First rule of stewardship planning? Have fun

I love raising money. I just do. The churches I served had healthy increases in giving, and I oversaw a successful capital campaign. It’s really fun for me.

Now that I’m working with a wide array of congregations, I’m realizing that stewardship is something we didn’t learn much in seminaries, so we all go about it differently. As we’re heading into stewardship season, these are the things I like to remember.

Raising money should be fun. There is a prevalent idea in culture that pastors are money-grubbers. I think I have met one of those. Maybe. But, for the most part, we hate asking for money. The majority of church budgets go to salaries, and we feel bad about that, even if we make less than a third of the average person in our congregation. So we can get embarrassed during stewardship time.