How Resurrection changed its approach to stewardship
Rev. Clayton Smith talks about the results of a different attitude towards stewardship at Church of the Resurrection. (photo by Lisa Elliott Diehl) |
Written: 10/22/2009
By Lisa Elliott Diehl
Marketing and Communications director
LEAWOOD—In 2007, United Methodist Church of the Resurrection changed its approach to the stewardship campaign and what resulted has been published as a resource for other churches to help members change the way they relate to money.
“Enough: Discovering Joy through Simplicity and Generosity” was published in March and is based on the sermons Rev. Adam Hamilton preached during Resurrection’s 2007 stewardship campaign.
“Stewardship is about what the church wants for its people, not what the church wants from its people,” said Rev. Clayton Smith, executive pastor of generosity at Resurrection for the past four years. “We want people to experience the joy of generosity. I think being generous completes you as a child of God.”
The biggest challenge for pastors in preaching messages on finances is having their own finances in order. Preachers who know and understand how they use their personal money are better able to preach about money to their members.
“We have a great challenge and opportunity for preaching generosity in a recession,” Smith said. “The ultimate purpose of preaching is to bring people closer to God. As leaders, we have to be open, honest and transparent. If the preacher knows the joy of giving, he or she can make a difference.”
In 2007, the leaders at Resurrection decided to take on the present culture around money, generosity and stewardship. What they found is that people were struggling, not because they earned low wages, but because they were making poor decisions about how to spend their money. Families were spending more than they earned and were in danger of losing their homes, even a year before the nation experienced the financial collapse in 2008.
In response to that, Rev. Adam Hamilton preached a series of sermons designed to help members to take a closer look at their relationships with money and make changes that would leave them more financially stable.
“It became clear that people in the congregation were struggling with money,” Smith said. “They were saving nothing, spending beyond their means. We knew we could help people redefine their relationship with money.”
The first step was to identify the problem. Hamilton met with local credit counselors to learn more about the problems people in the area were having with money. Once the problems were identified, the church began to look at ways to help members.
“Generosity is the new evangelism,” Smith said. “People are hurting in areas related to money. This is an area where people need the church.”
Instead of sending out the usual stewardship letter, Hamilton wrote a letter promoting the “Simplicity, Generosity and Joy” series by laying out what the problems were and how they would explore solutions together through the sermon series. Smith said one of the most important pieces of the strategy was Hamilton’s invitation letter, which was mailed to the entire mailing list, and not just to the church members.
Usually, attendance fell off during stewardship campaigns, but, that year, the attendance swelled. Each week, new tools to help people make good decisions about money were included in the bulletin or shared in the sermon.
“I think the key is found in two words—creativity and conviction,” Smith said.
When it came time at the end of the four-week series to ask people to commit to their giving for the next year, Hamilton pulled up a stool and sat down on it to have a heart-to-heart with the congregation. He told them he wanted to talk to them about something important, something that really mattered. He shared that he wasn’t asking people to give because the church needed their money. He was asking them to put God first in their living and first in their giving.
The response was overwhelming. Giving commitments had declined to about 50 percent of the membership in the years leading up to the “Simplicity, Generosity and Joy” series. That year, 70 percent of members returned commitment cards.
“When you help people better manage their resources, they increase their saving, they spend less and they give more,” Smith said.
The incredible need and the eventual, global financial crash led to the church leaders exercising what Hamilton calls the “triage principle.” Hamilton said when the financial collapse happened, the church had to be nimble enough to respond. Out of that came a new goal and supporting strategies that included expanding the church’s ministries to job-seekers and spouses, financial assistance for people in crisis, one-on-one counseling and offering Christian financial courses like Financial Peace University.
After the financial collapse, Hamilton’s next stewardship series was called “Reset” and focused on re-setting priorities. This year’s series will be called “After the Fire” and will talk about not forgetting what has been learned from the financial crisis as the economic recovery begins to take hold.