Being at General Assembly 2011

This past weekend, I attended the 2011 General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) church.  This event is the collective gathering of the denomination to worship, learn, share, and to conduct the general business of the church.

Hope Partnership Dinner

It was a great event and it helped to refuel my soul for the ministry that I provide for local congregations and their leaders.  Thank you so much!

 

 

From my time at Assembly, I thought I would share these news stories and links:

• Faith and Giving Stewardship Academy- Faith, Finance, Fundraising, Environment
• Hope Partnership- New Church, Leadership Development, & Transformation
• Biking to Assembly- Reconciliation Ministry
• Emergent Church- Brian McLaren Worship
• Missional Church- Emergent & Outward Ministry Service
• Leading Change- Change Theory Leadership

Additional Videos can be found at www.disciples.org/GeneralAssembly/Video/

It was a great assembly. Thank you to all who participated and to the many leaders who made it such a success!

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Sometimes a Cause is bigger than a Fundraiser

Often we participate in a 5k or bowling tournament because we want to help raise money for an organization (think Susan B Komen Race for the Cure, Big Brothers/ Big Sisters Bowl-a-Thon, Relay for Life), we enjoy the physical activity, or because we are associated with a group.

In my own experience, all of these motivations are true for the countless organizations and activities I have participated in to support great causes.  This past weekend, however, I realized that I was able to support an organization more than by just raising money.

Riders for Reconciliation

I, along with 4 other ministers, began a bike ride from Indianapolis, IN to Nashville, TN to celebrate the anniversary of two leaders, Fox and Ernest Newborn, who  established the “Bike to the Assembly” tradition.

The Newborns began this tradition in 1985, when they rode from Indianapolis to San Antonio, Texas, to support the Reconciliation Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). And, this year, the route is designed to honor these two great saints, and it will finish with a brief ceremony at their grave site in Tennessee- near the 2011 General Assembly.

I was only able to participate for 1 day on the 5 day journey,

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You Should (Always) Have Tea For Church Meetings

In the back of our minds, many of us know that small details can have a huge impact on how we are seen by others.

For example, we all can likely tell a story of meeting someone who had spinach in their teeth, or smelled bad, and how we seemed to place a judgement on that person because of that first impression.

In this light, I thought I would pass along a fun article to spark your brain on a number of small factors that can impact how we act or behave at church, or in society.

Enjoy the reading… and remember that it is always good to have warm tea or coffee at church meetings, because by “holding a hot cup of tea when meeting someone will make you more warmly disposed towards them than if you are holding an iced drink.”

The article was written by Bill Ritters and it is titled, How, and When, to Make a Decision.

Blog Note: I found this article via twitter and Freakonomics.

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Personal Finance and Its Problem for Churches

For the past two  months, my colleagues and I have been discussing the issue of personal finance as it relates to philanthropy and giving in churches.

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The main topic of our conversation has centered on this premise, “If Americans have little financial education, how can churches expect to run effective stewardship campaigns to fund their ministries.”

Modern trends have shown that American’s have little understanding of personal finance, and even less knowledge about basic economic principles.

Recently, this evidence was highlighted by the Freakonomic’s Blog, which shared:

• The majority of Americans do not plan for predictable events such as retirement or children’s college education. Most importantly, people do not make provisions for unexpected events and emergencies, leaving themselves and the economy exposed to shocks.
• Moreover, more than one in five Americans has used alternative (and often costly) borrowing methods (payday loans, advances on tax refunds, pawn shops, etc.) in the past five years.

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Food, Theology, and the Environment

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On Sunday I read an article in the NYT that struck me, because it connected the two issues of ‘Climate Change‘ and ‘Food Productivity.’

The article is entitled, “Extreme Weather Helps Drive Up Food Prices,” by Elisabeth Rosenthal, and it highlights how extreme weather conditions over the past year have lead to higher food and grain prices.

The article begins by sharing that the Food Price Index has hit a record high, 214, compared to its history since it was established by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization in 1990.

For example, here are a list of major events that have hurt food production:

• Russian wheat crops destroyed by drought and high summer temperatures
• Pakistan’s flooding wiping out crop production
• Laos and Cambodia- low crop yields due to a lack of rain
• Australian drought, lack of rain, and then flooding
• United States early flooding in 2011- lack of early planting and spring harvest

Beyond just the statistics and science of this conversation, this article highlights the compounding issues of food security, global development, food production, and environmental stewardship.  Each one of these issues is a problem in itself, but combined these issues multiply the effect and impact.

As faith communities, and local churches in the USA, we often do not consider these issues, unless we live or work in a community that is directly impacted by something like the current floods in the midwest

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Giving Units & Financial Measures

Finding financial measures for church finance is never easy.  In many ways, churches are the poster child for the difficulty of measuring and evaluating the fiscal health and performance of nonprofit organizations.

bsabarnowl

Churches vary in a multitude of factors including size, theology, membership, ministry context, economic wealth, and financial management.

Like many nonprofits, churches operate via the generosity and work of volunteers, who donate goods and services…which creates a huge variance in outputs and results.

For example, how do you compare the financial work and impact of a small congregation, made up youth, who serves as a faith community to teach inner-city children in Memphis to a mega church congregation whose focus is to serve as church in suburban California.

