4 Actions Pastors Need in Leading Their Church to Financial Breakthrough

by: Todd McMichen

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 I’ve had the privilege of founding two non-profit organizations, one for-profit company, and spent time as an employee of several multi-million dollar organizations. I also run the finances for my family. As I ebbed and flowed through these different financial environments I began to recognize patterns about how money grows and is invested, or on the flip side, how it quickly becomes wasted via expenses. While each of these environments may have shared the common goal of year-end profitability, the mindset, perspective, and specific objectives varied greatly.

Here are four key gleanings about financial health that apply specifically to the local church and Senior Pastors in particular.

1. Senior Pastors need the PRIORITY that is often modeled by the President of a Non-Profit Organization

The NPO leader has two very clear objectives every day, keep the vision clear and develop resources. No one can develop large amounts of resources for an NPO like the senior leader. The truth is that most employees would never have it cross their minds to help with this effort. They are too busy executing their department tasks. Whenever I find a Senior Pastor that is both the lead giver and the lead developer of gifts I find a church that is experiencing financial break thru.

2. Senior Pastors Need the FOCUS of a For-Profit Company Founder

The founder and owner of a for-profit company wakes up each week with two objectives in mind, keep the vision laser focused and produce more revenue than expenses. As the owner of a company you measure success by happy clients and positive cash flow. Every single expense is seen as either an investment that the owner is willing to take, perhaps even in exchange for a temporary pay reduction, or it is seen as wasted money. I know the success of the church is not measured by dollars, but discipleship. However, I also know it is sin to mismanage God’s resources. Being a wise steward, which is the call of God, involves both discipling generosity and being tenaciously obedient with the resources. Senior leaders do you know the eternal value of each dollar your organization raises and expends? Whenever I see a church with this kind of laser focused perspective, I find a church that is experiencing financial break thru.

3. Senior Pastors need the PASSION that comes from being the provider in the home.

This is where the message can get serious. Most men wake up driven to succeed financially, provide well for their families, and enjoy the fruit of their labors. Great men care greatly for the provision and protection of their families. As a matter of fact it is intuitively engrained in the DNA of men. Unfortunately, it is common for me to find Senior Pastors who feel this way about their church, but do not connect the dots with the personal involvement in the financial management and leadership of the church. Many pastors have a general knowledge of financial matters, but not a passion for the financial success of the organization they lead. We would never allow our families to live in financial weakness without working towards a concrete solution. Example, most families would not raise their annual family budget 5-10% and ask their family to have vision and pray for growth. Yet, the average church practices this kind of principle every year.

4. Senior Pastors need the generosity CONFIDENCE that comes from Scripture.

God’s Word is very practical, specific, inspiring, and replete with financial wisdom. I find that break thru financial churches are led by a senior pastor that has a high view and breadth of knowledge regarding the Bible’s principles of stewardship and generosity. Even if they lack the highest level of accounting and financial business practices, knowing and trusting Scripture allows them to experience overflow. This is why I put together a simple guide to help pastors gain confidence, a practical tool to lead their staff, and pathway to develop the spiritual discipline of generosity in the disciples you lead. Leading a generous church is totally possible and it has nothing to do with church size, location, income earning, or style. It has everything to do with priority, focus, passion, and confidence.

For additional reading, here are a couple of real life case studies:

• Harvest Church, Billings, Montana
• Main Street Church, Toledo,Ohio

For more practical tips and inspiration, check out my book, Leading a Generous Church.

> Read more from Todd.

Tags: Confidence, Financial Breakthrough, Focus, Passion, Todd McMichen, priority

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5 Practical Points in Leading a Turnaround Church

by: Dan Reiland

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A church split, a failed leader, changing economics or an aging congregation, there are many reasons for a church to be struggling and in decline. In fact, of the approximately 350,000 churches in the U.S., far more are in need of a major turnaround than are healthy and growing.

