We're Not Taking Up an Offering at Church

Can you imagine going to church and hearing: "We're not collecting an offering today!"

That would be a shock!

Yet, that's what happened in Exodus 36.3-7.

Moses hears a complaint from the workers that they can't keep up with all the money, gold, jewelry, grain that the people are brining. THE WORKERS ASK MOSES TO STOP THE PEOPLE FROM GIVING!

I would love to stand in front of a worship assembly and say "You're bringing too much. Let's not take an offering."

A twist on this idea is to collect the Sunday morning offerings but give all of it away outside of the church. That might be a first step to an Exodus 36 Sunday.

But first, leaders would need to wrestle with this question:

What are the marks of a church bringing too much in offerings?

-and-

How do we help our church grow towards an Exodus 36 moment?

Are You Giving Away Tasks or Giving Away Authority?

Be careful about what you give away...

It's not enough to teach, train and discipline people to exhibit the right behaviors and follow thru on completing tasks.

You also have to empower them to make decisions based on the situation around them.

Better yet, you have to give them authority to make decisions on their own.

It's the difference between delegating tasks and delegating authority. (Great insight from Craig Groeschel!)

If you delegate tasks, you'll get mindless followers who constantly look to you to make decisions.

If you delegate authority, you'll get leaders who look to you for VISION.

This is what it looks like if you only give away tasks instead of authority:

Nothing Beats Snail Mail (Google Proves It)

I'm happy to hear that snail mail still is recognized as an effective way to personally communicate. In this email-facebook message-140 character twitter-age, the personal touch can get easily lost.

As leaders, we always need to assume that even though we send out an email, even though we send a message through Facebook, that doesn't mean we've communicated effectively and personally. Nothing beats a phone call, a face-to-face communique, or better yet, a handwritten note.

Don't believe me? Consider Google's comments and it's latest initiative for people this Christmas.

(I know it's not a handwritten postcard, but it is impressive that the internet giant Google recognizes the unique personal touch a postcard possesses).

You Don't Have to be Accurate to Draw

Check this video out. This is what I do when I craft my sermons (although I'm not nearly as good as this guy:)

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

Budget Meetings You Can Look Forward To

Last week, we had the best budget meeting ever!

We arrived at a balanced budget, every person left with unity of thought, and all our finances connected to the vision of the church.

How?

Every person accountable for a line of the budget provided their 2010 figures to the Treasurer ahead of time. Making no adjustments to the figures, the Treasurer compiled the numbers and brought the first draft of the budget to the meeting.

At the meeting, the budget was projected on the wall (side note: it's frustrating to me to have paper copies shuffling of papers, don't know what line item people are talking about...if it's projected, you can point to what you're talking about.)

We had a dialogue and cut figures and came up with ways to balance the budget.

Then came the fun part...

In order to balance the budget, all of us had to cut out funding in certain areas and had to leave some items unfunded. But that doesn't mean we ignored those items.

We took out large sheets of paper and each of us wrote down a personal wish list of items that we would like funded for 2010. Then, each person got 5 stickers. They could use their 5 stickers to vote for any item on any wish list but they could only vote for only 1 item on their own list.

We compiled all the items that got votes and ended up with 10 items. Each person took the list of 10 items and ranked them 1 to 10 (1 = lowest priority and 10 = highest priority). We added up all the votes for every item and found that there were 2-3 top priority items that everyone agreed that needed to be done.

Now, when God blesses us with more than we budgeted for and when donors come to us to fund projects outside the budget, the whole team (not just me) has the same answer on how that money gets spent.

I can't tell you what our top 3 items are for 2010 (that wouldn't be fair to our church) but I can tell you that this process broke down the silos of ministry and created a unity of vision like none other!