However, one statistic that many financial institutions use to evaluate churches is called a “Giving Unit.”

Now unless you have tried to finance a commercial loan as a church leader, this probably is a new term. So what is a “Giving Unit?”

A Giving Unit is defined as a person or family that contributes

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How Much $ Should Churches Save For a Rainy Day?

Last week in a meeting someone asked, “How much money should a church keep in its emergency savings account?” and it got me thinking…. what a great idea for a blog post.

In personal finance, most financial advisers will tell you to keep between 3-6 months of expenses in a rainy day or emergency cash savings account.  The reason being that if something catastrophic happened to you (such as your house burns down or you lose your job), you then have some money available to help you recover.

It makes sense…and so what about the original question.

Well, as it turns out, most financial church leaders would also advise nonprofits to keep around 6 months worth of expenses in a cash equivalent or emergency savings account.  The same idea applies, and the purpose of this money is to cover general operating expenses in the event of an emergency. This way the church knows it has money set aside to help cover payroll, mortgage payments, and other expenses.

Now let me be clear, this money is not to used for operations, and it should be set aside in a separate account (protected).

In best practices, this money is usually invested in an account that is very safe, accessible, and that offers limited risk.  Some churches will invest this money within their church denomination’s extension fund (like Church Extension), a money market account, or a savings account.  It is not smart to put this money in a stock account or other investment vehicle that has risk or that takes multiple days to transfer.

Beyond the general 6 month rule, the following other factors can be considered:

• Is there a way to use this money to help the church’s financial goals?
• Does the church have a large amount of debt that may cause this amount to be higher?

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Results: Parkhill Church Saves $12,000 on Energy

Last year I wrote a post about how Parkhill Christian Church and how they were able to save money and increase their ministry by making several energy upgrades to their facility. 

The blog was entitled, “The Power of Knowledge…Literally,” and it has served as a great success story about how churches can improve their facilities, increase ministry, and save money- at the same time. This blog is a follow up to that post, and it is designed to see if these initial results continue. 

I recently called Rev. Chris Franklin to interview him about how the church was doing and if the church was still seeing great results from their participation in an energy audit and ministry planning session with Church Extension.  Here is a snapshot of the conversation:

John: Chris, so tell me, how are things going at the church?

Chris: I think we are in the midst of what we would have to call dynamic change, in part stimulated by the analysis of the Green Church building report.  The most startling was the the high relative cost of maintenance and utilities in comparison to the low utilization of the building for ministry.  The change in the model of ministry to use the building for community and those outside the church and to be welcoming in doing so is transformational and challenging.  Our numbers of visitors have skyrocketed, and the congregation is thrilled to see prospective visitors in church on a regular basis, but surprised they don’t join after a few weeks of visiting.  We did not have the mentality of having active visitors.

J: What have been the savings that you have seen over the past year?

C: We have started seeing the savings as we replaced lights as they failed and insulated in the most cost effective locations.  The financial chair thinks we will save up to $12,000 this year in electricity and gas. 

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Report: Local churches provide $476,000 to Local Economies

Yesterday I saw a tweet that was posted by my friend, Rev. Rebecca Woods at Carthage Christian Church in Cincinnati, OH.  She was sharing an article from Christianity Today that reported that a local church provides an economic value of $476,663 to the local community.

The research was done by Ram Cnaan, of the University of Pennsylvania, who calculated all ways that a church provides services and value in their communities.  In one case he found that churches often provide 6 times the value of their annual budget.

This is great information for churches to share as they work to connect with members and donors, and it provides a model for other churches to calculate the impact of their ministry and mission.

Below is a picture model that helps explain the way that Cnaan used to calculate the value of a church:

Christianaity Today

Blog Notes: Special thanks to Rev Rebecca Woods and @churchextension (twitter)

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How to make a Capital Campaign Visit

As a fundraising consultant I often hear about the fear of “asking people for money.”

It is a common fear in Anglo American culture, because:

Earl- What I Saw 2.0

• We are afraid of being told ‘No’
• We don’t want to ruin a friendship/relationship
• We have been told that money is a taboo subject (in polite society)
• And because most Americans have a limited knowledge about personal finance, which makes us uncomfortable.

So, if fundraising makes people so nervous, why is it important to make a personal visit?

Well, the major reasons boil down to respect and relationship.

If you are going to ask someone to make a large gift to a campaign, it is respectful to their relationship with the organization to make that ask,  face to face, and  in a personal manner.  We, as humans, are social creatures, and churches, just like other nonprofits, are communities composed of social relationships.

If you ask someone for a major donation, via letter, email, or a phone call, you are only hurting your success in fundraising, and potentially your relationship with that person, by being coy and asking indirectly.

Now please don’t hear that letters, email, and phone calls don’t work for fundraising. They do in certain situations.  However, statistics show that direct personal visits raise more money that indirect contact with donors (see various studies by the Fundraising School at IUPUI or talk to any professional fundraiser).

So how do you make a personal visit?

First, you need to prepare for the visit.  On a piece of paper write out what you know about the person in relationship to the church and their known view is towards the capital campaign and its cause.  Be sure to note who are the donor’s peers/friends, what has been their history of giving, what they are likely to support or question about the campaign, and any other information that you believe relates to asking them for a gift (such as, where and when would be a good times to ask).

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