100 Ways To Increase Church Finance

I have been in Christian leadership since 1982. It has been my discovery that almost every church has a plan and a need to raise money to finance projects for God's work. But research has shown that 85% of Pastors feel they have not been taught or empowered to teach principles of biblical stewardship, prosperity and finance. It was also discovered that 90 percent of churches have no programme to teach stewardship principles. This is the first reason why I wrote this book to provide information about stewardship in the local church.

My consulting experience with church leaders and pastors for about two decades, across 105 denominations and hundreds of churches, has revealed one major challenge of churches today: how to transform their people unto faithful, committed witnesses and givers.  One week after my ninth book: 100 WAYS TO INCREASE CHURCH ATTENDANCE, was released, I met a General Overseer who has read the 100 chapters in the book. He urged me to show the church world "HOW TO INCREASE CHURCH FINANCE". The calls increased both from outside and inside for this book. Lara and I took up the idea to the LORD in prayers in a two day retreat, end of February 2008.  God gave us a release and commission to write. This is the second reason why I wrote this book: to be a resource of tested and tried stewardship and church finance material.

When we pioneered our first church in 1995, our mother church gave us only prayer, but no silver and gold. I believe if our mother church had enough to spare they would have given us something with which to start.  Infact, our mother church requested for 100% of our tithes and offerings for the initial four years, because the church was building her new sanctuary at that time. I have seen many small congregations struggle to avoid having to close their doors. Some are tenants for over twenty years, with no building plans in sight. To many full time, salaried pastors and their families, ministry has become a misery in the face of finances. As indicated in my book: 100 WAYS TO INCREASE CHURCH ATTENDANCE, 87% of churches in Nigeria are below 200 in attendance. This percentage will definitely be higher in other countries, who are not experiencing the level of revival currently happening in Nigerian church world.

Many of the larger churches have had to scale back programmes and suspend plans for expansion for the same reason of finance. This is the third reason for writing this book: to help meet the needs of growing a church in financial matters.

Giving is a sign of Christian life, a vital sign for that matter.  Why do I say this? There are over 2,300 references to money and possessions in the Bible. At the same time, prayer is only mentioned 500 times, in the entire scriptures. Yet, prayer is the very oxygen by which the soul breaths. Ironically, studies have revealed that about 35% of pastors don't preach about giving or tithing. 90% of churches have no programme to teach stewardship principles or Bible Economics. This is the fourth reason for writing this book: to provide a strategic plan of stewardship and giving emphasis for the local church.

Giving to churches, overall, is decreasing. The per capital giving in churches are going down rapidly. Researches have shown that "only I or 2 out of 10 Christians are giving 10 percent of their income to the Lord's work." The average annual amount of money donated to churches per person is declining. Many factors account for this. These factors are treated comprehensively in this book. Pastors who wonder why this is so should realize that the ways in which today's new generation of believers give is far different from the way the older generations give.