I worked along with our Senior Leadership team to implement the Preach, Teach, Celebrate and Apply stewardship strategy initially unveiled by Generous Giving and Crown Financial Ministries during the Exponential 2004 Conference.

PREACH boldly, motivating our members to grace-inspired generosity. Preaching stewardship motivates our church body.

In this area, I helped our Senior Pastor with stewardship related research for various messages he was planning to give. I also worked with our leadership team to redefine how we communicated the offering time in the services. We stopped using the typical “If you are a guest here don’t give…” and instead used this time to highlight ministry wins and tie them into the generosity of the church. Many people commented on how they liked hearing how the money was being used to help people.

TEACH effectively, helping our members to apply God’s principles on finances. Teaching stewardship educates our church body.

This area was the major emphasis of my role at the church. I developed workshops and classes, such as the Making Change Financial Seminar to reach people with the stewardship message. I also oversaw the Crown Financial Ministries courses at the church. Furthermore, I worked with the other ministries in the church to equip them to teach on stewardship principles to their own audience.

CELEBRATE joyfully, developing excitement resulting in a fully funded church. We need to connect money with ministry. Celebrating stewardship punctuates what we are accomplishing as a church.
“Celebration reinforces values” – Andy Stanley

The celebration took place mainly with the Dividends newsletters. I had also just finished up a pilot donor relations program, but as of the time I left the church, the program had not been implemented.

APPLY successfully, modeling faithfulness personally and church-wide. Applying stewardship authenticates our mission, vision, leadership, and moral authority.

We constantly looked for ways to apply the stewardship principles in our church. One of the ways we implemented to make sure we were doing our best was to lead over 90% of our staff through the Crown 10 week study.

Click on the image below to download a more detailed strategy document.