Many pastors ask if their church can simply use PayPal for their online giving. The answer is yes! Paypal can be an effective tool, but let’s back up and first ask: what do you want to accomplish by providing electronic giving?
Electronic giving should be used as a tool to help develop generous people who can easily and effectively support the vision of the church. Here’s a checklist for evaluating an e-giving solution:
As a leader one of the most valuable practices you implement for your emerging leaders is to systematically explain the why behind the what.
We’ve all probably heard the story of the scientific experiment about the monkeys, banana, and water.
Five monkeys are locked in a cage, a banana was hung from the ceiling and a ladder was placed right underneath it. As predicted, immediately, one of the monkeys would race towards the ladder, to grab the banana. However, as soon as he would start to climb, the researcher would spray the monkey with ice-cold water. But here’s the kicker – he would also spray the other four monkeys. When a second monkey tried to climb the ladder, the researcher would again spray all the monkeys with the cold water. This was repeated again and again until they learned their lesson – climbing equals a spray of cold water for everyone, so no one climbs the ladder. Continue Reading…
David Messner and I have been working on a new resource of AG Financial to help pastors spark a movement of generosity in their church. We know that every church has a “gap” between their current reality and their vision. And every church needs a GAP – a Generosity Action Plan. Every pastor needs a strategy on how they are going to resource their God-given vision. That’s why we’ve created the Generosity Action Plan Membership website. It gives you monthly coaching, done-for-you materials, and insights from pastors across the country on how to develop a culture of generosity within your church.
At my home church, we’ve been going through a series on Nehemiah called “Built to Last.” The preaching team has done an amazing job walking us through this book and the messages are worth a listen.
I’m stuck about how the book demonstrates the leadership discernment of Nehemiah. It’s fun to view the book through the lens of Nehemiah’s spidey sense.
Spidey sense is that strong sense of something being wrong, dangerous, suspicious, a security situation. Not only does Nehemiah have a supernatural sense of what is wrong, but he almost intuitively knows what he should do next.
In their book “Built to Last” Collins and Porras discuss what the successful and visionary companies do to be great. They discuss how great organizations have a “cult-like culture” where every employee must adapt to the leader’s vision in order for the company to thrive. In fact there are four common characteristics of cults that apply to this organizational philosophy:
Obviously their research backs up the effectiveness of this philosophy. However, this approach simply ported over to the church world could cause damage to your people and your ministry. Before you apply, consider the following ways to take the cult out of your culture:
