Category Archives: Stewardship

Whether to give to this cause or that guy. It’s so hard to know.

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“Give to everyone who asks of you” (Luke 6:30).

Two days ago, my wife and I were parked briefly at the rear of a local drive-in eatery, waiting for our orders.  A man on a bike came onto the grounds and wheeled over to our car.

“Sir, I’m traveling and am broke and haven’t eaten all day.”

He might have said more, I forget.  The backpack and his scruffiness indicated he probably was telling the truth.

No one enjoys being accosted like this.  Later, I realized that parking in the rear of the establishment as we did is what drew him to us.  He left after our little encounter without asking anyone else, even though 20 more cars ringed the diner. The reason, I realized, is that the management would have seen him and ordered him off or called the cops. That would indicate he has done this before.

I’ll tell you what I did and what I wish I’d done.

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Three life lessons; three stewardship stories

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The three stories (below) illustrate great lessons about stewardship and our accountability to the Master.  We share them for your edification as well as for the benefit of pastors needing sermon illustrations.  You are free to use them in any uplifting, Christ-honoring way you find.

First story: Grant, my  grandson,  was 7 years old.

In the armoire in my bedroom, Grant had noticed the small plastic cup into which I dumped the coins from my pocket each night.  At the moment, that cup was running over.

“Grandpa, what is that?”  The dollar signs were dancing in his pupils.

I told him this was where I dropped my change each night while emptying my pockets.

He said, “How much is in there?”

“Usually it comes out to be around 30 dollars.”

“What are you going to do with it?”  There was no mistaking the excitement in his voice.

I said, “I do various things with it. Sometimes I give it away. Sometimes I buy something with it. And occasionally, I put it in the missions offering at church.”  Then an idea hit me. “Grant, would you like to have that money?”

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13 things to do when your church is hurting financially

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“My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

A lot of things can happen when a church experiences a money crunch, most of them bad.

The finance committee can get upset, deacons can get angry, church members become scared, and staff members start honing their resumes and looking for a safe place to jump.  Nothing about this is good.

Can anything good come from a financial crisis? It depends on how you handle it. Read on.

Keep in mind that sometimes a financial crunch results from a too-aggressive program outstripping the resources. Perhaps the church has become too-invested in a project and the crisis sounds a wakeup call.

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How to take an offering for the guest preacher

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“The laborer is worthy of his hire.” (I Timothy 5:18)

I’m finishing my fourth year as an itinerant preacher and have been the beneficiary of some great (i.e., generous, encouraging) love offerings and the victim of no poor offerings. (That was a good place to have said I’ve been victimized by some unscrupulous pastors or lay leaders, but thankfully, I haven’t. Every check given to me has been more than I deserved and well appreciated.)

On the other hand, I’ve seen the other side of it. I regret to say that a time or two, when I was pastoring, my church was struggling financially and we gave the guest preacher far, far less than he deserved.

Every minister understands this. If a church does all it can, that’s all anyone can ask. On the other hand, some have some funny ways of doing the Lord’s business.

Once, many years ago, I drove 150 miles round trip each evening to preach in a church, arriving around 4 pm in time to make some visits with the pastor, then to have supper with some church member, and get to church in time for the evening service. I’d get home around 10:30 each night. It was a demanding week. On Friday night, following the service, I joined the pastor and staff at the home of a leader who clearly was calling the shots. At one point, he called me off to the side and peeled off five $50 bills and handed me. I honestly thought he was paying for my mileage. But no, that was the offering.

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The Church Financial Seminar I Want to See: “How to Cook the Books”

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(This article, first posted in November 2011, deals with an ongoing issue for our churches. Feel free to print and distribute or to forward.)

This week, an ex-con spoke to business students at Tulane University to tell them how to cook the books.

Okay, he warned them against cooking the books.

Aaron Beam served HealthSouth as chief financial officer until eight years ago when the shenanigans of CEO Richard Scrushy became public and that company dissolved into bankruptcy. For his part in the doings, Beam served three months in prison, a brief time to be sure, the result of assistance he gave the feds in their case against the boss.

Beam’s message should resonate with every pastor and leader of the Lord’s churches across our land. I have a strong suspicion that a large percentage of congregations do not know what their church’s actual financial situation is, the pastors do not know either, and the record-keepers–bookkeepers, treasurers, however they are known in the various churches–are either in over their heads or have developed their own system which only they understand.

What percentage of churches are being victimized by unscrupulous treasurers and bookkeepers? No one knows. But I venture to guess that the ones we hear about are merely the tip of the iceberg.

The culprit, if there is one, is poor leadership. The problem lies with those at the top.

In our denomination, and I expect most others, if state leadership organizes and promotes a conference dealing with church finances, it has one aim and one aim only: generating more money. “How to encourage our people to tithe.” “How to get our people to put the Lord’s work in their estate-planning.” That sort of thing. (See David Hankins’ welcome comment at the end where he corrects me. Dr. Hankins is the Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.)

The financial conference I would attend, one I’m betting every pastor in the land would fight to get in on, would be titled: “How to cook the church books: How to recognize when your church is being ripped off.”

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