Creating A Culture Of Generosity
Creating a culture takes a lot of intentionality. There you have it.
That’s pretty much the secret sauce of the process that the Lead Navigators at Auxano Generosity have taken many churches through.
Yes, churches realize at least 10% and sometimes more than 20% increases to their bottom line. But that’s not the bottom line to us.
Auxano has always been about moving people, through discipleship, to a new level of commitment to Christ. If you add our passion for organizational clarity to this, you have more of the recipe. Clarity, Discipleship, Intentionality – these are a few of the words that are our favorites. But the concepts they represent are not being fully realized in most churches. That’s what gets us up in the morning.
So what does it take to create a culture of generosity?
Let’s start with what does not work:
Begging and badgering about giving
Telling people “We are behind budget”
Only talking about money once per year
Presuming generosity is developed through great preaching alone
These are just a few of the ways churches tend to slip. But there are even more critical concerns for the church that cares about the spiritual health of its members. On a recent podcast from the Lewis Center For Church Leadership regarding generosity in the church, Lovett Weems Jr. said:
“Whenever the church talks about corporate finances it should always be connected with mission. Whenever the church talks about individual finances it should always be connected with discipleship.”
This is the essence of the 5 Waves necessary to create (or shift to) a culture of generosity. It is normalizing the discussion of money as a deeply spiritual concern. It is to take the development of generosity from the finance office and put in in the discipleship office.
Wave 1 - Theology
When decisions are made by the church regarding how and how often and in what manner generosity will be taught, it should be tethered to the church’s theology. Church leaders tend to presume that “most of us are on the same page when it comes to money.” This, in fact, is hardly ever the case. From deeply consequential questions like how the church will care for the poor to procedural questions like whether or not the senior pastor should see giving records, differences of opinion abound. Our team does not, of course, tell a church what their theology should be. But first things first for us is to have church leadership articulate what they believe.
Wave 2 - Discipleship
The Creating a Culture of Generosity process is unabashedly biased toward spiritual formation or discipleship. In other words, we will encourage churches to see money for the powerful spiritual force it is and treat it accordingly in the spiritual health and life of the members. We ask diagnostic questions about what is currently being done to develop giving and generosity. Then, we collaborate with church leadership on how we can make a clear pathway for people to follow as we do for other aspects of the Christian life. Most churches will create a generosity initiative to “launch” a new way of talking about giving growth in the church. During this time, church leadership can introduce new language and new commitments to help grow this aspect of church life.
Wave 3 - Strategy
Strategy is putting your money where your mouth is. More specifically, it is investing your energy into that which is important. It is about priority, intentionality, and a plan. Being strategic about shifting a group of people to one level of generosity to another is critical as it will not just happen accidentally. It will often address important components like:
Pre-planned activities and initiatives in a proactive calendar
Policy and procedure regarding the handling of funds
Ways to report on impact as well as income
The church with a clear strategy regarding money will be more likely to maintain the most critical feature of generous culture: trust in leadership and a sense that what we are investing in is producing the spiritual results we intended.
Wave 4 - Communication
Any church leader knows that communication is very difficult, to say the least. With changing platforms and members that may or may not pat attention, the headache of every leadership team is answering the question, “How will we get people to connect with the important information we need them to know?” In the case of communication related to developing generosity, it may include elements such as:
Preaching, teaching, curriculum
Workshops, seminars, group events
Website, print matter, social media
Top of the list of priorities for creating culture is to celebrate as much as possible. Together with leadership, this process asks the questions about rhythm and pattern of public gratitude to both God and congregation.
Wave 5 - Integration
All of the planning, brainstorming, writing and developing in the first four phases gets put into the finishing act of this process. This phase asks the question about how generosity development impacts various constituents represented in the church – different age groups, different spiritual maturity, different levels of involvement or engagement.
It alo asks the paramount question, “What is our church’s plan to create a culture of generosity?” The Generosity Discipleship Plan is what we have named the full articulation of this thorough and thoughtful process. It is a real-time written out documentation of the discussion and deliberation of Theology, Discipleship, Strategy and Communication and becomes a 12-month road map for church leadership. The idea behind this is what we started with – Intentionality, Discipleship, and Clarity. Once executed this plan can be tested for effectiveness and adjusted when necessary.
Though money and giving tends to be the least favorite undertaking of most church leaders, we have seen cultures shift. There are churches that can – in their own style, theology, and language – create a new way forward. We are as excited as ever to have the ringside seat to a generosity revolution in churches that care to create a new culture.