It’s true that both church planting and the multi-site model are highly productive strategies to advance the local church, but we can’t ignore or dismiss the tens of thousands of struggling churches. There is always hope!

My friend Brad Powell led his church to a great turnaround and found so much passion for helping struggling churches that he wrote a book titled: Change Your Church For Good, The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping. (Thomas Nelson) I highly recommend it.

There are layers of complexity involved in any turnaround church scenario, but the core principles are always similar. The following practical points will help you lead your church back to the place you dream it could be.

1.    Think leadership. 

Most struggling churches think problems. Leaders think solutions. John Maxwell says: “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” It’s true. A church can be friendly, debt-free, and teach the Bible and still be going nowhere.

A leader brings purpose to the party. It’s great that the church gathers, but after a few hundred Sundays of “church” without a clear purpose the people find other things to do. Busy is no longer a virtue. Reaching people for Jesus has always been the central theme and mission of the church, anything other than that is largely just being busy doing church. It takes leadership to drive mission because the church naturally drifts toward comfort in fellowship rather than risk in reaching people.

The pastor and leaders need to be willing to make tough decisions or a turnaround will never happen. Most churches are just one tough call away from a breakthrough, and the leader usually knows what it is. It’s the willingness and courage to actually do it that makes the difference.

2.    Tell the truth.

You can’t solve a problem if you won’t admit there is a problem. Churches and their leaders work so hard to keep everyone happy and everything nice. The problem with that is that it’s not real. Get comfortable with problems because you will always have them. Good leaders solve them and thereby move the ball down the field. Essentially a leader makes progress, (toward the vision), solves problems and helps people.

It’s healthy to talk about a ministry area that is weak and in need of improvement. Maybe it’s the children’s ministry, or perhaps the usher’s team or the worship team.

That’s okay, as long as you do something about it. Perfection isn’t the goal, the point is to make progress. The conversations should not be negative or discouraging, just honest. Never allow meetings to turn into complaint sessions. Gather small groups of leaders who will be candid, positive and produce solutions. It can be done!

3.    Establish trust and hope.

It is not uncommon for a struggling church to have experienced some form of hurt or discouragement. This usually involves broken trust and thereby erodes hope.

Healing is needed to reestablish trust and this takes time. There are several ways this can happen, and often requires multiple efforts. For example, the pastor can teach a “Shepherding” sermon series through the Psalms. The pastor or board members can lead small group discussions for honest conversation to take place. And an outside consultant can be brought in to help bring the congregation through a difficult season.

If broken trust is not the issue, but the congregation is tired and has little hope, hope can be restored by quick wins and vision. Remind the congregation that the Church is God’s idea and He owns it! He wants it to work and gives the power of the Holy Spirit for that very purpose!

4.    Realize the power of quick wins. 

Effective church ministry is more like a marathon than a sprint. It’s a long road full of hills and turns. Small victories along the way are vital to finishing the race, and essential to begin the turnaround process.

One small church was discouraged and didn’t think they could do anything. Every wall in their worship auditorium was covered in dark wood paneling and several light bulbs were burnt out. It was depressing. The pastor inspired the congregation to raise about $800 for paint, supplies and light bulbs. They tore down the paneling and painted a fresh coat of white paint and it was like they were in heaven. They were fired up again!

Another pastor raised about $600 and started a food co-op in their town. Their church became outward focused and in one weekend they felt renewed and recharged. Both congregations began to believe they could turn things around. The small wins gave them tangible and practical hope for success in the future!

5.    Create spiritual intensity within your vision. 

Over the years I’ve worked with hundreds of churches, many of whom craft an intelligent, biblical and creative mission/vision statement. But for some reason it doesn’t seem to work. In many cases, one of the primary missing ingredients is spiritual vitality. There doesn’t seem to be a sense of spiritual intensity that carries with it a passion to make things happen and go the extra mile to reach one more person.

