Elements Of A Healthy Financial System Pt. 3-4

It's pretty out there though, didn't it? Nice weather could use a little more rain. Good to get some the other night I wouldn't it. How did you get rained hard at our house? But I don't think it rain that long actually.

Hey, I don't want you can go by and see y'all. These Lakes are are dry.

That's right. Yeah, that's right around.

I was, right. All right. Well, I'm glad that you're here tonight. We're going to continue in our financial series. Let me say, I appreciate it. Everything on Sunday, Sunday was a good day, wouldn't it? It was a real good day. Keith, we appreciate that. Cooking, you did that. Chicken was just incredible, ate a piece for supper tonight. So, We appreciate that, but it was a good day. We had some had, some visitors and had a good report from John that maybe Rick's going to come by and bring his wife. So so I guess I've been thinking I said where we've had some visitors and all and maybe you better be careful what you pray for her. That's what we've been praying for it now and then. So the Lord has answered prayer and I appreciate the generous gift that the church gave to me for pastor appreciation and I appreciate each and everyone of you, I love you all in the Lord. You know that I hope I like the pic and go on and joke sometimes. But I do, I love all of y'all and you've been so encouraging to me and in. So I'm just ready to keep going and doing what we can for the Lord. Amen. That's what I'm ready to do. So, alright, so here's what I want to do. I've got some slides tonight. Soul Elements of a healthy Church Financial system. Tonight is less than 3 and 4. We probably won't get through all this tonight. So if we don't, which we probably won't just bring your sheet back next week. So we going to continue where we left off last time. And so remember, now this is I think our first Slide the financial system, we broke it down into like a ball, team offense, and defense and weekly offerings. Of course, this is how we're bringing in money online. Giving special offerings missionary support, some Churches, support their own missionaries and we support the missionaries through the southern Baptists. And but a lot of churches have their own missionaries that they support and that's okay too. That's you know, that's a good thing, you know, to do that and then of course building projects. So that's the financial system offense Financial system defense. We haven't got to this yet and we probably won't tonight, but we'll start on this next week. Collecting money accounting, accounting budgeting and monitoring. And so we will, we will probably pick that up next week. I think I had a couple of scriptures that my Vicky two or three scriptures, the next slides. Okay, go ahead and go 2.3 and then we'll go to the scriptures. Alright remember, last week we talked about five reasons people give relationships because they you know they come to church. They know somebody in the church Vision in that would be from the pastor. If he can cultivate a a good vision of where we want, where we are and where we want to go people, get excited about that. Some people give because of need, they say you need in the gift and that's what we should do. And then other people give because of the Beatles, they say, well I'm going to give because the Bible says we should. Well, that's true. So they're being obedient. And then of course, another one is educated. Cause a lot of people don't know that they should give or what a tithe is or why why they need to give to the church. So that needs to be spoken of quite frequently from the pulpit as far as you know why we need money at the church. And what we do with that Funny, you know it cost to do ministry. It just cost to do ministry so that's five reasons why people give and then we had a couple of three scriptures I think and this is Proverbs 29:18. Speaking of the vision where there is no vision, the people perish. And so there has to be a vision, whatever, whatever.

