Give Your Church $1,500 For Free

What minor (or perhaps major) sacrifices are you willing to make for the advancement of the Kingdom of God? This article was written with an eye towards increasing giving to a church capital campaign, but is equally true for everyday giving.

• Giving up just one fast food meal per week for a family of four saves well over $20 per week or more than $1,000 per year.
• Putting off buying a new car for three years would save a great deal of money. The average car payment is around $420 per month which equates to over $5,000 per year.
• Giving up a one weekend getaway per year could easily free up $500 or more per year.
• Instead of going out for lunch from work, bring a bag lunch twice a week (or more!). This would easily save over $10 per week or more than $500 per year.
• Studies indicate the average American goes to the movies 5 times a year at an average cost of $12.50 (with popcorn). For a family of 4, giving up movies would free up $250 per year.
• Skip the candy bar and soda at the gas station and save $2.00 per week or over $100 per year.
• Trim your cable or satellite TV package and save $10 per month and save $125 per year.
• The average household grocery bill for a family of 4 is over $800 per month. Clip those coupons and shop those sales to trim 10% out of the budget and save $1,000 per year.

Implementing just one-half of these lifestyle sacrifices (excluding putting off a car purchase) would free up over $30 per week for the Kingdom with no impact on the household budget.

You are able to give the church an extra $1,500 for free - since it did not cost you anything extra to do so. To this "free money", you should add a financial contribution as God has prospered and provided for you to do.

Church Construction Guide

If you like my blog, you will love the book!  

Recently revised and updated, Preparing to Build will keep your church from becoming an unfortunate statistic. If you are planning on building a church anytime in the next three years, you should not miss reading this book on church construction.

I just wanted to comment on your book, it's phenomenal! Your book has everything from A to Z in terms of preparing the church to build. Thank you for your insight, this information is priceless. Pastor D. Owens

Are Consulting Fees Really Worth It?

Are consulting fees in a church building program really worth it?

When considering consulting services, the cost often becomes a subject of debate usually negatively influenced by a number of factors.  First, the church often does not like to spend money – it is typically frugally minded, sometimes to a fault. Secondly, hiring consulting services requires a change in how churches approach the problem. The church typically resists change and finds comfort in established patterns, even if they have not been the most effective in the past. Thirdly, many churches must put it to a vote of the congregation – a body that is largely unequipped by experience or training to truly understand the scope of the problem or the value of the assistance.

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.    John Ruskin

While stewardship demands due consideration be given to the cost of the investment, the church often does itself a disservice by unfairly focusing on the cost of the service and not fairly counting the value gained from the engagement.  Consider the parable of the treasure hidden in the field:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  

Jesus - Matthew 13:44 NASB

The man unearthed a treasure hidden in the field and then did what he had to do (sold all he had) to buy the field because he understood the value hidden in the field.  He did not say to himself, “I would like to have that treasure, but I can’t afford it.”  He evaluated the find, counted the cost, and understood the value was worth the sacrifice – which he then made.

To help determine the value proposition on consulting, the church should objectively and honestly ask itself questions, such as:

• Do we have the training, experience, and objectivity to do this the best it can be done?
• What is the value of supporting and protecting the leadership of the church?
• What is the value of increasing unity and support for the building program in the body?
• What is the value of increasing the financial support for our building program?
• What is the value of bridging the gulf from “we think” to “we know” when talking about spending hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on a building program?
• Why did Moses and Solomon get outside help for their building programs? (Exodus 31 and  2 Chronicles 2)
• What is the additional price we will have to pay during construction for mistakes or oversights in the design of the new facilities?
• What is the price we may pay, for decades to come, for ministry space that may not truly meet our needs?
• How much is confidence and peace of mind worth to us?
• What is the value of even a 10% improvement in the building program? (Hint: 10% of $1M is $100,000)
• There is no right way to build the wrong thing; what is the value of objectively understanding what we need to build and why?

While some things are essentially priceless, the church should assign some dollar value to each of these and any other questions it may ask itself - then do the math. 

So, are church consulting fees with it?   If, at the end of the day, the engagement provides greater value than the cost of services, the difference in cost is the projected cost to the church to not engage for the services. 

How to Increase Church Capital Campaign Contributions

Why do churches resist getting expert help in capital fundraising? Is it really plausible to believe that having ready access to the combined wisdom of decades of experience in capital campaigns, being provided a step-by-step, job description by job description guide to a proven capital fundraising process, and the focused coaching of an experienced fundraising consultant will not help you raise more money in your church capital campaign?  Experience shows that churches that use a campaign consultant raise, on average, about twice as much money (that’s a 100% increase, folks) as those churches who do not. 

