We come to the end of our series on practical steps to support generous giving in 2022. Up this week: asking and saying thank you.
Please and thank you are simple, powerful courtesies we learn as children. They are also key pieces in the stewardship jigsaw, although we tend to say please more than thank you!
Our stewardship ‘please’ is never about pleading for financial help from a reluctant congregation. It is a confident invitation to all followers of Jesus to be drawn into the generosity of God. For St Paul giving is not “reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a joyful giver” (2 Cor 9:7).
Our stewardship ‘thank you’ is certainly a warm response for gifts given by faithful disciples but there’s more. Paul ends his money letter (2 Corinthians 8-9) not by saying what the money will do or with thanks for generous gifts from Corinth but with doxology: thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! (2 Cor 9:15). So, three suggestions for please and thank you.
Ask with confidence.
It may be the treasurer sharing financial facts, the finance committee proposing a stewardship initiative or a preacher stepping into the pulpit: be confident. Your please matters, it makes a difference, changes lives. So have confidence when saying please, confidence in a shared congregational commitment to ministry and mission and confidence in the abundance of our God.
Top tip: natural though it is, don’t apologise or use humour to hide reluctance or embarrassment. If there is financial need or mission opportunity explain it; if preaching generosity do so with confidence and conviction.
Say thank you, and thank you again, for the gifts.
Busy lives, busy church; we forget so easily. Robert Emmons reminds us that thank you is a two-sided coin. First, thank you acknowledges: we stop to note what is given. Second, thank you recognises: what is given is truly a gift. It is not earned, never taken for granted. This is transformational. We can never say thank you enough, so let’s try.
Top Tip: an annual letter of thanks to all planned givers has been commended good practice since the 2009 report Giving for Life. It’s a great place to start but not the only thank you. Use the magazine, website, social media. Say thank you at the PCC & APCM, in the notices, in conversations
Express appreciation for the giver.
Appreciation looks beyond the gift to the person giving and our maturity as disciples. In Phil 4:14-18 Paul is certainly grateful for the gifts that meet his needs, just as we are grateful for the gifts that sustain our churches, our mission and ministry. But Paul also appreciates the gospel partnership in giving and receiving, looking beyond the gifts to generous disciples.
Top Tip: mind your language; avoid bills, budgets, and ‘paying our way’. Instead talk about the difference giving makes and always frame giving as a response to God’s grace, as discipleship, worship and gratitude to our generous God.
For Christians, generosity and gratitude is rooted in the generosity of a God who gives us everything in Jesus. And as long as we have voices we say in prayerful gratitude as we give: All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.