[0:02]
hello welcome to today's planta session webinar the M word talking about money at churches and this is brought to you again by acid to never push my name is Ben McKay and I'm going to be your moderator today now throughout the webinar we encourage you very strongly to interact with our speakers you can do that by typing in questions using the question pane on you go to webinar control panel we're going to be answering your questions live straight after the initial discussion so please get your questions in early now

[0:33]
also we're recording today's session and we're going to send you a link to to the video and the audio via email within the next few days to keep an eye out for that and then before we get underway just want to quickly thank our fantastic sponsors who make these webinars possible Christian super they're one of the driving forces behind Geneva pushes plan of sessions if you haven't arranged superannuation for your church plant yet we strongly recommend that you start with a chat to Christian super go to Christian super calm delay you we also

[1:04]
want to thank insurance for getting behind the plan of sessions if you've not sorted out the insurance side of church planning yet then we recommend that you get in touch with EA as quick as you can go to EA org dot au now on to the main event I'm going to hand over to our host today our Stewart owls one of the directors of Geneva push owl welcome aboard I'm going to get you to introduce our special guests and get this conversation started over to you thanks very much Ben well it's a great pleasure to have our

[1:35]
two guests with us today two old friends right Irvine and Stewart start now I'm in case you don't know rod and me let me do some introductions a little bio here about that rod over here we go now for 20 years rod was the senior minister at century Anglican Church in Wollongong which is just about an hour or so south of Sydney in for me to state I had affirmed his leadership and help address the increasing organizational complexity of the church rod completed an MBA at

[2:07]
the University of Wollongong and as died now him really when it learned from many many different people I'm gonna share some of that learning with us today hi Bradley married to Helen suits Germany won my bet old children and I need to update this bio it says eight but I'm told now nine grandchildren rod is retired and living in Brisbane we I suspect he does a very poor job of being retired he's busy researching leadership every subject

[2:39]
mentoring and writing so broad great to have you will this man thanks to me here the terrific to be rel good to catch up with you again too and Stuart might introduce you in just a moment let me just give you shameless basic finances in the local church about fundraising called giving generously will tell later on how people can get

[3:09]
this I then look through it it's brilliant what you've done is really distill years and years of learning and studying the scriptures and methods on put into this one book can you give us a quick summary what the books about well yeah it was it really is about my journey in generosity was that an extent when I went in a ministry like most ministers you you can get you can get some really really really good stuff at Theological College and like you went to a great theological college but you come

[3:41]
out and you sir tossed into the deep end in a parish and I didn't really have a clue what I was doing and and just stumbled around for the best part of 10 years and when I had a a financial problem it was little more like we'll run out of money help and oh you know give it give us give us a hand there else we're going to die that sort of thing it was just a desperation stakes um I did a bit of a church crawl in the United States and you get a lot of things over there some of them are some

[4:14]
of them are good some of them are bad some of the really different but I learned some good stuff but it was very American so I brought it back and sort of revitalized it and then and then tried to adapt it and people responded pretty generously at victory they're really great they offer trees rose we raised money for buildings and things like that and a range of special projects missions and so I people keeps on saying to me you know

[4:44]
how did you do all this and so finally I tell people and then finally when I retired I had the time to put it down into a book so I mean in the book it talks about really the four foundational principles on raising money right it talks about the theology of raising money it talks about raising money for local church projects it talks about raising money for ongoing ministry it talks about raising money for big buildings and also I think for church planters it would be good you know you often you often need

[5:16]
to go to a see somebody who's got serious money they call them deep pocket donors or something like that and say you know we'd really like you to give me two million dollars well I had no idea how to do that I used to listen to you actually and how you used to do it and I thought oh that's good and that's a start so I then went away and researched a bit more and put in the books hmm okay what I like that what I like about it is what you call it fundraising it's not the books

[5:47]
not really been fundraising it's about faith raising because money is a major faith and and how much they've bought into the gospel vision of what you're doing it is not a mechanical program it if you don't love God and you don't want to preach the gospel and you don't want to inspire people from the gospel to give you're not going to get anywhere it's just like going out to work you know our local fundraiser and you might get a bit you might not but you're not

[6:18]
going to grow people you get money because you grow people and your catechism yeah that's and funds their means to an end we really want people to read this this has been if you but here we go just be shameless you're talking about fun if you email rod you could write this down and we'll keep that here on auto vine tomorrow didi I add the ine rider

[6:48]
Irvine to DS at gmail.com and probably get one of these too you introduce a stew with to us to tell our children

[7:21]
he's been the founding pastor new life Anglican Church in Oran Park west of Sydney and working with the his associate Matthew hey Mitch started with – I've been living in fact I remember steward V six or seven years ago now I stood on the patch of dirt that has nothing new your church has been built on and looked out over the empty subdivisions of what they're gonna be a town jumping up out of the ground a lot

[7:54]
of hard work later things are things are happening so welcome mate got a few pictures of you and Caroline and where's that one taken there yeah there was this one taken mine yes this is actually taken at our first Geneva push conference which at the time was called in the chute and it's down in Melbourne at the end of 2011 and the reason that care and I looking so happy is we like the fact that we're starting church

