When it comes to engaging major givers in the church a majority pastors feel uncomfortable at best. Many pastors don’t know how to approach the subject and are afraid of saying the wrong thing. While churches have often built elaborate strategies to help people take steps in their spiritual journey and grow in their relationship with Jesus; they usually resort to a “just preach the Word and hope things work out” approach to giving. The problem is hope isn’t a strategy. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Here are first 3 of 6 ideas and principles to keep in mind when engaging the givers in your church.
1. Keep Track of Givers
I’ve heard it said in churches that the pastor shouldn’t know who is giving what. After all, didn’t Jesus say in Matthew 6:3, “When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Well yes He did…but it had more to do with the motive of the giver than anything else. What we have a tendency to forget is Jesus also clearly observed (along with everyone else), and went so far as to point out the actual dollar amount that a widow gave in Mark chapter 12. Now I’m not saying we should parade givers in front of the church to let everyone know what everyone else is giving but someone should know. After all if you don’t know who is giving, then it’s going to be pretty difficult to engage them at any level.
2. Say Thank You
You’d be surprised how far a simple thank you will get you, and sadly how few churches ever say it. A simple way for pastors to engage the givers in their church is to have a list of givers generated each week and write a hand written thank you note. The list can be of the top 10 or 20 givers that week, the top 20% each week, or simply set a dollar amount and each person who gives over that amount gets a note.
3. Give them Inside Information
Another simple way to engage givers at your church is to occasionally do small, intimate, invite only gatherings. Moments like this give you the opportunity to share wins and success stories (stories like this build culture by the way), have personal face-to-face conversations, share vision, and share inside information about steps that are being taken in the near future to accomplish the vision.
I’ll post the other 3 ideas tomorrow. In the meantime I’d love to hear your thoughts and experience with engaging the givers at your church. Leave a comment!
Posted in Leadership
good advice about thanking people. I would say however, how do you thank the people who are giving a significant gift but do not meet the standard of the top 20 or so regarding who gets a thank you note ? Giving amount is mostly relative regarding amount vs income. The lady in the bible gave everything…..sure not too many people do that. Even though the dollar amount was just a penny! She above all should be thanked and many others like her…
Unfortunately a majority of churches don’t simply take the time to say thank you, even Verizon says thank you when I give them money each month. This can be done from the stage and expressed to the entire church, a quarterly letter to all givers updating them, personal notes, and other avenues. My hope is that this conversation encourages church leaders to think this through and determine how they are going to say thank you in their context.
It’s nice to hear a pastor recognize that givers often go unthanked. At this same time, David pointed out something I also thought of while reading your post. It’s easy to notice large monetary gifts, but really hard to notice the ones that may look like everyone else’s but they are giving all they have – truly sacrificing for God’s ministry (the old woman). I hope that pastors wouldn’t focus on the large sums and give those larger donors special information. I think any information a pastor is willing to share with some members of the congregation should be information available to all.
This is great insight pastor