Charitable giving shouldn’t be a “transaction” but a “transformation.”
That’s the message LifeWay director of generosity and digital giving Todd McMichen brought Alabama Baptist leaders in “Growing a Powerful Generosity System,” a seminar he taught in Huntsville on May 15 and Birmingham on May 16.
“New giving and habitual giving is a great way to measure our success,” McMichen said. “Giving regularly and generously is the number one indicator of how engaged our members are in reading the Bible, attending, serving and living out the vision of the church.”
The good news is giving in the U.S. in the last four years is at an all-time high, McMichen said.
“Americans gave $410 billion to charity in 2017,” he said. “Seventy percent of giving is done by individuals, 16% by foundations and 9% through bequests. And 31% of the charitable gifts go to churches. This means houses of worship not religious organizations.”
But McMichen said there was also less hopeful news for churches.
Modern generation
“The average percentage of income given to churches has remained around 2% for the last 40 years,” he said.
McMichen listed several guidelines, or “catalysts,” which encourage the modern generation to give.
“They want organizations to have a trustworthy track record,” he said. “They need to know the group can be trusted with their money. And they want leaders of the group to ‘buy in’ to the mission and give themselves.”
Millennials also desire excellence.
“Churches need to do everything with excellence not extravagance,” he said. “We need to mow the grass, plant flowers, stripe the parking lot, paint the building and, most of all, worship well.”
Communicating a clear vision of the impact giving makes in the church and broader community is another significant principle.
“Too often we assume church members know how their money is spent,” he said. “But many only see the ‘budget needed’ and the ‘budget received’ in our worship bulletins.
Tell the story better
“We need to tell our story better from the pulpit and on our webpages. We need to explain how lives are being changed inside our walls, in our communities and in our world,” McMichen said.
Churches should make the mechanics of giving simpler too, McMichen advised.
“When I was young, our church sent me 52 envelopes every year and I’d use them,” he said. “Today fewer do. I think the offertory time in our worship services is honorable, but we must be strategic and offer alternatives. And we should explain these options clearly.”
McMichen said “stewardship” is a biblical principle and a word often spoken in our churches, but it doesn’t communicate as well to a new generation.
“What we talk about is generosity,” he said. “We serve a generous God and we’re to be like Him. A generous life is the best way to live. People who are generous are … warm-spirited and committed.
We have to teach this to a new generation.”
Be patient
He encouraged church leaders to be patient with church members as they grow in generosity. “If a person is wrestling with their decision to be baptized we don’t turn them away,” he said. “We work with them and love them until they commit to Christ publicly. We do the same thing in giving.
We want to move beginning givers and occasional givers to be generous givers.”
For more information on LifeWay’s digital giving platform go to lifeway.com/generosity.
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