[8:24]
planning but we've got no idea what we're doing and we figure that at this conference we're gonna find out all the secrets to how to do it properly so that's very good and then there's one of you and your Matthew pain and then you meeting the school now if I asked you three and a half years in three and a half sentences what what jumps here do you think back over those three years what what have you learned what's grabbed you about seeing this happen yeah I think um well firstly you

[8:58]
just have to give thanks to God for anything that grows because it's heebies aggressive very thankful for that I'm also thankful for ordinary regular garden-variety Australian Christians who have got on board with us sacrificially in a way that I think has surprised me yet people have really bought into the vision and and the the second family to join us sold their house and moved into Oran Park to be part of the church and so a couple like that you know we're just blown away at the level that people

[9:29]
are bought into what we're doing and decided to join us at this journey being all in which has just been absolutely fantastic so thankful to God and also I guess learning patience as seeds of relationship and stuff that we've sown and now starting to bear fruit and so that's just that's a real joy so a couple I met on the first day I was in Oran Park are playing cricket on a block of land that's now a house he and his wife Catholic background came in to church last weekend and I said you know

[10:00]
we just want to come and visit we just thought we should come and I spoke to his wife this week just passed and he was at work and she said my kids just loved it so much I thought I had to come back and I'm just so excited about that but also remembering that it just takes time you know so okay let's get down to business and let me ask you all a question

[10:30]
rod why did you think that your ministers asses can you know we'll talk about so many different subjects but it's hard for us hard for ministers to talk about money generally in the case I think part of the reason is at a profound level we're not trained for it and that's I'm not blaming any money for that I'm just simply saying there's a lot to learn in ministry and people have got to learn their basic theology and then they've

[11:01]
got to learn some basic classroom skills and then they come out into some sort of chair and there's a whole range of leadership organizational skills that come with actually running a church and that just sometimes gets missed out and people hope that you pick it all up so firstly there is it there's a just generally not triad trying to do it then you get in there and you don't know how to do it so you're not you don't really want to offend people you don't know if you talk about money will people leave reviewed

[11:33]
about wacky TV preachers that have given the gospel a bad name because they keep on asking for money so you don't quite know how to do it and people really don't quite understand that that money is the by-product of other things so you've got up as you said pretty you've got a preach faith you've got a preached generosity and you've got a preached vision and then you've got to ask on the basis of that but what often happens is that people have got this this idea that

[12:03]
if somehow it's about money I mean so many times I've talked to people they've said I right done you were going to UM you've written a book I want to get my Treasury to read this well I hope every treasurer reads it but the treasure is not the guy who primarily needs to read it it's the senior minister who needs to read it and embrace it and understand it once people start to forget the trade read it then they're tossing it over hmm isn't let me throw you a Dorothy except if I can okay

[12:36]
this is your churchwardens or deacons or elders isn't a their job to raise the money and the minister job is just to understand theology and teach the Bible isn't isn't that the way it should work rod he throws the fall well that's the way ministers would like it to work but fundamentally people have got to realize that treasurer's and elders and wardens

[13:08]
count money they never raise money so if the church ever has a problem by and large unless you've got somebody you know and then and there might be some glorious exceptions if you got a money problem in the church your eldership will generally try and cut costs that's their default position and I can't blame them because they don't know any difference so so basically the elders and treasurers of net need to be on board and by jingoes I should read

[13:38]
the book and I hope they do all read the book you know hoping but people buy you know a dozen copies for them but the senior minister is there is the chief preacher leader and vision raised and faith raiser and if he doesn't do it then really it doesn't happen and you know the the the eldership can make you know all the nice noises in the world but it's the senior minister who gets up there and who's got the pulpit and can

[14:08]
expound the gospel to them and then say come on lads let's get on board we need to give to this so it really it really is a major leadership issue about and if ministers don't try to dodge it really they're fooling themselves so your elders your elders might come up to me but he is senior pastor he senior minister who's got to raise the money with the because money follows vision I think I thought you say that right that's right but money follows vision yeah and I

[14:39]
don't want this the elders and the treasurer to be excluded from and in fact the best possible way is for the senior minister and the elders to read the book together so they support him when he gets up because they also will be scared that if the minister talks about money then people leave the church you know so the moral is you know it's all of these negative stereotypes out there about how to do it yeah okay do you want to just walk us through some of

[15:10]
the key thing now that that's a that's kind of a whole mind shift for summer blast in terms of people in ministry about your responsibilities you know I just walk through suddenly the key things that you've learned all over these are putting to you a book about you know I've talked to you in the past where commitment I he's all different what you got to write your money for a building missus rise money pay wages we a week ago in the same bucket the same method give us some of the principles that you've worked out well just to