Prayer is at the core of spiritual intensity and evangelism is a close second. Together they will keep a church white hot for the vision. Intensity does not suggest weirdness. It’s not an ascetic sense of guilt driven sacrifice. It’s actually the opposite. Its origin comes from people who genuinely love God and are fired up about Kingdom work, so much so that joy and service are a natural by-product.

Vision requires strategy. If you are not sure where to start, focus on improving three areas. 1. Your worship service. 2. Your children’s ministry. 3. Your small groups ministry. And always undergird the ministry processes with leadership development.

For ideas on leadership development, visit my blog at danreiland.com.

Tags: Dan Reiland, Leadership, Quick Wins, Trust, Truth, Turnaround Church, Vision

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4 Ways to Use Your Giving Time to Extend an Invitation

by: Derek Gillette

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I visited a church recently.

In between the worship and the Word, they did something called corporate prayer.  During this time, members of the church, from their seats, would pray aloud the things that were on their heart for the city, specifically the homeless ministry.  One by one they lifted their voices as we bore witness. It was incredibly moving.

As a first time attendee at the church, no one asked me to give. They of course placed no such expectations on me. But in the moment, as I listened to those prayers, my heart was stirred. I wanted to support the work they were doing in the city.

In fact, it would have been great if my gift also opted me into the church’s email system so that I could stay updated on the homeless ministry.  While it wasn’t my home church, I could see myself giving additional volunteer time or funds as the need arose in the future.

Events such as Easter, Christmas, and other special events bring in new visitors, and I’m sure asking these first time attendees to give is the last thing on your mind.

But what if, like me, their heart is stirred.  Do you have a giving solution in place that’s simple, mobile friendly, and offers an immediate email reply to say thank you and we’d love to spend more time with you?

Here are four best practices of churches that know how to use their giving time to extend an invitation:

1. Cast the Vision

Just like in my experience, the thing that most moved me was hearing the passion behind the vision of the church.  I listened to first hand stories and prayers from church members.  This wasn’t an idea or wishful thinking, it was church on the move and my financial contributions would have an immediate impact.

2. Utilize Technology

As with many people these days, I just don’t carry cash or own checkbooks.  We’re also subject to the terrible statistic that says we each have about an 8-second attention span.  Distractions are plenty.  In fact, one study showed that if an online transaction took more than 3 minutes, 85% of people gave up.

This is where a mobile friendly giving solution can help make the barrier to a first time gift extremely low, especially if the gift doesn’t require the giver to create a login.

As well, make sure your donor database is connected with an email tool like Mailchimp, so that givers can stay up to date on the progress you’re making with your church’s vision and the impact their gift is having.

3. Have an On-Going Communication Strategy

I read recently that 74% of online adults use social media.  This isn’t just for young people anymore.  Conversations are happening online, as well as in person, over coffee, in small groups, etc.  A comprehensive communication strategy addresses each of these formats and makes sure that your church is as much a part of the conversation as possible.

Do you have someone monitoring your social media accounts?  Do you have a regular email newsletter going out?  Do you have small group resources and a special email list just for small group leaders?  What training are you giving your welcoming team about introducing visitors to the vision of your church?  All of these elements should be covered in your communication strategy.

4. Giving without Borders

Statistics tell us that people are coming to church only 1.7x a month now, so how do we connect with people outside of the church building? With the rise in online services, digital content, and small groups throughout the week, attending church on Sunday isn’t the same as it used to be.  There’s many more ways to connect with the church body and receive teaching other than coming to the building.  This isn’t right or wrong, it’s just the new reality that we face.

There are a couple of considerations here.  First, when your church members are on the go, do they have a mobile friendly way to respond generously when they feel led, rather than having to wait until next Sunday?  Second, do you have a discipleship plan in place that reaches people where they are?  This could include volunteering opportunities, mentoring, digital curriculum, and online recordings of services.

> Read more from Derek.

Tags: Derek Gillette, Generosity, giving time, invitation

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