Talking about death is difficult. Yet planned giving, especially in congregational contexts, can clarify what’s important to us and how that can benefit others long after we’re gone.
Church leaders often say they want their church to have an endowment.
And while that’s good, churches need to be prepared to dig a little deeper and answer some core questions as they establish an endowment, says Olanda Carr Jr., Senior Ministry Relations Officer for the Presbyterian Foundation.
The averted gaze when a member of the stewardship committee approaches. The neglected pledge forms. The Stewardship Sunday sermon the pastor secretly (or not so secretly) dreads giving.
The annual stewardship campaign is a rite of autumn that must be endured. Right?
Or, could stewardship be about abundance rather than scarcity? What if stewardship was a reason instead of a season?
Knowledge of who gives, and how much they give, in a congregation is essential to successful stewardship. This was the message delivered last week by pastors Louise Westfall and Justin Spurlock at the Stewardship Kaleidoscope session titled “You Ask for It: Conversations on the Giving Spectrum.”
Many church leaders fear that emphasizing planned giving can damage the annual stewardship effort or an ongoing capital campaign.
But in fact, the opposite is true, says Karl Mattison, Vice President of Planned Giving Resources for the Presbyterian Foundation.
In his session titled “Endowments 101” at the Stewardship Kaleidoscope gathering in San Diego last week, Stephen Keizer, Vice President of Ministry Relations at the Presbyterian Foundation, taught key concepts around church endowments including their inception, management and eventual use.
Leaders of small churches sometimes spend so much time looking back at how things used to be that they don’t appreciate the blessings and assets their church still has, says Olanda Carr Jr., Senior Ministry Relations Officer for the Presbyterian Foundation.