[15:41]
backtrack just slightly and do recap there are four fundamental principles and the first one is the senior minister is the is the main resource raiser and they've got to get that absolutely clear I mean Paul did it David did it even our Lord Jesus had the ladies who actually supported him I'm not we don't know what exactly how he got that but everybody was involved in it and so that's the first one money follows vision there's two types of churches there's pay the bills or

[16:12]
live the vision and most churches are pay the bills it's got to be live Division thirdly you've got to be able to focus on generosity as much as money it's you know because generosity is a noble term then you've got to have a gracious way to ask that you know the basis for raising money in churches is to ask for it you've just got to ask for written a nice gracious way a positive way a bold way for the gracious right and when you

[16:43]
do that people they believe they'll just get excited and I've probably I the extra thing isn't I talk a bit more about this in the book you've really got to learn how to preacher and the more you start doing it the easier it gets because the Bible is actually flooded with verses and scriptures about money so you can preach on money or generosity from pretty much any book in the Bible it's this letter everywhere and the more you the more you look for it the more you find it because I think that Jesus knows that the thing that you know where

[17:14]
your treasure is there will your heart be also so you know the key principles that you were talking about is every year we had a commitment page where people signed a commitment card and they indicated what money they were going to give the creature to the next year we also had a special offering to support special projects at the same time we always had six of them and because people like to give

[17:46]
what they'd like to give for and so for instance you you trying to generally have a range of projects open for people to give and ask people to give to at least one of them because the person who wants to give to Mission may not give to maintenance and sometimes maintenances is just necessary our missions necessary to but you can bang a drum and say look I won't have a maintenance project this year because we've got a mission project well that's faulty thinking because the

[18:17]
person that will give to Mission probably way I give to maintenance anyway and vice versa so we had six projects open pretty much always there was a mission project but always it was a children's project now people love giving the children's ministry so so that was what we asked for then the next thing was there are generally two types of resource raising that we did one was for the ongoing weekly offering and small projects that have just been talking about but secondly sometimes

[18:49]
you've got to pull out all the stops and go for a building project and sometimes they and we're talking about something that's a major capital work that could be you know of the order of three or four or five or even six times the annual income of the church how do people put up a big building or or or an extension or a big useful or something like that so so though they're the two sorts of things they're interrelated one is just more intense than the other

[19:20]
next key principle I think is that it applies to big churches small churches country churches city churches startup churches because their principles you know they're not specifically targeted here you might have to vary exactly what you do in a different place but because they're generally biblical principles and they're not just restricted to say Stuart's church or my church or a small church in fact the guy that I learnt the

[19:51]
stuff from in the States he started off with a with a church in rural America and it was about three people in it so it works there and works in the big church as well I also say it's actually pretty much essential to get people to sign the cards don't just we PR on on ask them not to sign the cards because when they're signing the cards they're making a commitment and people tend to live with commitments I did and also it's a it really is

[20:25]
saying this is a this is a not a money issue it's a faith issue because I normally I got to see them now I didn't do you Thalia Matt but in principle of saying this is about your relationship with God as much as it is about money because again where your treasure is there will your heart be also and if I can imprint simple know about their prayer life will their marriage life or whatever it is their money life is even more important than their stranger that's great they could

[20:55]
introduce so why do I exclude that normally we had the endorsement of the board and the staff very important not to move now to to move without them I used to always announce my own amount the board and staff we announced their collective amount now this was taken from 1 chronicles 29 where David gave where the illness gave and then the

[21:26]
people rejoiced so I always stood up before the congregation and I told them exactly what I gave it was scary I don't do it anymore because I'm not the senior minister the week before I'd collected the commitment cards from the staff and the parish council and I then I gave you up their collective amount and I would always say we do this because we are not asking you to do anything that we are not prepared to do ourselves I'm when stew was on staff you know he had a hand he's carried mineus to it you

[21:56]
know from used to pay me 2 million rod so I could spend because I'll work and and the other thing is important important to it to play in advance we used to do this in November I would actually start thinking about it in April I've had people say oh look I'm a bit down on money on I heard of you do a commitment car series I'd like to do it in three weeks time well it just takes

[22:28]
preparation it takes prayer and it just takes organization to get done you've got us you've got a preach better sermons and you've normally done you've got to prepare a range of activities brochures videos and advanced planning so don't think you can do it in the last five minutes so yeah that would be there would be some of the main things okay well my guess is is a whole lot of things if signing cards people putting their names on it announcing how much you've given

[22:59]
planning in advance building prep we've got a question time coming up I've got some questions for you let's let's leave that rod and we'll come back to it what about goodies here from Stuart one of the things a bit by the way I think I mentioned that Stuart and rod worked together in fig tree for how many years guys I were together for four three years I think yeah particularly the

[23:31]
event steward what was that was a bright young guy that we brought on and because I was getting in a midday Teej and we thought we just needed a fresh in the place up with an ood mind and fresh vitality and that's what Stuart brought to us yeah it was the evangelism pastor at fig tree church weren't you okay now mate one of the I guess one of the great things about church planning is you start with a clean slate and and people