If you think that sounds like marketing hooey, you would be wrong, but go ahead - say the claim is grossly inflated (which it isn't) and discount it by 2/3's - make the factor only a 33% increase.  Even sharply discounted, if you are looking to raise, say $1M, the difference between using a consultant and not using a consultant could easily be a couple hundred thousand dollars (and probably more)! Compare that to the cost of the services and you will see that is a huge return on the investment.  

At the end of the day, the church often considers the wrong question in asking "how much the services cost", when it should ask itself "what is the cost to not hire a consultant".  In a straw poll of 17 churches that had completed capital campaigns in the not too distant past, all of the churches remembered how much they raised, but only about half (53%) of them could remember how much they paid for the services.  I think this illustrates what is important to the church in the long term.  Of the churches who were asked if they would use a capital campaign consultant again, knowing what they now know, 86% indicated they would use a consultant again and the remaining 14% said they would consider doing so.  None of the churches indicated they would not consider making the same investment again.

As Jesus said several times, “let he who has ears, hear.”

Time is Your Friend in a Capital Campaign

When preparing for a church capital campaign, time is your friend.  Time is also a critical factor in taking your church capital campaign from good to great.

Depending on the size of the church, it can take 3 to as much as 12 months to give yourself (and the church) time to prepare for and execute a capital campaign. While size is definitely a factor in setting the timeline, three other factors can also impact the time you should take in preparation.

Church capital campaigns raise money for specific capital projects, like construction, renovation, or large capital purchases.  If there is not high and across the board level of excitement, unity, and support, this would indicate the church should take more time to make the case for support.

If the amount to be raised is at the higher end of the normal range of results or will need to be a real stretch, this would certainly be an indicator that you should take more preparation time in order to increase the odds of reaching your financial goal.

If the church does not already have a culture of generosity and sacrificial giving, more preparation time will allow you to improve giving on a week by week basis, thereby transforming the giving patterns of your members for a lifetime, not just 3 years.

Time is your friend in a church capital campaign:

• Time to get the right people involved
• Time to do proper donor development
• Time to create a culture of generosity
• Time to do the work without burning anyone out.
• Time to make the most spiritual impact.
• Time so that your church does not fee like it was "shoved down their throat".
• Time to do it right as opposed to"good enough".  

Anything worth doing is worth doing right.  Taking a little extra time will reap both spiritual and financial rewards.

Now is the Time to Begin Planning a Spring Church Capital Campaign

Ah, 'tis the season of churches calling wanting to start a capital campaign.  Unfortunately, many church leaders are calling in August wanting to finish a capital campaign this fall.  While it may not be impossible to do, especially if you are a small tightly knit church, it may not be a good idea - just because you can does not mean you should.

A church capital campaign is a spiritual work that produces a financial benefit.  If you rush the process you will very likely negatively impact both the spiritual and financial benefits of the capital campaign.  If your church has more than 150 or so adults, it will benefit you to begin planning for a capital stewardship campaign 6 months before you want to be in front of the congregation with the public phase of the campaign.  Think of it this way. If you have ever been in a church that did a big Christmas or Easter production, you know that planning and preparation often start 3-4 months before hand. Perhaps a better comparison would be to ask if your church does VBS, and if so, when do you start planning? A capital campaign is a 6 week event that involves multi-faceted communications, preaching, teaching, and group events!  How much more preparation do you think it deserves?

Learn more about what a church capital campaign is, and is not. View/download a free slideshow on conducting a church capital campaign including process, timeline, and phases.

Presenting March 29 at GA Baptist Conference

If you are in the area, we will be presenting 3 breakout sessions at the Georgia Baptist Expo Conference in Warner Robin GA on March 29th.
Our session include:

• Lessons Learned - Avoiding Common Mistakes Churches Make in Building
• Church Financing Solutions in a Difficult Lending Environment
• Proven Construction Methods That Lower Cost and Reduce Risk

For more information, see this link.

Why So Many Capital Campaigns for Baptist Churches

Anyone that would look at our reference list would see that we do a lot of church capital campaigns for Baptist churches.  Their are multiple reasons why we do so many Baptist capital campaigns, but one of the reasons is *not* that we target them specifically. So, lets look at some of the reasons why we do so many Baptist capital campaigns.

First of all, we are located in the middle of the bible belt.  While we do church capital campaigns all over the USA, the bible belt is full of Baptist churches, almost any flavor you could ask for.  We have Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist, Freewill Baptist, American Baptist, Progressive Baptist, General Baptist, and even Pentecostal Freewill Baptist, and I am sure I missed a few.

