A truth that many pastors choke on is if you want to raise money you have to preach on money. As a young pastor I once counted how many times in the previous year I had preached a sermon on money. This was back in the day when my church held a Sunday morning service a Sunday night service and a Wednesday night service. Three sermons a week! In the year that I counted my giving sermons I came up with one sermon dedicated to giving. I was not about to be “that” preacher, the one that always talks about money. Then I discovered…
the New Testament has about…
- 500 verses on faith
- 500 verses on prayer
- Over 1,000 verses on giving
- 19 of Jesus 38 parables deal with giving
- 1/10 of the book of Matthew deals with stewardship and giving!
Today’s money hungry world would claim Jesus was “that” kind of preacher!
“All the church talks about is money!” Who says that? People ignorant of the truth. In truth most pastors hardly ever talk about money as study after study has proven.
The real problem is that people have a problem with money and any time anyone talks about it they push back. So what did the Contemporary Church movement tell us, to stop talking about money. So for the sake of the crowd we went silent on preaching or talking about money. One result is that giving to the church is in steady decline. If we stop preaching on every topic that people don’t like we will have a thin Bible to preach from!
The real problem is not that we talk about money it is how we talk about it that turns people off. Most sermons about giving are guilt laden. What we MUST do is preach on this crucial topic but do it in a way that motivates people to WANT to give.
My passion is to reverse the decline in giving on church at a time. One of the best ways to reverse declining giving is to teach the biblical truths on giving. When was the last time you preached on money and possessions? Are you thinking now about a sermon series on giving? If you are struggling financially as a church it could be that you have failed to teach biblical stewardship. Break that bad habit now!
My Giving365 gives you all the tools you need to increase giving from weekly offering talks to sermons on giving. You can try it for 14 days for only $1 here https://thestewardshipcoach.org/2015/06/15/giving-365-introductory-special-14-days-for-1-00/
Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach
PS. If you hold annual pledge campaigns to raise money for your budget my, “The Maximized Annual Campaign,” has several sermons that you can use. To get a copy go to https://thestewardshipcoach.org/store/