Entity, you're talkin about. Whether it's a corporation, whether it's a church or whether it's a nation, there's a, there's a Voting coming up. What is it? November 8th. November 8th. The course early. Voting is already and people's going to be voting on people who they think. May have a vision may be a different Vision than what we have now in America and so will see that on November 8th, but where there is no vision, the people perish and then the next Rapture, probably one that we going over several times. But I love this, bring all the tithes into the storehouse, the temple that there may be food in my house and try me. Now in this test me a tri-meet, prove me says, the Lord of hosts if you'll bring your money in, if I will not open for you, the windows of heaven and pour out for you. Such blessing that that will not be room enough to receive it. I think we ought to just read that every day. I think maybe I'll start doing my daily devotion on this verse every day. I can probably think of something different to say about it each and every day. And then, of course, it's something that Jesus said in Luke give, and it will be given to you good measure pressed down shaken together and running over will be put into your bosom for where the same measure that you use. It will be measured. Back to you. Every time I read that verse, I think I'm Martha is Daddy. And the reason I think of him is called where it says good measure. Press press and how shaken together we went, we were in Atlanta, Martha's Mom and Daddy lived in Atlanta and we stopped to get some gas. And then Martha was in the back seat. And all of a sudden, the car started bouncing up and down, I said, what in the world is going on and he was filling up with gas, if he was smashing that he's trying to get all the stuff he could. If it is every time I read that pressed down shaken together, I think when we was in Atlanta and he was back there, pressing on the car, trying to get all the gas, he could get it course. It's like, you want to do that to you. But anyway, I thought that was funny. All right, so where we going tonight? All right. Okay. Was last week to five types of givers and I remember this 40 to 70% of the people in most churches are non givers. In that terrible, it's just terrible. I mean not they don't give anything I know what why would someone not give because they don't understand why it's not that they're trying to be ugly. Some people just don't know that there's they should or I want to or supposed to or commanded to. They didn't? They just don't know it. So that's why we need to talk about money and tithing and things from the pulpit because a lot of people just don't know. And then you have your first time givers. So what you want to do is have your 9 givers to become a first-time, give her, and then you have your regular givers, who, who give each month for each week. They don't give a 10%, but they give something. So those are regular givers and then you have your toddlers who give their 10%. Which is about. 10% of the church they say and then you have your excellent givers. These people are probably ones with the gift of giving and they give their tithe Plus so, That's where we all want to be at number five but there's in any church there's probably one through five at the same time. People you going to have your nan givers people who made me have given one time. Those who kept each week, so if I win $5, then you'll have your time and, of course, your excellent givers. So tonight, where do we want to go right here? We won't the continue where we left off, and I think this is in your handout, I gave you multiple types of giving the five pockets of giving in this, is the way many churches, have it set up that mean that this is the way that ours will be set up, but this is in general phone. Number one is the general fund pocket. Now, what's the general fund? Well, when you give your money to the church, or when you give a tithe, it goes to the general fund. And that's the Fonz of course that we use to you pay bills and you send money to the association, you do things of that nature, it goes into the general fund. That's just basically your tithes and then number two is the missions pocket. And again, that's for That's for churches that may support individual missionaries and they'll support those missionaries and those missionaries will come to their Church once or twice a year and they and they'll give her a report from where they're serving, what they're doing, what they need, and things of that nature. So that would be in many churches have a missions budget, where they, you know, they people give money to missions because a lot of people like the spread of the Gospel where there's the North American Mission board or the international Mission board. They want to get the gospel out and there's a lot of people who love missions. If you ever, if you ever look If you go to a website, Southern Baptist a lot of times or the biblical recorder. They will post job openings for pastor, it's and youth pastors and things like that. You'll be amazed at how many times the church is when they're putting what they want and whatever up there that they'll put we want a pastor that is Mission minded. May they love missions. They want to give to missions. They maybe want to go on short term mission trips but a lot of churches put a mission minded Pastor. So a lot of churches give to the missions pocket. The next is the capital pocket and what I would call that is the building fund pocket. And we have on our website, you can give to the building fund. I even put one up there for outreach when we start. When we get going on that we may want to find for outreach in and when we can get our finances in order and how many of you tonight or on the finance Finance? Team. The church I think there's one back there in the back, there's one so we're going to have to have a finance team and when we get this straight and in what we need is we're going to have to prepare a budget. For the things that we need or we think we need and and things. So we're just going to have to kind of start from scratch because since I've been here, we've not had what you would call a budget because covid hit in all. But at some point we're going to have to get together and we're going to have to have you know we will have to put together a budget. How many? Yes.

