What is the best way to develop stewards?

In the early 1980’s my home state of Oklahoma held an election on pari-mutuel betting on horse racing. The proponents of the measure used a campaign slogan that said, “Let’s Race!” The truth was the measure had nothing to do with legalizing horse racing. You could legally race any time you wanted in Oklahoma. You could not wager money and that was the issue. As you might expect local churches rose up to fight this measure. Baptists and Methodist denominations led the fight pouring thousands of dollars into their own campaign. Preachers stood in pulpits and admonished their members to vote the measure down. What happened? The measure passed by a wide margin leaving Christian leaders stunned at their inability to impact the election. Clearly the church failed to rally its people to oppose the measure.

The columnist David Brooks wrote an article awhile back entitled, “Illusions of Power Over the GOP.” The premise of the article was that Conservative talk radio and television talk jocks influence are highly over rated. As evidence he points out that in the early stages of the last primary election for president the most popular talk jocks favored anyone but McCain. Yet McCain ultimately won the Republican nomination. Brooks states, “Over the years, I have asked dozens of politicians what happens when Limbaugh and his colleagues attack. The story is always the same. Hundreds of calls come in. The receptionists are miserable. But the numbers back home do not move. In the media world, he is a giant. In the real world, he is not.” This again illustrates the sad truth that those with a pulpit, either in the media or in the church are many times failing to impact the audience they most think they have an inroad with.

Could it be that your words are falling upon deaf ears? Could this be one reason why we preach and teach stewardship only to see little to no results? Your offerings might improve the week after your stewardship message but they ultimately go back to where they were to begin with. There are a multitude of reasons why most Christians give very little to their church. Many of those reasons are out of your control. There are some things however that you can do to help. In this Stewardship Coach I want to address things that are in your control.

Stick or Carrot approaches

Sadly some Christian leaders never even address the issue of stewardship. Those that fail to do so do a disservice not only to their ministry but to the people they shepherd. They are guilty of preaching half the Gospel. In the end you can not ignore the topic of stewardship simply hoping your adherents catch the message for themselves. Those that use that type of non-strategy have suffered the worst during this current recession.

On the other end of the spectrum are the other two approaches that I term the Stick Approach and the Carrot Approach. The Stick Approach focuses on the obligation of a believer to give. Adherents to this approach tend to stress tithing. They focus on passages like Malachi 3:10 which in part states that we “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.” The Carrot Approach focuses more on the opportunities a believer has in giving. They would be more apt to quote Jesus when he said in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Both approaches at their core are true. What works best when it comes to motivating people to give, a stick or a carrot? In my experience while both are true and need to be stressed the carrot approach is a better starting point than the stick.

A friend recently told me his pastor told the congregation that if they were not financially supporting the church they should consider attending somewhere else. That would qualify as a stick approach to me. My friend, a regular donor to his church, did not think it was a good approach. In my experience statements like the above will ultimately not be as effective as using a carrot to motivate donors.

Carrot Approaches

Give a compelling reason why donors should support your ministry. Hands down this is the number one reason why people support your ministry. Obligation might make me a regular donor but if I don’t believe in what you are doing I will attend somewhere else or give far less than I could. I contend that the best way to get people to give or commit to give is to focus on what you do. Instead of telling people that they ought to give tell they what their giving accomplishes. When they go into the hospital will the state representative come visit them? No, it will be you or one of your staff. Help your members see how your ministry makes the world a better place including their world! Do that and you will find them much more willing to give than by eliciting commands from the pulpit.

Consistently teach stewardship year round. A huge mistake many churches is that they focus on stewardship only one time a year. Too often it becomes routine. No one likes the process even the ministers tasked with the duty. Try teaching it in a positive way year round. It should be the focus not only of your sermons but in every area of your ministry. Every offering is a positive moment to stress stewardship. Every small group or Sunday School class should study some aspect of stewardship from the cradle to the grave. Start early and keep at it. Stay positive and you will find it will make a difference. After all the Scriptures do teach that God will pour out a blessing upon those that obediently give. If that is not a carrot I don’t know what one is.

Provide practical help. Whether it is Dave Ramsey’s stuff or someone else’s or something you write it is imperative that we help people manage their finances. If we have learned one thing from this recession it is that our spending habits can get out of control. The sad reality is that many of your congregation can not give as they are over extended. You can preach tithing all you want but they are so deeply in bondage that they will never get out without help. If you truly want to develop stewards then start by helping them get a handle on their financial lives. When they get out of that hole I can promise you that they will remember who help get them out.

Hopefully by now you get the idea and can think of other carrots that you could use. While we might claim that doing so is disingenuous in reality all of us respond better to the carrot than we do the stick. If we have learned this in every day life why should it be so difficult to translate this into our stewardship approach in our churches? I can promise you that the results will be far better using the carrot than the stick.

Mark Brooks
Founder and President of The Charis Group

P.S. My new book is about to come out. It is entitled, “Stewardship Myths: How to Avoid Losing Momentum, Time and Money.” You can email me to reserve your copy today at Mark@TheCharisGroup.org.