[24:03]
have no really well they shouldn't have expectations about what will happen you were there first I guess so you what have you put into practice some of these principles at at new life what have you done in the three years that as you began to get people thinking the right track about gospel faith Jennifer ah city money that kind of thing yeah yeah say the first thing to say is I had the privilege before there was a book of sitting under

[24:35]
rod for three years and he was very generous in bring me up to speed with the principles and also got to watch it firsthand so if you're listening today and your first reaction to hearing some of the things that rod said is I don't think that's right and also it's just just slow down and have a chance to have a listen to him it's very well thought out and on top of that I had the ability to sit there and watch rod do it with humility and care and Theological precision so just I just encourage people who the first take is just just

[25:09]
slow down have a read here's some things that I picked up though and I think they'll they'll come up on the slide people can ask questions dial them in now and in five or ten minutes we'll get to answering questions sorry we're absolutely so so some things that I learned the first thing I learned is I think it'll come up on the and the slides here and belief I think behind all of these we're going to talk very pragmatically today although rods being careful to speak about the theology um I

[25:41]
actually think you have to believe yourself as the pastor believe yourself that people can't serve God and money and that you actually need to be talking about money with your people because it's killing them and if you know if you don't share that conviction that fundamentally is a spiritual pastoral issue at stake for your people then you're doing something pragmatically to make sure that you get paid and and that's not that's not a bad thing per se but if you skip straight to the pragmatics and miss the spiritual

[26:12]
reality that money and dependence on money is killing your people then I think you're fundamentally missing the reason that it's good to talk about it in the first place even if it wasn't to pay your bill as a pastor caring for your people you should be talking to them about money and so I think the first behind everything else is do you have that belief that conviction that there's a spiritual reality that to use mark Driscoll's turn of phrase if we can still do that today but money is a functional Savior for a

[26:43]
bunch of our people and we must be talking about it because it's killing so that's the first thing second thing with the vision I saw rod do this you have to be all in yourself do you actually believe in what you're telling people you're here for and and would you go to the church that you're leaving if you weren't leaving it all all that sort of stuff um have you got a clarity a clear picture on what your preferred outcome of the future is why are we here what

[27:14]
are we trying to do and if you can't get that across to people concisely and personally then honestly the rest of it is going to be a real hard graft so the way first vision second clarity I think you need to tell people what's at stake so you need to do that in the spiritual perspective what are we here for this kingdom outcomes and secondly there's a financial reality so you know we try and be very clear on what's actually at stake the the fourth point I got there is to transparency so it's not hiding

[27:47]
for people what's going on and not just bringing it up also when everything's falling apart so I the meeting where we cast the vision very passionately about what 2015 was about and then I laid out a line that said here's where our finances fall through the floor and we run out of money in September next year what that means is I don't get paid and that doesn't get paid that that's what happens if nothing changes here now we believe that what's going on here is for the advancement of the kingdom that's so so we're saying to people here's what it

[28:18]
looks like here's the difference practically that you can make so so that that transparency then the leadership thing Rod's already spoken about it I said under him so I was going to echo back things that I heard from him I think you have to be giving yourself and what that means for me is my family ties to our church you might think that's a completely circular I'm but I tell you what there's there's plenty going on and I got a guy who's working with me and so I want to make sure he gets paid so I talked to the church myself the the next

[28:50]
point there is then just trust which is that over time people have to believe that when you say something about vision under God something happens and over time if you keep doing that and I watch rod do that you know for my 3 years they've been here at a track record of years and years before that people knew that it wasn't just a bunch of hot air when you talk to vision that you have under God to live it again and again and again trust and vision will go together and that will enable people to

[29:20]
give joyfully because they've seen that this is a place where things can make a difference so that would be some of the things that I learn okay is there anything you've done there anything kind of particular people listening involved in church planting anything particular you need to get right in those first couple of years I mean I get belief vision clarity boys for everyone anything particularly in those first couple of years really I think just

[29:52]
saying I mean I have great joy doing this when we have our land we have a partnership course that we run where we ask people who are who've been coming along to their church for a while to step up I know many of you guys who are listening will have a similar scene and in that I always lead the main discussion and I have joy in doing it I say to people is anyone here feeling awkward that the senior minister is talking to you about money because I'm not feeling awkward I'm actually loving the opportunity to talk to you about money because your money is killing you because we have a great need here and because there's a spiritual opportunity and I want to invite you to partner with

[30:23]
us and actually say to people and if you're not willing to give we talk about three things your time your talents and your treasure if you're not living willing to give your time your talents and treasure to this church here's what I'd say the world is full of churches go find a church where you can joyfully give your time your talents in your treasure because you believe in what they're doing so much you just can't help it and so we've said right from the start if this isn't this isn't rocking your world that's okay it doesn't have to but we'd encourage

[30:53]
you to find a place where it does and if you're here be all in with us across those three areas okay now that's it that's at a like a mem members meeting you wouldn't do that in a general Sunday thing we've got visitors people who want Krrish yeah we yeah we're we're we're Dell so I don't um I don't tell people you have to do this my conviction has been we don't take up a collection in church and we don't we don't talk about money other than when it comes up in your exegetical preaching

[31:25]
or for a commitment series we are talking about that at all in public and part of the reason for that is I think Australians are cynical that the church wants money from them that's number one number and so I just want to take that out of the equation we tell people you'll be our guest until you are our partner and if you're our partner we want you to step up the second thing I say is I don't want to give Christians an opportunity to alleviate their guilt and what I mean by that is as the bear goes around you can pull out the second biggest note in your wallet and feel

[31:56]
that you've contributed and I want to remove the opportunity for people to stop feeling guilty that they haven't given anything until they decide they really want to give stuff so so we say you're our guest until you're our partner and if you're our partner we want you I say to people straight away I say your spare change isn't going to fund our ministry that's true then in order to actually enable stuff to happen once we have discussed in the past of

[32:27]
course we've got a form that we use I don't know if you want to talk about that now but I think Paul's going to come up so so basically what what we do is we say to people we want you to be all in time talent and treasure and the problem is often what we want is fill in a form that's just about money right which which ends up seeming like we're actually not interested in the other

[32:57]
things the things we're really interested in is your money and so we say tell us how's the kingdom of God shaping your time what are you doing in your week where you're being an ambassador for Jesus right how's the kingdom of God shaking your chance what talents do you have as a family that you can put at the disposal of the church that we might be of drawn just write them down and then we'd have down the bottom here how's the kingdom of God shaping our treasure and now my reflection is if we're going to have people seriously give money there has to be a serious husband-and-wife discussion that happens and I think at

[33:29]
some level the failure to facilitate that is actually a massive oversight in a whole part of our of our giving so I wanted to think how do I help husbands and wives who are faithful think about doing this well so we we have the bottom part of this form here and I actually set up the discussion saying but there's a guide in the Old Testament that people gave 10% there's a given in the New Testament that you support gospel workers and there's a goal in the New Testament that we grow in Christian generosity under that and I teach that

[34:00]
out but underneath that I say write down your income sources you can see there on the screen income source 1 2 3 4 maybe people have got more write down that total in the blue box there carry that across to the other side and write the total down and then just stare down right in that box there what's 10% of that and I just reckon that'll be a blood-chilling moment for people you know but I want them to stare that down right and then say well what's our current giving orange box there oh that's different isn't it okay so there's 10% here's what we're currently giving and then I so what's your

[34:30]
generous goal so how could your family together husband or wife prayerfully what could we what could we move towards and then what will we give you see the little blue arrow goes up to the top there put that in there and say this is what we are going to give put it into your director but lock it in take it out of the equation and just give it you'll notice that there's a dotted line under that top blue box the idea is you rip that off I don't need to see anyone's working but I want to help them do the hard work of actually adding it up dividing it out

[35:01]
and then saying what they're going to give and we've found that that's been really helpful for a bunch of our people here mm-hmm do you find this isn't scripted do you find that 20% of you people give 80% of your money we're trying to make sure at the moment that every one of our partners is growing in Christian generosity so I actually say to our people so it probably is somebody like that at the moment maybe look what I've said to people is I'm in mortgage land here as everyone

[35:31]
probably is but brand-new houses right so to workers people sending kids to private school whenever I say that people you may never have met this teaching before we want you to start giving something today but we're gonna ask you each year to grow in Christian generosity so so Mike my answer that would be at the moment yeah that's probably right now but I'm actually looking to have every single one of those people grow every year in Christian generosity and I'm not making them feel guilty about that because some of them have got so many things locked into their lives at the moment if I ask

[36:03]
them to give 10 percent tomorrow they actually can't and I'm saying oh that's not under the bet yeah yeah that's the goal of being after a few years to get to that but to give people the space to do that rather than loading them up with where they made I think along the line probably a whole bunch of unwise choices give them some space to untangle that and to put Kingdom priorities in place yeah yeah as a society we get richer and richer and get ourselves into more and more debt we

[36:34]
just leave right up to okay now folks for those listening more than happy for you to send your questions through to Finn and we'll take them we've got 20 25 minutes something like that left rod the question I'd like to ask you in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing and isn't giving you and God not you and rod so

[37:06]
people signing played cards with names did you get pushback on this why would you do that can you just elaborate on why you would do that many people would say Jesus is giving needs to be anonymous please well different for I do that just let me say I was blown away by Stewart's stuff there I was just so excited that that a guy that could come and learn and me could not only learn but just take it so far more than I

[37:36]
actually taught him so I'm just impressed you and it's great I've got excited just listening to it but yeah I mean I I just think it's context tell and there you've got 1 chronicles 29 where David acts as the leader you've got Matthew 6 when Jesus is talking to Pharisees who were trying to not act as leaders they were trying to actually say look at me look how pious I am so I give more than other

[38:08]
people I pray more than other people I fast more than other people look at me look at me look at me and so Jesus kicks down that attitude so the context are entirely different but secondly if you don't take the context into a part of them and workout you'd never actually go to a prayer meeting because Jesus says go away you know go and pray in your closet now we don't have any problem but particularly in the Anglican Church we have a Book of Common Prayer but we all go to prayer meetings and Bible study

[38:39]
groups and we you know we pray together and when we pray together or when a minister leads prayers or anybody leads press nine times it attend they're not doing it so you can see how great a prayer they are so I just took think and to use that know that verse in Matthew 6 to exclude this is really trying to just misunderstand the whole context of what Jesus is saying and take a verse in isolation when you go to to a David

[39:13]
David says I gave out of the real Treasury this amount and I'm putting my hand up myself and the exact amount so it's a leadership function and I used to say to the congregation in fig tree I'm only doing this because I'm the leader the day I stopped being the leader is the day I and if the day I stop doing it the day I start liking doing it will be the day I stop doing it and so I used to have to pry every year that I could get up the courage to go and do it again

[39:44]
because it wasn't that a thrilling thing for me to do and now I'm a regular member of a congregation I just go back and do it I always do can I jump in there's one he was sitting in the congregation when rod did that it was it was done with humility and which I was always grateful for but it was also done in reality so I was able to see seriously in on this thing that they're calling us to do and I see found

[40:15]
that profoundly motivating so yeah big noting himself about it ever and I got the profound sense that he was doing in some way hesitatingly in doing it but at the same time I sat there and went well Carolyn I'd better get our stuff together because rod and Helen have and I see that was really encouraging route rather than I looked up and went well well isn't he just blowing no when wind up himself okay let me take a question and

[40:47]
now I guess question for either of you gentlemen from Andy if you ask people to sign off on an annual pledge how do you prevent it from sounding like they're being compelled to give isn't a pledge going against the idea of a free will offering annual pledge going against a free will offering I don't think so so my response would be well it's two things we do I say to people why don't

[41:19]
you get why don't you get your tithes sorted out and locked away because it's a way to honor God just get it done and I say to people once you have that ten percent going out Direct Debit you just live on what's left okay and so profoundly I met I never feel that there's an issue just get there done as a matter of faithfulness and just get rid of it never say now grow in the grace of Christian generosity you can give anywhere you want you can give more of the church you can give beyond the church you can do whatever you want I'm trying to help you

[41:50]
I'm trying to help you be faithful at the starting point and if you want to grow in the grace of Christian generosity all over the place I'm not asking any obligation for that whatsoever go for go I'm trying to help you be faithful so I'd say isn't it constraining giving you know Genesis not at all I don't think we're helping facilitate that for a bunch of people who on the whole are really brilliant at it okay are you saying – did you rock god I just you know I think what Stewart said before he wanted to

[42:21]
facilitate going back a little he wanted to facilitate a conversation between husbands and wives on this issue so they are you're giving people the opportunity that's basically at the start of an annual period to sit down to talk to pry even to discuss it with the kids and then say we will commit to this now that's where their free will party it comes in the sky falls in an illusion yeah it's like this in blood but you're just basically saying this has and now

[42:57]
they leave me other people it'll get a raise no I used to say no if you get a raise during you might want to put it up there in balances itself out but we didn't have a problem at that level okay okay another question from mark either one of you can answer this one I noticed that Stewart uses a total income figure that suggests it's before tax is that reasonable ten percent is a good indicator betrayed you really been asking them to calculate it on the body of money they've never seen are they

[43:30]
never see isn't that more likely to make the level of generosity you assuming seem less and less attainable I guess that's question are you tithing before tax or after tax do it what I just like to look at the number and divided by ten I don't care what people do honestly out and and if it's gonna cause someone to hang up or disengage with the process do it after tax honestly yeah I think it's neither here nor there um here's the thing are you interested in honoring God with your the money figure it out with God I

[44:01]
think this is a helpful structure I'm happy to look at the total amount that that comes to me if the government takes part of that money then it had to be given to me to be given to them in the first place why don't I give some of it to God if that's going to drive anyone it's probably if it's gonna cause them to stop being generous no problems that you're absolutely free there is there is no obligation here at all and so if the before taxing hangs anyone up I'd say hop off don't do that do it with

[44:31]
whatever you got but here's the thing is that is the first reason we're asking that because we want to want to find a a more comfortable way to deal with generosity well you worked it out at your it yeah the last time I did the stats on a particular denomination which will remain nameless the average member of that denomination was tithing unemployment benefits so wow there probably is a little margin for growth here anyway any other thoughts on yes I

[45:03]
mean I agree totally with Stuart I never tried to you know you can't I give people into that but the the fundamental issue with tithing is you pay God first now the fact is the government gets your money first that just day that's just the way in which our tax structure is taken in on board and so the idea that we certainly we get a certain amount of money in our hand in one sense is irrelevant and I totally understand Stuart's point of view and I wouldn't want to necessarily want to box people into a corner but

[45:35]
they just would want to point out to them that your total are your money God gets the first of your money why does the government get it and if people ever wanted to become nitpicky I'd just smile and say what allow it which way allows you to be more generous because our issue here is not the actual ten percent it's the generous heart and I used to try and teach people that it starts after the generous so just start to figure it out it's ten percent of your net or your gross more generous happened