We going to talk about that tonight, but before we talk about it, yes.

Okay, yeah, yeah, we'll do that. We don't talk about that. We going to talk about that tonight, but I would say, I would say that would be a good Christmas offering this year. For Christmas, but we'll talk more about that tonight. Okay? So that would be kind of that would kind of go under a building fund in number for What is called the benevolence pocket? Many churches have a benevolence fund. That is to be used for those church members who come upon hard times, sometimes and some some churches will give money to folk outside the membership. You know, a lot of times people will call the church or come by and said, I need somebody to help me pay my light bill. And of course you want to help people, but you also have to be careful about that because some people will come and tell you things. That's not true. So you have to make sure and that is legit. So you going to have to tell them. I'm okay, let me see your bill. Let me see your pass noticed if it's if they're about to turn it off, let me see your pass. Notice, you know when things like that. Other people other churches, some Churches have a food pantry, which I think is a good thing too. And and they'll give give out food. So this benevolent pocket or you can call it I hope fund this, something like that. That's another one of the five pockets of giving and then number five on the designated giving pocket sometimes things happen in the year. We're okay, we need to do this the, the youth group needs a new TV, or we need a new van, or something like that, or we need to replace something. Those things come up. So at times, you have to have what's called designated giving. So I would come up and say, okay, we need to take up offering or special offering for such and such and so you have these designated giving Pocket. And so those are the five pockets of giving. All right, so let's just move on to the next C and it is this is talking about as far as taking up money, strategic timing. So did I put that on your hand out? Okay. Alright, strategic Tommy, when's the best time? To take money to ask for money, number one, when people get white paid, when people get paid. Because that's when they have money, if someone gets paid, the first of the month, you don't want to go to Home on November 28th and say, look, we need that. And when I'm sorry, most people don't have a lot of money. Toward the end of the month, if they, if they get paid once a month. So if, you know, when you have to have this strategic timing, when people get paid another good time for designated giving, or any type of giving is leading up to Christmas, Now, why would that be? Well, that's because Christmas is the giving season. and so, a lot of people playing What you don't want to take up something real close to Christmas because most people's going to go in debt at Christmas by it, all these gifts. So, you want to start talkin about, it may be in late October or early November or something. And if you have a project or something that you need some extra money for leading up to Christmas, is a good time to do it.

Here's another one. Leading up to Summer. Now, why would that be a good time? What does most people do in the summer? They take vacations. And most people that take vacations, they may be gone to say, 23 weeks or something, most people that take vacations, they're not there to tithe and they don't make up for it. so, you want to give people an opportunity to tithe And that's where it comes in with the online giving and things like that. So your pastor actually needs to get up and say at some point if you're not going to be here this summer, one way that we can receive your time. You see you don't got sound like you asking them for money. I mean and you are that's what it is but a lot of times in summer time you don't get as much money as you would at other times because people's just not at church. Some people if they miss church they will give their money the next time they come. But most if they mess well I'll just do it the next if they give once a month. So I'm going on vacation July. I'll just get July and I'll do it in August, you know. And if you if you have some vibrant Ministries and if you're doing a lot of stuff, Most churches and I'm even talkin about big churches that have a whole lot of money and a whole lot of people most of those churches. Minister month to month. You think, well, that church, there's got so many people that I bet they've got so much money. Now, if you're doing Ministry, whatever you take in that month, you going to use most of it. And you're paying your staff, you paying your pastor associate, pastor youth director, all these people are getting paid and you may take in 50 or $100,000 a month, but all this stuff that you're doing, if you're really doing ministry, right churches, would live paycheck-to-paycheck, that's the way it would be, but I've known churches, some Churches about the size of ours. That would have close to $100,000 in the bank.

I was a member of a church once that had 67,000 in the cemetery fund. I think about that. It's nice to have a nice Cemetery in to keep it mowed and weed eated, and a nice fence around it. It's nice to have that. But people gave to the cemetery fund. And that's the that's the only thing they would give to I mean, they were taking better care of the Dead than they were the living, you know what I'm saying? So you've got to have your priorities straight and we don't want $75,000 in a cemetery fun. We don't want $75,000 just hanging in a bank drawing .001 interest. We need to be using that money for Ministry. I don't mean every single penny of it, but we have to be good stewards but a church We're not saving money for the next generation of church, is not doing that. Weird church is to do ministry. Now, wherever you find yourself. So leading up to Christmas leading up. So I'm, I don't know how I got off on the other number for Leading up to some event or or project. And that's like if we plan something special here at the church, then, you know, we may need to take up a special offering for something like that. So you have to have strategic timing. There's a times of year, when people are more likely to give. And that's kind of, when you have to kind of push, The giving and the tithing and I see what I'm telling y'all here. Is really not something that church members really need to know doing it. This is something that I need to know. Maybe I shouldn't even tell you this and then come Christmas or summer. I start talking about finances and things like that, but I want you all to be aware of what we're doing. I know a lot of this is just for pastors but I want you to be aware of what we're doing and why we are doing it. And then D strategic planning, build your budget around your priorities and I noticed that around your priorities. What's our priorities here? Where we want to go out and those who are in this community, that don't know. Jesus, we want to bring them in so that they can know Jesus. We want to minister to our community so that's our priority. Our priority is not To save $67,000. So we put it in the cemetery fund. That's just not a priority. So what is that point five? Let's go to number six.

Okay, five ways to reach your giving. Potential. Five ways to reach or church to reach. They're giving potential number one.

Make sure the leadership types is a, what are you talkin about there? The pastor or the associate pastor. If you have a few have deacons deacons those in the leadership position, you say, why do you have to make sure that they tied will, or what use would it be for me to get up here and tell you where you all the time and 10% y'all to come and exceedingly? Good. Give her 10 plus if you are not giving you need be a first time.

So, the leadership of the church ought to be tigers. Not yet. Tippers. The leadership ought to be tithers because you're asking the people the time

I didn't cut it off.

I could probably use this. Can you hear me better? Okay, I ate a hot dog. Stickman, put myself and I okay. What I say and who supposed to tie the pastor and the leadership, the deacons and all the time. So make sure the leadership path number 2. the Christmas offering and that's something that we've already something that we've already talked about generosity reaches its peak during the Christmas season and many times churches will take a Christmas offering or you're in offering

Because they find that the members will give a specific, you know, gift for specific calls over and above their normal giving and a lot of churches. I was reading about this one Church, their Christmas offering. Totals 20% of their entire year offering not think of that. How much they get.

In December for their, for their Christmas offering. For a lot of them is 55 per cent or something like that, but 20%, that's a lot.

Probably didn't hear that cuz I didn't have that as maybe I need to repeat that.

