Welcome to Generosity Matters! My mission: to accelerate generosity in ministry. This is accomplished through Generosity Audits, ministry expansion projects, stewardship and annual giving initiatives, capital campaigns, non-profit fundraising and planned giving. Let's begin a conversation...

Let’s recap:

• Generally speaking, pastors don’t like to talk about money. So many don’t.

• That seems to work out just great because most church attendees don’t want to hear about money anyway.

• Except  . . . money is a spiritual issue, so the church can’t exactly ignore it.

Week in and week out, churches collect an offering. That might look a bit different depending on the context—from gold-plated trays passed with usher-assisted formality to “joy boxes” at the back of the room—but the great majority of worship experiences include a time to “give back to God.” The money’s collected, scurried away to a lockbox or safe . . .  and then what? Other than a letter and a few bar graphs included with annual giving statements (if that), the church family never hears a word about how the money was spent. They just get asked to give more. 

Now, if you’re looking to maintain the status quo, that’s a fine strategy. But if you’re looking to accelerate generosity and empower your church family to experience what it’s like to trust God with their finances, we have to think differently. Enter story. 

In traditional thinking, perhaps the only thing worse than hearing about money at church is preaching about it. (Was that my imagination, or did I just hear a chorus of “Amen”?) More often than not, pastors cringe when the fall “stewardship series” rolls around--its accompanying drops in attendance and “all-they-ever-talk-about-is-money” criticisms sucking the life right out of them.

Notice, though, the three words that began this post: in traditional thinking. By default, many pastors tend to approach the topic of money with fear and trembling, inadvertently reinforcing the “Oh great, it’s the money series” attitude among their church family. Is that where you are? Are you timid when it comes to those money messages? Are you even teaching about it at all? 

Here’s the problem: In traditional thinking, pastors approach the topic of money from the church’s perspective: Here’s what we need from you. Sure, some people will give because the church needs it. Some people may even give cheerfully because the church needs it. But you don’t want only some of your people to experience generosity . . . right?

From Elevation Church - a brilliant (and adorable) video that teaches the very simple lesson of tithing. You have one minute and eighteen seconds - watch it...now.

Every client I serve employs some form of internal church management system - Church Management Software, or ChMS. Some are dedicated to tracking financial information while others do that and much more. From simple systems (Excel spreadsheets - yikes! and/or Quickbooks) to complex models, there are many choices in the landscape from which to choose. 

One of the best I have seen is Church Community Builder (CCB), a web-based solution that offers a vital component that others don’t - the ability for not only staff, but ministry team leaders and volunteers to access the system at any time from any place. To better understand the system and it’s advantages, I recently sat down with my friend Steve Caton, Vice President of Sales and Marketing to discuss what to look for in a ChMS solution.

I see a lot of things happening in the church database arena. What are the advantages of the online system CCB provides?