Podcast Episode #527
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It sounds paradoxical, but some churches will see overall growth in attendance while their giving decreases. How is this possible? Today we explain.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Giving typically mimics the flow of church attendance, but you shouldn’t be alarmed in the short term if the two are asynchronous.
- It takes time for new Christians to understand and practice the spiritual disciplines of giving and biblical stewardship.
- Job relocations or deaths of members who are strong givers are something a church cannot control but often has to deal with.
- The offertory time gives you a weekly opportunity to highlight stewardship principles in the church.
The seven reasons for giving dips that we discuss are:
- Happens in about 25% of churches with attendance increases
- The “up and down” period lasts 1 – 2 years
- New Christians
- Younger families
- Exit of stable givers
- Stewardship emphasis declines
- Decline in percentage of attendance in groups
Resources mentioned in today’s podcast
Rainer on Leadership is a member of the LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network
Episode Sponsors
Today’s episode is sponsored by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Midwestern offers more than 25 degrees at both undergraduate and masters level that are fully attainable online. From Business to Bible, Counseling to Christian education, prepare for your future at your own pace and in your own location.
Find out more at mbts.edu/online.
Vanderbloemen Search Group is the premier pastor search firm dedicated to helping churches and ministries build great teams. They’ve helped thousands of churches just like yours find their church staff and are uniquely geared to help you discern who God is calling to lead your church.
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Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of Becoming a Welcoming Church.
Research shows Andy Anderson’s work on his Church Growth Spiral among thousands of local churches (SBC and others) across the nation included a good bit of per-cap rate of giving info that still is invaluable knowledge today for congregations’ leaders with little access to other such information. Its use was recommended by Andy for future planning and to guide steps in positive directions (he pointed out that financial starting points didn’t matter as much as godly commitments by believers to biblical growth). LifeWay’s consultants still should be able to share this info–and are only a phone call or email away 🙂
Wow. Thanks Thom…i felt a breath of relief when I read this. We are in a growth surge and added a second service and just announced a second site for October.
Your point about all the growth “unsettling” current donors is really valid. With all the new people, i have heard comments that “there are so many new people- this doesnt feel like my church any more”. I am glad you said this stage is short lived, but we definitely have some work to do.
My prayers, Dave.
I am aware of a church in my new town in a denomination I do not attend that has had multiple periods of great growth, each followed by a split that formed another church (not happy splits I am told.) I have friends attending there now and my limited understanding, being new to the community, was that each period of growth was ushered in by a mega change in the theology of the church quickly followed by a “whole new way of doing church.”
Right now they are undergoing what I am told is the third major change in theology and how church is done. The original members left in the first sea change, the then newbies left in the second. Those there now–the newest newbies–do not like the changes but rather than leave are simply sitting on their wallets to force the change agent out.
I have no dog in their fight but find it somewhat ironic that those accused of “stealing the building” now have it being “stolen from them.”
And I ask in all sincerity: if leadership believes a huge change is needed in what a given congregation teaches or how they do church, isn’t it showing more integrity to simply plant a new church rather than transition/replant/renovate/rewhatever an existing congregation that maybe just do not believe they need to accept the changes? I’m thinking in housewife terms here, but suppose when I was 40 another woman thought she could be a better wife to my hubby, raise my kids an entirely different and better way, and give him more kids to boot. Should I have accepted that? Would anyone here argue she would be justified in trying such a thing? For those who are doing church in a way they believe is faithful to God it feels very much the same when these huge pushes to increase attendance (rather than true conversion in their way of thinking) occur.
Just curious as to your thoughts.
“True conversion “ bingo!
Of course people leave when everything they love about their church is changing. They see all the programs geared to attract a new kind of customer, but they are somehow not allowed to be customers themselves. They are told church is not about them, but apparently it “is* about those all-important young suburban families. Older folks and unmarried Gen Xers find themselves used as little more than an ATM machine to fund Easter egg hunts for other people’s children. No one wants to do that.