12/24/30 and Beyond. 3 Key Numbers Driving Your Strategy

12/24/30 and Beyond. 3 Key Numbers Driving Your Strategy. These are not simply dates on a calendar. It’s a way of thinking forward. I’m advising my clients to think 12 to 24 months out. Anything beyond that is guesswork. Frankly, 24 months is the new long-term planning. The 30 means 2030. My goal is to build churches to be financially stable up to 2030. Planning beyond that is fiction. We simply do not know what our future holds. Yet in all your planning there is one constant that is typically overlooked by most church staff.

No matter what your church beyond 2030 will look like, you can be sure you will still need money.

My guess is you have no plan for how you will raise the money you need. Few do. Why should you have a plan? Consider the future for over 300,000 U.S. churches.

• 1 out of 5 churches could forever close their doors due to the pandemic, says The Barna Group.
• 5,000 to 10,000 church closing’s a year is what former LifeWay president Thom Rainer predicts.
• 50% decline in giving by the year 2050 means,

We are fast losing churches, thus leaving a spiritual hole in communities across America.  God has called me to help assure the financial stability of churches. How?

Develop a 12 Month Giving Plan of Action

I start by helping you plan out each and every offering. This past weekend in church more time was spent giving announcements than was given to focusing upon the offering. I get it that plates might never be passed again. My position is that the offering is not dead but it is different. What does it say when you give more time to announcements than you do the offering? The easiest way to improve giving starts with how you approach your weekly offering time.

The 15 Offerings of Summer: How to Reverse the Summer Slump in 60 Seconds gives you 15 offering talk moments for each weekend of the summer. Get your copy at: https://acts17generosity.com/shop/the-fully-funded-summer/

Get a weekly offering talk every week through my weekly newsletter called, “The Stewardship Coach.” Subscribe at: https://acts17generosity.com/memberships/silver/

Why do I start with how you collect the offering? If you get the offering right you have taken the first step towards financial stability for your church.

Develop a 24 Month Giving Plan of Action

Once we have established the right attitude and actions revolving around the offering we move on to strengthen churches’ existing donor base as well as broadening their base.

Two Lanes – I think along two lanes or thoughts. Challenging leadership to invest in the future and discipleship to train up the next generation.

I have a 24 month giving plan that my clients follow. Subscribe at: https://acts17generosity.com/memberships/platinum/

2030 and Beyond!

I’m no Joseph but it is time to get our financial house in order to prepare for the giving famine ahead. Before COVID studies were showing that giving to religion as a percentage of American’s incomes will fall from 2% to just above 1%. COVID showed churches what that decline in giving will feel like. There are many reasons for the decline in giving but one easy explanation is that our key donor base is aging. We need to communicate with this key group about leaving a legacy behind.

It’s time to be like Joseph and store up for the future. Recently I preached at my former church for their 60th Anniversary. I shocked them by saying they needed a healthy reserve and an endowment. I was the pastor that spent what came into the offering plate as fast as possible. Those days are gone. Now I advise two strategies.

Build an emergency reserve fund with three to six months of operating expenses held in an interest-bearing account. You never know when an air conditioning unit will blow. Or you never know when COVID will shut your doors. Having a reserve protects you from the surprises that will occur.

Create and fund an endowment for the future. One of the great challenges financially moving forward for churches will be the needed renovation and upkeep of all facilities.  A well-funded endowment can be the tool to keep your church financially solvent until Jesus returns.  The inability to keep facilities current and up to date is one of the leading causes of church closings. 

Make me your Minister of Stewardship and I’ll take care of all of the above for you! To find out more go to: https://acts17generosity.com/memberships/diamond/

The church that survives into the future is the church that plans for the future today! Let me get started on your 12/24/30 and Beyond plan.

Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach