There are 3 leadership landmines that derail the chance to be fully funded. Landmines are things an enemy hides to deter someone from moving forward. Step on a landmine and any and all progress to the goal stops. To get to your goal you must avoid the landmines strewn around you.
What leadership landmines most often blow up a churches chances for being fully funded? Here are my key landmines that may be impacting you…
1. Disengaged leaders. The biggest landmine is that too many church leaders simply don’t care about giving. The reason I can say that is few spend any time on building giving. What we spend time on shows what we value. This is true in our personal and professional lives. How much time do you spend on giving planning?
To be fair, The Tyranny of the Urgent keeps many leaders from thinking they have time to worry about giving. That is one thing but the other is too many leaders simply hate any and all things related to money. The result is that most pastors and leaders just don’t care about being involved in building out giving. That is until they get desperate.
If you want to be fully funded you have to be engaged! Leaders of churches that are fully funded realize that the buck stop with them. If no one owns being fully funded then being fully funded will be next to impossible to realize. If you are a leader in your church get engaged!
2. Unaware leaders. I am shocked at how many leaders have no clue of their giving trends. Many pastors don’t even know what their annual budget is or what they need weekly. How can you lead your church to be fully funded and be ignorant of how things are going?
You need to know how giving presently is stacking up to previous years, quarters, months and weeks. Do you know? You need to know more than just how much came in last Sunday or last year. Do you know how many givers you lost as opposed to how many you gained? Do you know which donor segments are growing and which are declining? Do you know how many new givers you see on a monthly basis? Do you know how giving is truly going?
If you want to be fully funded you have to be aware! If you are unaware of where giving stands you could be heading for a July disaster in terms of doing all you feel God has for your church. You have to keep your finger on the pulse of giving at your church. Otherwise you might be heading for a train wreck. If you are a leader in your church get aware!
3. Coasting leaders. Here is where I find most leaders when it comes to giving and generosity building. Most in the church are continuing to do what they have always done. Basically they are coasting when it comes to working on being fully funded. They assume what worked last year, or in some cases in the last century, will still work today. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a saying I coined…
If you keep doing what you always have done, you will not get what you always got.
Maybe that is poor grammar but you get the point. Churches are famous for saying, “We never done it that way before.” Those seven deadly words can assure that you will NOT be fully funded. Times have changed and are process of how we collect funds must change as well as how we communicate our message. The changing demands of the day we live in needs we must continually work at our message and process. We can’t simply coast.
If you want to be fully funded you have to keep pedaling! Even if you made budget last year there is no guarantee that you will this year. You have to keep working at it, 365 days a year!
I can help you overcome each of these landmines! Contact me today to find out how.
Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach