Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I have a question for you. As a pastor, should you know how much money individual members of your church give? Well, we had a discussion about it in this conversation. Let's do this.
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Hey guys, I'm Thomas.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: And I'm ian.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: And today we are talking about should pastors know how much individual members of their church are giving? I think this is a topic that I've heard lots of different opinions on. I have heard really pretty good arguments on both sides. I'll tell you as we start where I come down on this and what I've always practiced at least. But I'm open to other ideas, I'll kind of share our thoughts. But I have always been a pastor that did not know how much anybody individually in my church was giving. And we'll talk a little bit about the reasons why that is. I just thought that it was what I was told to do in Bible college and I kind of stuck with that and the more I thought about it, I kind of like that idea. But I don't know. What about you Ian? How are things at your church?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I can't speak for that whole.
I don't totally know the answer to that. As far as how that works at my church, I can tell you that I agree with you. I can tell you that I do know that my church there is a team or at least an individual finance. We do have a pastor who is over all of the financials. I know this person as well and their brother in the Lord and a friend of mine. And I can tell you that I do know that there is some knowledge at our church about it. When our church went through the big building campaign for our building that we have now, there were certain people, and I was one of them, that were invited to a dinner where there was a commitment or a pledge that you amount that as God led you, that you wanted to offer above your tithe and everything. And so I can tell you not everyone in our church was invited to that. There was some knowledge.
So that's my answer I guess to that.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: That's crazy.
I think that everybody has an opinion on this. I imagine if you've been in ministry you probably have some thoughts on this. Do me a favor, if you are listening to this or watching this before we get into it, I would love to know what you think. I'd want to know what you think before I do any convincing one way or the other or talking about this issue. Let us know down in the comments now what your thoughts are on it and then leave another comment later if your mind has changed or if you have any other thoughts after listening to this and we'd love to get some discussion going on this. I think it'd be helpful for the body if we have some good thoughts on this.
I guess there's arguments for and there's arguments against.
Why don't we break it down that way?
Maybe you can kind of introduce some of the arguments for it ian and then we'll get into some of the ones against it and we'll kind of talk through that.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll start with the arguments for it. And the first argument is that if a pastor knows how much an individual gives, it will create more trust and accountability.
So I guess if that's known, it allows the pastor to step in and give more. Biblical counsel on the subject of giving or tithing demonstrates that financial matters can be discussed between a pastor and their congregant or member. And so, yeah, that's the argument for that's. The first one, yeah.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: I think certainly there's more accountability.
And I think about things like I've heard stories that like the Mormon Church, which I don't suspect there's a lot of Mormons listening to our podcast, but if you are, come to Jesus. And if you're happy to listen to this, let's talk about this separately. Drop me a message. I'll reach out to you online.
But I know in the Mormon Church, from what I've heard, I've never been to one, but I hear that you have to show up with your w two, basically, and you take a look at this with your leaders within the church and they go over, did you actually give 10%? So there's definitely high accountability in some of these situations where you know this kind of information, right? Yeah. So I will say this as a pastor for years, I never knew I made a point. It was actually hard. Like, you have to avoid this kind of information. But what I did allow myself to know was basically a yes or no question. Like, is this person giving or not? Not how much? I never wanted to know how much they were giving, but I was open to knowing whether someone was a giver or not. And then I would have my accounting team usually kind of we have like a placeholder number. If they were it's one thing to say they're giving and that if someone gave $14.01 time last year, we wouldn't put that in the same category. It's probably not tithing or giving regularly in that area. And I don't mean to put this into categories or judging. Maybe that is a tithe for some of our audience. I don't really know. But sure, I had some thresholds for our church in Madison, Wisconsin. It was something like if someone gave over like $500 in total over the course of a year, I would kind of use that as a placeholder to say this person is a regular giver at our church. And so I would know that information, whether someone was a giver or not, but I wouldn't know if they gave $700 or $70,000. I probably would have known that but just because I would have been able to deduce that somehow. But 7000 or 700, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between those people because I didn't have that information. So there was a certain accountability, especially as a pastor, to know, like when you're counseling someone whether or not they are giving or at least from my perspective, whether they're tithing or not, I counsel them differently because I think that's something that is an important part of where someone's heart is, is where their treasure is, right? Where your treasure is, there your heart is also. So it's something that I feel like is really it was important for me to know that information. I don't know that I'd say for accountability it was beneficial, but just, I think just from a counseling perspective which kind of gets us into the next one here.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: That's what I was about to say.
The argument for it would be that it offers a pastor to be able to care and support that member more. So, again, like, if there's a sudden change in how someone's giving, they can come in and counsel them or they just know certain challenges that their members are facing financially allows them to step in and counsel them and encourage them more. So yeah, that's kind of what we.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Were getting on it's back to where your treasure is, there your heart is also. Right? So if someone has never been a giver in our church and I have a chance to speak into their lives and they're wondering why they're facing a challenge or something and we're not prosperity gospel preachers, you and I, it's not something that someone says, hey, I'm running out of money. That's not the time to talk about finances necessarily in our church. But I think that there's definitely something to be said for if someone is consistently never given. But they are obviously, like with leaders in our church that was something that I knew that I had to know, is that I didn't know the amount, again, of my individual leaders. But I'm of the persuasion that if people are standing on the stage and asking people to donate and give to something and implying that they're giving too, but they're not actually given, I don't know how that's evil, right? That's actually deceptive and evil. For you to tell other people to give and imply that you're doing it when you're not actually doing it, that's like Ananias. And.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: I remember that one.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
I think that it's pretty dangerous waters that you're treading in, in that situation. But from a pastoral care perspective, absolutely I think it's okay to again, I would prefer to know yes or no, not how much in that kind of situation.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: That's good. The next one is that the argument for would be it helps with stewardship and financial planning. So obviously if a pastor is aware of what a person's giving they're better able to step in and help that member make better financial and stewardship decisions.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah. What do you think of that?
[00:08:56] Speaker B: I don't think so. I think for me again keeping it to biblical going off of what you just said. If you know the yes and no, then it allows a pastor to give a biblical explanation and encouragement to that person once a pastor Steps Into Actual Financial Planning and Those Types Of Things. And we're all for Dave Ramsey financial Peace universities. And not to say a pastor cannot give some financial advice, but I think that it just kind of goes too far on the other side of the spectrum of someone stepping in, and it takes away from the spiritual side, I think, and goes to another place. That's what comes to mind.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm of the persuasion on this one here personally, what my rule was, and I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong or evil if you do the opposite but I think that for me, I did help some people within our church with financial planning and figuring out some of these things when they are in that life place. That's just kind of who I am. You know this about me Ian, you and I talk this kind of stuff. If I wasn't pastoring or doing reach right, I probably would have been some kind of a financial planner for people because it's just the way my mind operates. So on many occasions I have done this with people and to do that I had to know how much money they had or gave and we worked on budgets together but it was always something that they volunteered to me. So they came to me and they said hey, this is how much I make, this is how much I give. Do you want to talk to me about this here? So I did know that and I think, I guess the line for me is that if someone offers this information to me and I can for purpose of helping them with some of this stuff, I'm happy to receive that and talk to them about it and keep it in confidence. But I think for me the line would have been crossed for me if I went and researched this without their knowing about it and found out about what they were giving. That's a good point. Yeah, that's kind of the line for me. So if it's given to me by the person themselves, they want me to know.
And again, not necessarily because I think the Bible has a lot to say about people that want other people to know how much they're giving because they're giving a lot. Right, that's not what I'm talking about here. Right. It's usually people that are in pretty tough financial ways and usually they might be with someone else, they might have been embarrassed to know how much they were giving. So anyway, I think that in those cases, I'm okay with that. I'd rather not hear from the person that wants me to know how radically generous that they were because that's not healthy for me or for them to be telling me those kinds of things. So that's my thought.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Agreed. That's good. And we kind of already touched on this last argument for but it's just that if a pastor knew how much a member was giving, they can encourage scriptural giving more.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Again, I feel like this is the argument from the perspective of the church. And to me, there's no doubt that I probably could have, as a pastor, brought in more money from our church if I had known who gave the most.
You can work those kinds of systems, and I'm putting it in a pretty negative light here. I don't mean to do that. There is a case to be made in a fundraising perspective to know who your biggest givers are, just like you were invited to that meeting. I have a friend of mine who pastors a church and he has a generosity team at this church here. And I was taken aback once I saw on their social media profiles photography from what they called their generosity annual banquet for their generosity team. But basically, I get it. In theory, this is a team of people that you go to with big needs, and they help you meet some of those financial needs at the same time. I hope we can appreciate that it can be a little bit off putting from the outside to see that. We have a lavish banquet for the biggest givers in our church. Right? So it's kind of a touchy idea with that. But I think the big argument for this to encourage scriptural giving is that if you have this information, you could certainly approach people that are your biggest givers and encourage them and come up with plans to help them to give more and raise more money for the church. Full disclosure here at Reachwright, we know with all of our data and tracking who our biggest clients are, the people that give the most money to our business or spend the most money with our business, we treat them differently.
Not in like that. We don't treat people poorly, but we actually spend more time maybe going after and reaching out to and providing better service for every little intricacy. And we have people that are dedicated and would put a lot of attention if we heard that one of our largest clients was upset or disappointed or didn't like one of our services here. So all I to say, I certainly know that you can do better from a business perspective when you know this information. I just don't like the theological implications of it. So that's why I've tried to avoid that personally.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And that leads us to the no arguments against this, and so that if you don't know how much a person gives, then it helps you avoid favoritism and bias.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Yes, I think that's the first one. Yeah, that is this was huge for me.
I know, especially in smaller churches where one person in a lot of cases would represent enormous percentages of your overall income, there is no way you can tell me that there isn't some level of favoritism or bias that comes with that. So I've planted churches, and you and I were part of a church plant together, ian and I've pastored churches that were 30 or 40 people and grew to 150 people. And so I've been in both sides of this, but I know that there were probably people within our church that I assume they were giving maybe 15% or maybe even 20% of our church's total income was coming from one family. And how is it possible that if I know that my livelihood and my church's ability to pay the rest of our staff and my kids being able to go to camp this year, if it was dependent on whether this family gave or not. How could I not maybe cater my message a little bit to things that would maybe not upset that person? Or maybe if they want to hear me talk about something a little bit more in my sermons, that I would probably address that more, take them out.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: To lunch a little more, and coffee.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: I just know for myself, when I was in those seasons of my life, that that would have been a temptation for me, and I wanted to avoid any level of that temptation. And I felt like, for me, that was a good decision in that way. So, yeah, I think that's a really strong case and probably my primary one.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. I agree with that. Next one is, though, the argument for the no is preserving privacy and encouraging genuine giving. So it protects their privacy, and it would actually encourage a member to be, I guess, more authentic with their giving, would be another way to say that.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to what we learn in Scripture about the importance of giving and not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. I don't want it to be a temptation for anybody in my church to try to garner some kind of pastoral favor because they're giving more. And so I was always really clear about this. We would talk about giving every week at our church, and I would say, hey, I don't know how much any of you give, just so you know. So if any of you are hoping that someone would see this really big donation, just so you know, I don't see that. And so I think I don't want anybody ever giving because they can get some kind of personal favor or they would make me like them more. As the pastor of the church, that's not the purpose of giving. And so I'd want to take away that temptation from anybody. And I think that's a really valid argument.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. And the next one is that it would also protect people from the potential sorry, misuse of information. So security keeps it confidential, safeguards members from manipulation and like you said, targeted solicitations, those types of things.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah. This is important because I think that someone's going to know this stuff. Right? Someone has to count the tithes and offerings. You have bookkeepers that are going to know this stuff. I just think that insulating it from pastoral roles is something that is really valuable. So we always had someone within our church that was a bookkeeper that was the primary person, or usually two people always had two people count. But one of those people changed every single week so they wouldn't see what someone gave week in and week out. But we had one person that generally was not in a pastoral role that was doing the bookkeeping for our church. And I just think that there's just too much temptation to misuse that kind of information. If I know that certain people give certain amounts, or even if on the opposite end, if I know someone isn't giving or they're giving a small amount and I know they have a really good job, I'd be tempted. Although there is a case to be made for the accountability side we talked about, I'd be tempted to kind of use that or maybe even craft my conversations with that person around that information, which I think would be a misuse and kind of a betrayal of trust.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good. And that's a good segue to the last one here, which is protecting pastoral integrity. So this allows a pastor to serve without that kind of influence that we just talked about and having conflicts of interests and just allows a pastor to focus more on the spiritual guidance part of ministry.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we have enough to do, right? Pastors? I mean, it's something that there's so much that goes so I just think it was such an easier decision. It's kind of like people criticize this idea now, but it became known as the Billy Graham Rule, right? You know what that is? Where a guy is a man is not going to spend time alone with a woman that isn't his wife. And really the idea behind it, again, there's all kinds of things to be said on that, maybe another episode, but that's there to safeguard and protect his pastoral integrity and just you never get close to that line. That's there not that the Bible says that you can't do that necessarily, but just it was a good rule for Billy Graham, so there was no question of his integrity at the end of his life because he followed that. I think the same thing goes in this case here, is that I would rather be nowhere near that line as opposed to have that regular temptation that's there that my integrity could be compromised by using this information or by maybe changing the things God would have me do as a pastor because of this information that I know. So for me, it was just a good safeguard to kind of keep myself in check that way.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: That's good. And that leads us to kind of what we have in conclusion, which is just there is a middle ground. There's a balanced view of this and that we kind of covered this a little bit already. That knowing the totals but not the details.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Right?
[00:20:19] Speaker B: So kind of having an idea of the giving health of your church, of course in totality, but not by individual basis.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
I am a numbers guy through and through. Right. So everything I do, the way we do things here at Reachwright, we're a marketing firm. And so everything is about measurement and seeing what kind of results we're getting and doing more of what gets results and doing less of what doesn't. And so I'm all for that. So I think that having financial information in general is something that's really important. So the things that I would look for is obviously total giving. That's a big important number. But I think total giving an average per person in attendance, I think that's a really important number. So is that number going up or down? Are we seeing less giving per person or more giving per person? Average giving per family unit, those kinds of things are really important. And then I think that happy medium of the yes or no question, like is this person a regular giver? And again, you can choose an amount that makes sense in your area. I imagine if you're living in a big city versus a small rural area, that number of what a regular giver might look like would be different. Maybe it's $300 a year in one place and maybe it's 2000 in another place in the country. Just depends on where you are. But I think that yes or no question of whether someone is a genuine sacrificial giver within your church that could be a good medium for people to look at there. So yes to every bit of financial metric information that you have at your disposal, with the exception of names that are on there of individual people and how much they give. That's kind of where I would draw the line on that. But that's just my take. I would absolutely love to know. Maybe this is where you started. You're at the same place as us. Maybe you disagree to the beginning. Let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear what our audience thinks about this. We have hundreds of pastors that listen to this every week and that means so much to us. Thank you guys for being a part of our reachwright family here? Let us know down in the comments what you do at your church. Are you someone that knows and what are your thoughts on that? Have we gone wrong somewhere with this? We'd love to get some feedback. So thanks so much, guys, for being a part of The Reachwright family. Thanks for listening week in and week out. Hit that subscribe button and we'll see you next time.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: See ya.
