This has been a longstanding policy at Good News Church and yet, I don’t recall if I’ve ever said anything about this publicly. But now you can know, Good News Church keeps me out of the loop as to who gives which amounts of money to the church.
This has been true for all twelve years we’ve existed as a church (our twelfth anniversary was back on Monday, August 14) and the main reason has been to avoid accusations of favoritism.
We’ve heard of stories where some churches throw banquets for their biggest donors, and sometimes even have a staff member (titled “stewardship pastor” or something like that) whose job it is to court big donors and make sure they are continuing to happily give money to the cause.
Our method has actually been a lot more simple than that. We have trusted God to provide for our needs by inspiring people like you to donate money to our church. We’ve asked for money a few times. But that’s pretty much been the whole fundraising strategy. It may seem naïve to some, but it’s worked just fine for twelve years. And I don’t know who gives what.
The upside is that when a particular decision is made (choosing a new drummer, making a change to the Youth Bible Study, choosing a preaching topic, making a Kidzone change) we can make it clear that the decision was made based on the merits of the decision and not to please so-and-so who donates a lot.
One of the downsides to this way of handling things is that there have probably been times when someone has written a giant check to our church and then wondered why I didn’t personally thank them. “Does Mario not appreciate that I donated to his church?” Well, of course I do. I just didn’t know that you did it. Please don’t think I’m ungrateful. It’s just been better for me to not even be tempted to treat people differently based on how much they give.
We have made a few partial exceptions at times. For instance, when considering new leaders (either elders or community group leaders) there have been occasions when we’ve checked with the church bookkeeper to see if that person was a “regular giver.” But we didn’t inquire as to the amount. We simply asked the bookkeeper if this person was a regular supporter of our church before we gave them authority over some part of it.
I hope knowing this is helpful for you. If you are looking for a church that gives special treatment to the big donors, this is not the church for you. In fact, Christianity may not even be the religion for you (see James 2:1-4.) But if you’d like to fund the mission that this church is striving for, we happily accept any support. Thank you, all of you, who have helped us accomplish what we have these last twelve years.
This has been true for all twelve years we’ve existed as a church (our twelfth anniversary was back on Monday, August 14) and the main reason has been to avoid accusations of favoritism.
We’ve heard of stories where some churches throw banquets for their biggest donors, and sometimes even have a staff member (titled “stewardship pastor” or something like that) whose job it is to court big donors and make sure they are continuing to happily give money to the cause.
Our method has actually been a lot more simple than that. We have trusted God to provide for our needs by inspiring people like you to donate money to our church. We’ve asked for money a few times. But that’s pretty much been the whole fundraising strategy. It may seem naïve to some, but it’s worked just fine for twelve years. And I don’t know who gives what.
The upside is that when a particular decision is made (choosing a new drummer, making a change to the Youth Bible Study, choosing a preaching topic, making a Kidzone change) we can make it clear that the decision was made based on the merits of the decision and not to please so-and-so who donates a lot.
One of the downsides to this way of handling things is that there have probably been times when someone has written a giant check to our church and then wondered why I didn’t personally thank them. “Does Mario not appreciate that I donated to his church?” Well, of course I do. I just didn’t know that you did it. Please don’t think I’m ungrateful. It’s just been better for me to not even be tempted to treat people differently based on how much they give.
We have made a few partial exceptions at times. For instance, when considering new leaders (either elders or community group leaders) there have been occasions when we’ve checked with the church bookkeeper to see if that person was a “regular giver.” But we didn’t inquire as to the amount. We simply asked the bookkeeper if this person was a regular supporter of our church before we gave them authority over some part of it.
I hope knowing this is helpful for you. If you are looking for a church that gives special treatment to the big donors, this is not the church for you. In fact, Christianity may not even be the religion for you (see James 2:1-4.) But if you’d like to fund the mission that this church is striving for, we happily accept any support. Thank you, all of you, who have helped us accomplish what we have these last twelve years.