[46:07]
when I went to an about the dollar we're talking about your heart and that because a lot of people try and play games with that figure then you know I think when people actually get it about gospel giving it's actually a joy to give I think someone said well that's better to give than receive it is actually that's another question from Jeremy do rod and Stewart encourage people to think extra generously during tax time when they possibly going to have access

[46:38]
to a lump sum so you know someone's gonna give a check back from the government a text tax refund or whatever have you ever done particular projects that kind of thing around people receiving lump sums yeah we did that at fig tree I think we had Kevin's money from Kevin we said money from heaven or something yeah every asked we asked people to consider given that it was just falling from the sky whether they could just throw it in

[47:09]
the direction of the church instead of buying a new plasma or something so I remember that as one instance look we free kid I didn't push it and some churches do their commitment series at the end of the financial year rather the end of the the the calendar year for that sort of purpose but one woman came

[47:40]
up to me one young woman one day and she said you know you always want to encourage people at times when they give certain blessings and we were a steel town where the steelworks would often pay people bonuses at the end of the year and I remember her coming up to me and saying Ron tell people to tithe out of their bonuses because sometimes and this was you know pre the GFC some of they were getting huge bonuses and she and I were just complete windfalls he said but unless you kill people or give

[48:12]
people the opportunity and methods they won't think about it they got a million what other things to think about and what you was saying about the manna from heaven it just got into their mind oh look I won't get another plasma TV but he made me argument somewhere else but it wouldn't they wouldn't have been thought about unless they were asked and the absolute key to raising money is to ask for it those three words you asked for it even process was brilliant which I

[48:43]
thought of it okay now we've got seven minutes left or so a question from bread both good for both of you how important is it to ask the outside the church family for money particularly big projects and for a church startup what Possible's do you have when you're asking people outside the church so we so we so we started with with two staff members which is completely insane right

[49:13]
so I had I had funding from my opposition and I'm I spent six months praying for someone to come work with me and and that you know it was very generously provided by God as a guy was finishing college he lived in the area who was thinking about church planning himself so we did our theological 20 questions and thought we could work together and I said I think this can work there's only one small problem um I got no money at all I mean okay all right so we said well how are we going to do this and so two things that we did

[49:47]
we had a fundraising night for Matt and Mandy where they drew on people they've been involved in ministry with and I cast a vision and asked for money and God was extremely generous and we were as 35 grand on that night and went okay that's that's an encouragement for us I didn't I didn't same thing with a bunch of people who are prayer supporters and raised about I think in the first year was about 15 I think and Matt offered to do some part-time working which is how we kind of got

[50:18]
ourselves up and running his he was a qualified teacher and did some casual work but how important is to ask for people beyond the church well depends if there is a church there wasn't a church for us when we started so we asked beyond it and we've kept doing that in order to help us and keep growing along we will grow out of that at some point in fact we asked people outside of the church we said we've got a sunset clause for you so we want you to keep giving and not just we don't want to do a fundraiser every year so we're gonna do one this year I'm going to ask you to commit to your giving to support us for

[50:51]
a three-year period and then let that sit that's what we're asking for you be generous do it for a period of time it's for this specific purpose and then there's a sunset clause built-in so I'd say yeah sure ask people beyond your church Fisher as someone who's working for a mission organization in the CBD let me ask you are you happy for your people to give outside of your church as well maybe personally yeah absolutely so what we're trying to do at the moment and this is all kind of embryonic at the

[51:22]
moment but what we're trying to say we we only move people towards tied to the church and let your Christian generosity flow wherever it may and so so get get your your requirement to support your local church and gospel ministers which i think is a new testament imperative get that sorted out getting tiring having and then go wherever and we're going to be presenting opportunities for people to say you could be here it could be here it could be here it could be here we're not trying to take that money in and then redistribute it we want to encourage you to spread your generosity

[51:53]
wide that's right obviously you're not asking non-christians to support your to disappoint your ministry but if I mean if they want to throw a bucket of money in but I'm not you know we're not at that level but obviously with the church planning situation you just simply got it I mean in one sense that's why I've got in the book one of their part of the ways to actually ask an individual person you know how to pony up for an enormous amount of money but I like the

[52:25]
business about the sunset clause and we didn't we didn't have to ask people outside at featuring because we had an established congregation and and we did that I was very interested in the way a steward did it and I just agree with it but I also think if people have missed this you are here you try to encourage generosity all the time and you use that 10% not as law it's the spring ball but it's the benchmark and it's not even that you're telling people if you give over 10% you're generous it's just for

[52:57]
me I can never actually figure out if you're giving less than 10% here you can even through anybody that you're being generous not in our country not in the richest country and around the richest times in ever when Old Testament farmers in the in the Bible would have starved if their crops failed and our being asked to give 10% so we're trying to say okay let just just use the 10% not as a law but as a benchmark to start thinking now how can i spring off that to be generous to this