It may have something to do with the fact that half of our capital campaign consultants are Baptist.  Personally, I attend an Independent Baptist church, and I am also a church building consultant for the NC Southern Baptist Convention.  As we have moved around, I have been a member of Conservative Baptist, Southern Baptist and Independent Baptist churches.

It may also have something to do with our biblical approach to capital fundraising.  Our services will appeal to any church or denomination that are strong on biblical teaching, basing everything on the Word of God and the application of His truth to the lives of the people in their congregation.  Now, you certainly don't have to be Baptist to be biblically based, but no one could deny that most Baptist churches would fall into this category!

All in all, its probably a "perfect storm" of all the above conditions that have come together to make Baptist churches some of our most frequent clients.  At the end of the day, however, we work with any Christian church that will clearly preach the Word of God and salvation by faith alone.

Church Capital Campaign Website

Our New Capital Campaign Website Is Live!
We have just completed our new church capital campaign website where you will find lots of information on the Abundant Giving Capital Campaign, Capital Campaign Feasibility Studies, Campaign Communication Materials (including links to 300 capital campaign themes), awesome customer testimonials, and much more.

Abundant Giving is unique in providing 4 delivery options to insure you receive the right level of capital campaign consulting services at a price you can afford.

Increasing Church Volunteers & Giving

Two things most churches don't seem to have enough of are workers and money.  What you may not realize is that these two issues are spiritually related and you can implement a simple strategy to bolster both of these important resources.

General stewardship principals teach us to give of our time, treasures, and talents.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:21 that "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  Treasure certainly implies money or wealth, but actually was probably intended to denote a broader spectrum of those things we feel are important to us. Not only do your members' money follow what they feel in their heart is important, but so do their time and talents.  Giving of time, treasure, and talents is a heart, or spiritual issue.  What is interesting about Jesus' quote is that he clearly states that in whatever place you store or invest your treasures, that is where your spiritual center (heart) is.

This passage raises a question much like the chicken and egg question; which comes first, your heart or your investment.  In reality, we see examples of money following heart (that is why missionaries visit churches), and heart following money (your devotion to a particular stock symbol once you have invested in a company).  What is important is to remember that they are linked, so the best strategy to increase both workers (investment of time an talents) and financial support is to implement a strategy that works both ends towards the middle.

If you can convince people of the need and importance of serving, and engage them in doing so, you should also expect an increase in giving from those people.  A recent study, the national study on volunteering just released by the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund ("Gift Fund") and VolunteerMatch, showed Americans who volunteer their time and skills to nonprofit organizations donate an average of 10 times more money to charity than people who don’t volunteer.  If you engage their heart in serving, their giving goes up.  Conversely if you clearly teach your people about biblical giving, thereby increasing their financial support, they will be more likely to serve, since they now have a greater heart interest in the ministry. Pastor testimonials show that a clear, compelling, and unapologetic teaching of biblical giving principals on an annual basis increase giving 10-30% or more each year.

Addressing both the financial need and the need for workers is done in similar fashion.  As churches learn from annual stewardship programs or capital stewardship campaigns, to get people committed to giving you need to do four things. First, you need to provide the biblical basis for what you are asking; you need to lay the spiritual groundwork. Secondly, you need to clearly communicate the need that exists.  The third step is to clearly and unapologetically make the call to action - tell them what you need them to do and challenge them to a specific action (exhortation).  Finally, the last step and the one where many churches miss the boat, you need to hold them accountable to respond.  While you may not feel as comfortable with this step as the others, you have to take seriously what James said, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

All too often pastors across America will just toss the concept of giving out there and hope the congregation responds.  People need to be exhorted in the truest sense of the word.  Strong's Concordance has, as the definition for exhort (parakalountev),  "to call to one's side, summon, admonish, beg, encourage, and instruct."  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines exhort as "to incite by argument or advice : urge strongly." From the pulpit we need to lead, instruct, and exhort in every sense of the word.  In general, most people only rise to the lowest level of expectation.  In large part if you toss important ideas out there hoping they will act, the people will probably think about it, but not act.  Often times they only think about it until the end of service.

If there is one thing we learn from church fundraising, you have to have personal dialog with people to get them to invest, whether it is their time or their money.  You have not because you ask not.  But only asking from the pulpit makes it a general issue and everyone assumes someone else will step up to the challenge, and when no one does, people generally don't feel bad because the are just doing (or not doing) what everyone else is.  Exhorting means you not only need to make it clear over several weeks from the pulpit, but you also need to get face to face with people and make the personal appeal by exhorting them in the truest sense of the word.  At the end of the day, it will be a blessing to the church and to the person giving of their time, talent, and treasure.  So get out there and preach it, teach it, beg if you need to, and incite your people to a Godly response.