Yeah. Now, it's right. You can hear me now, right? Okay, yeah. 20%, some Churches gets 20% of their budget, just from their Christmas offering. So A lot of people give to other nonprofits of course and in SO2 to think about a Christmas offering you need to start talking about it even September October in that timeframe there, take your offering slowly. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, some pastors are uncomfortable talking about money. And sometimes we don't give people the time to prepare for the offering or to help them to understand what the offering is for. We do our offering immediately after the sermon and sometimes it's good. Sometimes I try to say things but you know, we're going to take our, you know, we're going to take our worship up a notch or something like that. And you can say, things like, you can give people a report of what their money is doing. Such and such gave their life to the Lord, because of this ministry. Here, we have fed this many people, this past week because of your good giving here at this church, people want to know what is my money being used for. So each time, before we take offering, I probably need to take a little bit longer and explaining exactly, you know what we're doing? Take just take a minute or two to introduce to offering Explain maybe how people can give why they would want to give. Something about what God says about giving, you know, and it just talk about how giving it is, an investment in God's work, just try to explain it like that and occasionally, I think it would be good. If somebody would come up and give a testimony about how God had blessed them because when they started tithing God did this this this and that people, it's just good to hear a testimony like that. So take the offering slowly and explain what we're doing. Number four and five, some Churches do this quarterly. And what they do is they will ask Nan givers To give now, remember between 40 and 70% of people do not give. So, that means that they're not including God in their financial priorities. They're not experiencing the blessings of God, and they're not laying up treasure in heaven. I just think of that and they're not a ban God's command to type, but most people grow one step at a time. And so we have to help them take one small step. So sometimes, we may need to ask Nan givers, to make their first year, I can say something like, or Pat could say something, like, whoever speaking. Well, this morning, I want to encourage those who who's never given to make your first gift to God today. And, you know, we can quote a blessing, or promise from scripture, like Malachi or something like that. Just mentioned something like that asking 9 givers to go. And then occasionally ass givers. The top. I know of this one Church. They do a 90 day. Tide Challenge and I won't tell you what this church does. Matter fact, I wrote down what they wrote on their website and this is what it is. Here's their script, just before the offering he reads the pastor read, Malachi 3 9 through 11. And he says this, this is the only time in scripture when God allows people to test him. Tithing is a fate step. It's like planting seeds for a harvest you so you wait 10 or 12 weeks then you reap. You don't read the day you. So there's an interval in between and this is what he says, not. Listen to this, we believe so strongly in this principle that we will guarantee your investment. If you will tithed Faithfully from every paycheck for the next 90 days. If at the end of those 90 days, you do not feel blessed by God, in whatever way you define a blessing, which could be monetary or otherwise, as long as you've documented, you're giving by, doing it online by check or feeling in your information on a given envelope. So that we can verify what you're giving, we will refund your full tithe. In 90 days.

So this pastor says, if God is not bless you, if you don't feel like you've been blessed and you've been faithful the time and you've written US 10 check for $100. And now you say, no, I don't see any difference at all. I'm hurting for money will give you your $1,000 back. That's a big step in there is a big step right there. If you don't believe God will bless you. You do this and if you don't rush, it will give you the money back. Well, that's trusting God in it, that's having faith in God. So ask givers to tithe occasionally you have to do that. I know some of you give you can say weekly or monthly and we appreciate your regular giving but we won't encourage you to be a 10 percenter. We want to encourage you to tithe and watch how the Lord will open the windows of heaven and pour blessings on you. and if he don't, Will give out money to the pastor house, five ways to reach your giving potential. Well, it's about quarter till so I want you to take your hand out and this is what we're going to do, but we'll do this next week. I want you to turn the page now on the first page uce where it says safeguards. All right, that's kind of the starting the defense. Turn the Page over and look at the bottom of the next page. Here are 20 ways to increase giving. And we'll start with this next week and then we'll jump back to to the safeguards that we need to use. Plus, we got a deacon's meeting night and we don't want to hold that too long and be here too late. So we'll stop right there. And then I anybody have any questions at all about the. So what we said tonight about the financial system in in the way that you know we're going to do things or maybe way something some Churches do things, anybody at all. All right, if not, let's pray, father, we thank you and praise you at love, you tonight, Lord, for your word, and Lord help us to, to get this, right. Lord we've already studied the assimilation and in Lord, the Outreach system and now we're on the financial system. And and more we pray, that will be a congregation that will be good stewards of what you have given us. Lord I pray and I already know this about the church that we are a generous church and Lord I pray for the generosity. I pray for those who may come on, Sundays, that maybe have not given anything or don't give or, or maybe give some but really not at either. I pray for them. I pray for these scriptures that we read would encourage their hearts that it would push them toward faith and trust in you Lord help us to trust. Help us to trust you with our temporary riches just like we have trusted you with our Eternal Destiny. Forest in Christ name, I do pray. Amen. Alrighty

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