[53:27]
church into other organizations as well yeah okay I think we've got time for one more here we get from Rose when discussing giving a church one of the best ways to discuss how financial giving a sister informs the growth of the church we don't want it to seem like a prosperity gospel message that's been free we've been very careful to avoid that let me read the question again what's the best way to explain our financial giving assists the growth of a

[53:58]
church we don't want to sound like a prosperity gospel is being preached in some ways the answer is is almost provided by the question so long as we're talking about outcomes that our church directed and not back to the individual the possibility of its ending like prosperity gospel in some he's pretty much taken care of you you're giving to see the advancement of the church there's some ways we can talk

[54:28]
about that but how that would become prosperity if you're talking about in a church would direction it seems that's that's already taken care of it I think when you're saying give to the church and it will go will for you individually and spectacularly that that's obviously when we're in danger Android you've probably got something to say about that yeah I I've put a chapter on on the so called prosperity gospel in the book but and you know and yeah I'll just leave people to read the book to get the chapter back the other thing is you are Stuart's

[55:01]
absolutely right you're asking people to give to the vision and so you can hold up the vision and you can hold up the ministries that are going on in that vision so say you know you can say to people look you know what what's going on and this with with this is that we want to start a children's ministry or we want to start a ministry or we want to start men's ministry or women's ministry or what we want to actually be sending five more people on the mission field and these are the things that are happening because of the generosity so that's just a rolling

[55:33]
thing that's happening every year so you're highlighting their growth in faith but also the growth of the church's growth in vision and ministry under God and people won't get excited about that and I mean that's exactly what Paul was doing in in 2 Corinthians 8:9 was what David was doing in 1 chronicles 29 and Moses did when he raised money for the tabernacle where as material for the tabernacle they they just held up this meter and said okay under God you know let's get on board and Paul actually says they gave

[56:05]
themselves to the Lord before they gave them to us so it's this spiritual dynamic that they're giving them giving themselves a to God and then did God's work and so let's give and say it's a very exciting thing to do when people grow okay one last question question John Warren Stewart mentioned the people give to vision what is that in particular circumstance of being a

[56:35]
church planter so people give to these yes what can you speak that down for us what is that yes what does that mean yeah so our vision at new I think weekend is to see new life in Jesus come to every home in Oran Park and the growing Southwest for their salvation the good of the community and the glory of God so we say to people we exist so that every home here may know new life in Jesus but we're not there yet you're partners with us in making that possible

[57:05]
help us as a staff team to be able to equip you that we might see this thing happen now at that point what we're not calling to people is can you help pay the bills and I'd like my wife to be able to feed our children tonight that that's true but it's not very inspiring and it doesn't draw them in so why would I give I give because I'm on the mission field with you to see this happen and I'd like to help us get there

[57:37]
together by helping you to lead us to get there so I think the vision what is vision it's actually having a clearer picture of why we're here and being able to call people and say don't you longer see every home here know Jesus if you do help us come help us with your time your talents and your treasure all I would add to that is that what we would have done was to have something similar that

[58:09]
we had impacting the region modeling the nation sending to the world but then we would have specific projects or reasons why people should give in a tangible that would actually be be those sort of things that Stuart was talking about being incarnated so for instance Stuart himself was a commitment project one year because we wanted to hold out the vision of having evangelism done well and having young adults evangelized well

[58:39]
and so we said we're just going to hire this brilliant young couple and so we want you to give to that and and that's what happened you see so then was the principle that's you're talking about then there was this specific that they could see inflation blood and we even brought him down and I waved him around at a party and things like that so people can actually see Stuart and Carolyn and okay gentlemen great chatting with you this has been gold let

[59:10]
me just say again giving generously to stealing a whole land and just practically lose if you want a copy or a talk with right Laura turbine but choose to these are Oh DD but over mine at gmail.com and they you can order the book I think it's $30 plus postage or if you buy a whole lot for I've got a discount for you thank you for being with us I'll pass back to thin opposition thank

[59:42]
you well thanks so much I'll do it rough right rod well that was a sense Masek discussion wasn't it about the M word about actually talking about money at church now before I sign off and today I want to point you to our next client session you would have been so excited after today's you're going to want to write this down in your diary as soon as you can the next webinar planner session is on the 8th of July it's going to be about lessons from mother-daughter church planning now Ella's going to be in discussion with Paul Harrington who's

[1:00:12]
the rector at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Adelaide and Clayton's fop as well who's a planter of Holy Trinity Mount Barker which is more like kinda like a granddaughter plant if you like now they're going to be talking about this particular relationship the two churches have what they've learned are the good the bad that kind of thing you're not going to want to miss it so that's on the 8th of July from 9:30 if you want to register go to Geneva push calm and register now because you're not going to want to miss it well thank you again everyone for joining us and particularly thank you to Stuart and rod

[1:00:43]
for their words of wisdom thank you to our for hosting us on behalf of Geneva push my name is Ben McCann we hope you have a fantastic week you