Resources for “Spiritual Formation and Money”
The September 7 Alban Weekly article, “Spiritual Formation and Money,” features an interview between Alban Education Manager Wayne Whitson Floyd and John Clark, president of the James Company. Clark emphasizes the importance of fulfilling mission, communicating a congregation’s identity, accounting for mission effectiveness, and appraising ministries honestly.
Clark also notes that congregations need to “meet people where they are in their finances” and to teach people about saving—tasks that many faith communities neglect.
Finally, churches need to let go of ineffective ministries, instead focusing their energies—and their money—on core ministry strengths.
What resources can support these efforts? In addition to the items listed at the end of the article, there are valuable resources offered in two “Stewardship” sections of the Congregational Resource Guide: one listed under “Administration” and one listed under “Spirituality.”
Let me especially call your attention to free and downloadable resources: Mark Vincent’s tutorial, “The Whys and Hows of Money Leadership,” Dan Hotchkiss’s essay, “Faith and Money,” and Hope Headley’s overview, “Approaches to Stewardship.”
What are your thoughts and stories on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!
The article is right on target with a focus on mission. What is difficult is securing a plan to achieve the mission. Such plans require more than simply prioritizing (scarce?) resources. Some wll require out-of-the-box thinking and dreaming in order to restructure some ministries in order for the congregation to achieve their mission. I have two points.
In my experience you create the plan. God lets you fall flat on your face but then says that you worked so hard on a faithful plan. God then intervenes, in an evident way, to show the results were of God, not the plan. But the process of developing the plan created a focus on mission, prater, evaluation of rsources, and the need.
Second. My group provides many of the typical tools for financing ministries: Endowment set-ups, captial campaigns, stewardship audits, grant writing, etc. We have learned the hard way that regardless of the reason we were hired, our clients need(ed) strategic planning. Most were unable to articulate their mission nor were they able to demonstrate their capacity to deliver on their mission. We have invested months with clients to close this gap before even being able to do what it what we were hired to do! This was costly to us and initially frustrating to the client. We now insist on strategic planning with a client (at their expense) before even engaging a contract for services. The plan will reveal what services, if any, they need or do not need. God has used this process to open doors for ministries to discover their calling within themselves. Without mission, you are spinning your wheels and hoping for a miracle.
Knowing your mission, as this article states, is key if you are desiring to multiple ministry resources, or properly use the ones you have. Mission, without a strategic plan, is often just feel-good talk.
-Darrell Poeppelmeyer,
President, Segue Foundation
I’m surprised that your discussion of stewardship in the context of Christian living begins by focusing on the congregation and its activites and then gets around to church members and Christian stewardship in their daily life activities. Since we spend so much more time and effort in Monday-through-Saturday activities than we do on church program time, I should think that the discussion should begin with what stewardship means in the daily life arena. When we get those matters into proper perspective, then our stewardship in relation to our church commitment falls into place.
I would love to see you do an article that begins with how we serve God by sharing in his mission in all areas of our daily living and how we best use the resources of time, talent, and treasure that he gives us to do so. Then the article would focus on how are lives shared in Christian community could best serve us in using those three resources both to support the community and also to carry out our missions seven days a week.
Peyton Craighill
I heartily agree with and applaud the article and the last sentence in particular; “Once we can start dealing with our money as a part of our spiritual formation, we will find we are more faithful with both.” I feel it has been one of our major failures that we have not considered money as a spiritual issue, and failed to deal with growing spirituality as being expressed by growth in our generousity.
I was so happy to see this article. I have been telling my present congregation and the ones before it these very things but I can’t get them to believe me or to take that step of faith. I need to know how to get them to trust that God will provide. In my present congregation, which I have only been in for a month, the council, especially the president, is in panic mode because he is looking at the present budget and saying that in two years we won’t be able to support it if all thins remain the same. From what I can ascertain, we are fine for this year but we are still permitted to spend. It is like pulling teeth to be permitted to buy Sunday School curriculum. They have entered into a flurry of fundraising activities, which I do not condone. I will be tuned into the webinar.
I especially liked the four questions — What are we doing well? What are we doing OK and need to improve? What should we begin? and What should we stop doing?
I think this will find its way into my next council meetings; particularly in light of the climate we now have in the ELCA.