A funny thing happened to me last week. I went to a meeting. I didn’t log into a meeting. I went there. I put on long pants (not my favorite part), drove to the church, small talked then got to…
Read MoreIn the last week the churches of the East Ohio Annual Conference have scrambled to figure out how to live stream their worship services. Some have full-blown Sunday morning productions, others are pastors in front of their cell phones offering…
Read MoreI often get a comment like “We haven’t done a stewardship campaign in decades. We don’t need to, we always pay the bills.” Or sometimes it’s “We don’t really talk stewardship in our church, it makes people uncomfortable.” Or my…
Read MoreThe Board of Directors at the Foundation has spent the last year in a strategic planning process. We are a much different organization than when I got here seven years ago and we were trying to get a handle on…
Read MoreLast night I met with a local church’s Finance Committee. They spent a few minutes going over the financials, discussing the pluses and the minuses. They they got to me to talk stewardship. Here’s the problem. It was the Finance…
Read MoreIf you’re a regular reader of this space you know that missions are important to me. In fact, if I could only have the church do one thing, I would skip worship, Sunday School and (gasp!) even committee meetings and…
Read MoreI had a great consultation last week with a pastor who had an interesting dilemma, one that many wish they were in. The church was about to receive a significant bequest from a member and he was looking for some…
Read MoreI was recently part of a discussion about gifts of life insurance to the church and whether or not I like them. (I know, you’re amazed at how exciting my life is, aren’t you?) Given the question “Is life insurance…
Read MoreHere is my report from Annual Conference this morning, including links to the two videos. All week we have heard from church people. As a change of pace, I’d like to open my presentation with the perspective of a volunteer…
Read MoreEveryone talks about leaving a better planet for the children. Why nobody tries to leave better children to the planet? That’s one of my favorite quotes, and as a parent of two above average teenagers, it is one that…
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