Session Three

Resourcing Vision While Affirming Your Budget

In my experience, I have discovered that many pastors do not enjoy talking about money and often assume fundraising is secret-rocket-science-stuff. This observation has provided me two decades of coaching opportunities.

Now that I am serving at ABCH full-time, I can pull the curtain back on an important secret: Fundraising is less like rocket science and more like discipleship. In this blog, I am going to describe a series of opportunities to help turn your normal budget affirmation process into an above average resource raising experience that can be customized as you like.

1. Think sermon series. I would not suggest budget approval be limited to a business meeting that you secretly wish no one attends. Raise the bar to celebrate the power and promise of God’s generosity. After all, the gospel itself is about giving. For God so loved the world that he gave . . ..

I want circle back from the previous blog to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. While there are many generosity stories in scripture, this one does warrant an entire series. Here are some message topics that may resonate with you:

2 Corinthians 8:1–7 | Describes a church that received the grace of God as a gift but was in a difficult situation. However, their current challenges did not prevent them from leaning forward into generosity.

2 Corinthians 8:8–15 | Helps us understand our potential to live generously because of Christ, but it also exposes common obstacles. The principle is to keep moving forward, finishing what God has started.

2 Corinthians 8:16–24 | Makes for a great leadership devotion as it describes how the generosity of the church was cared for and administrated.

2 Corinthians 9:1–5 | Provides for a season of preparation before we take a big step forward in generosity. Spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, and personal budgeting could be helpful topics.

2 Corinthians 9:6–15 | Unpacks the personal rewards and eternal impact of generosity which makes for a great ending to your series.

2. Think celebration. Spend some time crafting language to put in print and testimony along with incorporating into your messages that acknowledges the miraculous work of God in your church. It would be great to make celebration a part of your very first sermon in the series.

You might be asking, exactly what are we celebrating? I want to refer back to the previous blog on “How to Rally My Leaders Around Vision.” As a part of leading your team, you reflected upon the year reminding people of all that God has been doing. These stories can now be shared publicly with the congregation. People desire to know they are a part of something bigger than themselves, and you hold the connection points via these stories.

It has been a long time since the overflowing Easter service or that baptism event following VBS, and we tend to forget what we have experienced together. Additionally, God may be at work in a specific ministry where others are not involved. Share stories that will help everyone connect. Feel free to focus your stories toward your vision and budget direction. This will help prepare people for those conversations in the near future.

3. Think discipleship. God calls all of us to take our next step. His desire is to always keep us moving forward in our faith and with other believers. However, everyone is at a different place in their spiritual journey, so not everyone is ready to take the same step.

Generosity is the fruit of discipleship. A pastor should never feel the pressure to raise money. We should always enjoy the fruit of spiritual growth. Acts 2:42 is so inspiring to me. The very first verse of scripture ever recorded about the very first church states they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, fellowship, and prayer. Then Acts 2:44 names the result. The people believed together and held all things in common. They sold their goods donating the resources to those in need. Discipleship produced generosity.

As a quick aside, in Acts 2:43 they celebrated the miraculous works of God among them which I have already encouraged you to do earlier in this blog. Learning, praying, celebrating, and giving all go together when it comes to activities of the church.

During this sermon series you could provide some added elements like a season of prayer. If you wanted to get even more serious, you could weave in fasting. Jesus actually addresses these three spiritual activities (prayer, fasting, and giving) in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:2, 5, and 16. You might consider leaning into your members’ spiritual gifts and service as well. All of these activities will be helpful as you share vision and reveal your budget which is aligned to future direction.

The final step will be inspiring them to become all God wants them to be together via prayer, service, and generosity toward the vision.

4. Think engagement. I am not going to address how or when you will accomplish budget approval or affirmation. However, I am going provide a sample of how you can organize unity around such things. Here is a very important generosity principle. The more engaged a person is in living out the vision of the local church, the more times they give and the more dollars they give during the course of a year. So, let’s raise engagement, not money. For multiple reasons, engagement is a win for everyone.

Here is a sample strategy you might consider using:

Week 1: Launch your sermon series and celebrate all that God has done over the course of the year. Feel free to throw a party even if it means balloons and ice cream. Make it memorable. Reward your people for being a part of something eternal all year long.

Week 2: Share your vision for the upcoming year. Be specific about your goals and direction. This would be an obvious time to present your budget, as well as any big initiatives they can expect in the future. The more your budget and initiatives are tied to what you celebrated, the better. When people see how God has worked in the past it will give them confidence to step stronger into a similar future.

Week 3: Highlight a few spiritual disciplines that will be required of everyone if you are going to fulfill God’s vision together. Items like prayer, service, and generosity. You could even highlight an upcoming season of prayer and time of commitment in the future. This may be accompanied by a ministry fair or a one-time offering that is directed toward your vision or one of the specific initiatives. If you are conducting this series in the November/December time frame, it is an optimal time for a focused year-end ask.

Week 4: Teach on the generous life—its behaviors, obstacles, fruits, or rewards. Your people have been a part of God’s work in small and big ways in the current year. For some it may have been by accident, for others it was on purpose. This message can help everyone find their place on the team and take their next step.

So, there you go, you have seen behind the curtain of how a professional fundraiser takes a normal experience like budget approval and turns it into positive momentum which increases unity and raises resources. Remember the secret? Fundraising is less like rocket science and more like discipleship. Increase engagement and you will increase resources.

Thank you for going on this journey over the past few blogs and videos. I have presented a lot of ideas and opportunities. Try not to be overwhelmed. You cannot do it all, nor will it go perfectly. Simply find one area to improve upon this year, do your best, learn, and know you get another shot at it next year which means you can keep getting better. God bless, and live generously today.

Todd McMichen serves as Chief Development Officer for Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries (ABCH). Prior to joining ABCH, Todd served local churches in a variety of leadership positions for over 30 years. His experience ranges from small rural churches to suburban mega-churches with several church plants in between. Additionally, he has years invested in bivocational ministry. Most recently, he served as the Director of Generosity and Digital Giving at Lifeway Christian Resources. Todd believes in living generously and inspiring others to live joyously in generosity as well.