, we should talk about that. So, um, we're gonna have, uh, links to, to different things— GSB fundraising and, and, uh, some of those—

paulewalters.com.

There you go. And we'll get it all together. And of course, we'll talk about the pilgrimages too there. So—

Absolutely.

We get it all together. All right. Well, thank you so much. I'm so glad we got to chat.

Well, thanks to Paul Walters for talking with us about stewardship. We'll have all of his links in the episode notes. He did mention that his— if you go to his personal website, I think it's paulwalters.com,

The E is in there. Paul E. Walters.

Paul E. Walters. That it routes to his stewardship stuff, but also to the trip organizing things that he does. We'll be talking with him in a few more weeks about pilgrimages and some interesting stuff about that. I think we'll have that closer to Christmas here. So thanks, Paul. Appreciate your educating us on stewardship.

Yeah, and I mentioned in our intro that St. Matthew, where I'm called to, has also used GSB, the same organization that Paul works for. And so I'd like to give a shout out to Pastor Nathan Swenson-Reinhold, who was our consultant for several years prior to sort of setting us off as fledglings out of the nest on our own this year. And for what it's worth, just one other person's opinion, we've really benefited from that relationship. And so we're grateful to Nathan and GSB for what they've been able to share with us.

Yeah, it's probably important to note that very few people that are working in a church environment as volunteers or professionally set out to be fundraisers. And so having So having consultants that, that are good at that, that can share experience learned by other places is a helpful thing.

Absolutely.

So Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fote, and the show is produced by Fote Media Productions. Find all our contact information, links, and a transcript in the episode notes. Until next time, go in peace, serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.