Faith Works 11-14-2025
Jeff Gill
When thankfulness becomes giving
___
This is the time of year when many faith communities, and in truth many non-profits of all sorts, conduct some sort of campaign around stewardship and finances and invitations to give.
As a long-time parish pastor, I've seen many different approaches to this need to prepare and to plan as an institution, because if a faith community has a church building and staff who are compensated on any basis, you are an institution whether you like it or not.
Some congregations have a standard system they've used for years with pledge cards and promotional pieces in the bulletin, perhaps some special sermons in worship about stewardship or other speakers talking about their own experience with tithing as a spiritual discipline, and why they give.
Since most churches have already done theirs for the year by the time you read this, I'll take a risk here and offer my own ideas, which for the record, no church I've served has liked or adopted. So YMMV! (Your mileage may vary.)
I dislike pledge cards, or commitment cards, or estimate of giving cards. It brings up echoes of layaway and club dues and membership in the wrong sort of way. I love fall stewardship campaigns: as education campaigns. Tell your community here's what we intend to do, here's what it will cost. Use your finance team's time to research that, have good answers to it, and refine how to share it with the church community in multiple ways.
If you have a $300,000 projected budget, and a hundred giving units, then you're telling them the work of the church anticipates an average of $250 per month from each giver. Sure, some will give less, some will give more, but almost everyone thinks of themselves as above average. I've heard all the arguments for why a giving campaign should come first, and budget making second, but without getting into too much detail, I'm just not convinced.
I'm also on the fence about how much to talk about tithing. I talk about it, I preach on it, and I've served congregations where it was common conversation, and where it wasn't, and just as an opening comment: the number of tithers wasn't much different in either. The reality is 2-3% of income is common among U.S. Christians of all sorts, and 10% (however you calculate, pre- or post-taxes, another long discussion I'll skip for now) is a heavy lift. What I do eagerly talk about is proportional giving: see Luke 21.
Because at minimum, at bare minimum, people of faith should know a) how much they make, and b) how much they give. You'd be amazed to know how few people know their income. I. Am. Not. Kidding. You may know your biweekly take-home pay and not much else, which is a great way to end up in a hole.
Stewardship starts with clarity and honesty about what you make, what you spend, and what you give. Don't tell me you're a tither if you're unclear what's coming in. And for some, God's call puts much more than ten percent on the table. If you know your situation, and it's 2% and tight, making a firm commitment to 2.5% is something I would honor. You start there, and work up.
Local churches are struggling, and I honor their struggle. The costs of owning a property, grand or humble, and the expenses of staffing, even for part-time positions, are significantly higher than they were in the 1980s. Not just inflation, but there are costs of compliance & operations (starting with insurance!) which are a bigger percentage of church budgets than they once were. My prayer is that we support where we worship, and listen to those dealing with hard questions around finances. If our assumptions are rooted in how we've always done it, we might just be wrong.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's preached quite a few Consecration Sunday sermons. Tell him your views on stewardship at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
When thankfulness becomes giving
___
This is the time of year when many faith communities, and in truth many non-profits of all sorts, conduct some sort of campaign around stewardship and finances and invitations to give.
As a long-time parish pastor, I've seen many different approaches to this need to prepare and to plan as an institution, because if a faith community has a church building and staff who are compensated on any basis, you are an institution whether you like it or not.
Some congregations have a standard system they've used for years with pledge cards and promotional pieces in the bulletin, perhaps some special sermons in worship about stewardship or other speakers talking about their own experience with tithing as a spiritual discipline, and why they give.
Since most churches have already done theirs for the year by the time you read this, I'll take a risk here and offer my own ideas, which for the record, no church I've served has liked or adopted. So YMMV! (Your mileage may vary.)
I dislike pledge cards, or commitment cards, or estimate of giving cards. It brings up echoes of layaway and club dues and membership in the wrong sort of way. I love fall stewardship campaigns: as education campaigns. Tell your community here's what we intend to do, here's what it will cost. Use your finance team's time to research that, have good answers to it, and refine how to share it with the church community in multiple ways.
If you have a $300,000 projected budget, and a hundred giving units, then you're telling them the work of the church anticipates an average of $250 per month from each giver. Sure, some will give less, some will give more, but almost everyone thinks of themselves as above average. I've heard all the arguments for why a giving campaign should come first, and budget making second, but without getting into too much detail, I'm just not convinced.
I'm also on the fence about how much to talk about tithing. I talk about it, I preach on it, and I've served congregations where it was common conversation, and where it wasn't, and just as an opening comment: the number of tithers wasn't much different in either. The reality is 2-3% of income is common among U.S. Christians of all sorts, and 10% (however you calculate, pre- or post-taxes, another long discussion I'll skip for now) is a heavy lift. What I do eagerly talk about is proportional giving: see Luke 21.
Because at minimum, at bare minimum, people of faith should know a) how much they make, and b) how much they give. You'd be amazed to know how few people know their income. I. Am. Not. Kidding. You may know your biweekly take-home pay and not much else, which is a great way to end up in a hole.
Stewardship starts with clarity and honesty about what you make, what you spend, and what you give. Don't tell me you're a tither if you're unclear what's coming in. And for some, God's call puts much more than ten percent on the table. If you know your situation, and it's 2% and tight, making a firm commitment to 2.5% is something I would honor. You start there, and work up.
Local churches are struggling, and I honor their struggle. The costs of owning a property, grand or humble, and the expenses of staffing, even for part-time positions, are significantly higher than they were in the 1980s. Not just inflation, but there are costs of compliance & operations (starting with insurance!) which are a bigger percentage of church budgets than they once were. My prayer is that we support where we worship, and listen to those dealing with hard questions around finances. If our assumptions are rooted in how we've always done it, we might just be wrong.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's preached quite a few Consecration Sunday sermons. Tell him your views on stewardship at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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