Giving and Stewardship in an Effective Church: A Guide for Every Member - Hardcover

With these paradoxical statements, Callahan launches his exploration of Giving and Stewardship in an Effective Church. Drawing on four decades of consulting experience with churches of all denominations, the author of Twelve Keys to an Effective Church provides readers with a motivational and informational account of his twelfth key—how to put a church on solid financial footing.
Callahan stresses that money is not the first issue of stewardship. Before a church can be successful in fund-raising, it needs a clear sense of mission in the local community. "Money follows mission, not the reverse," he writes. "This is a shorthand way of saying that the stronger the congregation's relational [person-centered] characteristics, the easier it is to raise money. The stronger the congregation's mission, visitation [in the community], worship, [significant relational] groupings, leadership, and [participatory] decision making, the stronger the giving." Giving, he says, increases in direct proportion to the strength of the mission. "When you grow the mission, the money will come—and it will be sufficient for the mission."

This comprehensive and pragmatic guide to giving and stewardship examines the six sources of giving available to a congregation:

• spontaneous giving
  
• major community worship giving
  
• special planned giving
  
• short-term giving
  
• annual giving
  
• enduring giving
  

• compassion
  
• community
  
• challenge
  
• reasonability
  
• commitment

Callahan also shares practical suggestions and wisdom for applying the four steps of giving, and he shows how these steps are really also the steps for mission.

Giving and Stewardship is ideal for congregational study, small groups, or retreats. It will help church members in their mission, their life, their family, and their church. "Living is giving," Callahan writes. "We live life best as we give our strengths, gifts, and competencies in the service of God's mission. We are called to serve, not survive. Our giving makes a difference in our families, our work, our community, our world, and our church."