About Mark Brooks

A prolific writer Mark Brooks has written several print books with “Turbo Charge Your Giving: How To Raise Money in Any Economy,” as his most recent. He has also written several e-books such as “Elevator Pitch Your Offerings,” a one year plan for short stewardship messages. Mark can be found on Twitter as @StewardshipMan. His blog post “The Stewardship Coach,” contains helpful advice on a wide variety of stewardship issues. Mark is the founder and president of The Charis Group.

Four Key Ideas For Your Offering Time This Weekend

Budget

Quick tell me your plan for the offering this weekend.  If you are like most church leaders you have not given the offering a thought.  About the only time church leaders think about the offering is after it has been taken up and we are disappointed with the results. Giving as a percentage of Americans incomes to the church has … [Read more...]

The Top Stewardship Mistakes Churches Make

Mistake

Yesterday I had the great privilege of meeting with Pastor Ronnie Floyd’s Mentoring Luncheon at Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas.  Cross Church is one of the most dynamic churches in the country.  They have three locations in strategic sites around this fast growing corner of the state.  The newest location is near the University … [Read more...]

How Lack of Diversification Could Be Killing Your Budget

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If giving to your church has declined or slowed down it might not be the economy.  In fact contrary to popular opinion studies are now showing that the past recession had little to do with the decline in giving.  While it might be easy to blame givings decline upon the economy I find that often churches are their own worst enemies when … [Read more...]

What Does Your Giving Data Tell You?

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Yesterday I sat down with a pastor to review his churches giving to the budget and the giving to their capital campaign.  From 2010 to 2011 his church had gained 5% over the previous year.  While you might not think that a 5% increase in giving is all that much, consider the times we live in: Any increase is a plus! On top of that … [Read more...]

Be Careful What You Promise – A Major Mistake of Pastors

Promise

Over promising results and thus creating unrealistic expectations is one of the biggest mistakes pastors make.  In my thirteen and a half years of working in the stewardship field I have seen this mistake played out from large to small churches.  Pastors and church leaders attempting to convince the congregation to approve moving … [Read more...]

How Much Time Should a Pastor Spend on Stewardship?

Time

How much time do you spend each week working on stewardship?  My guess is that you probably spend less than an hour.  Frankly I think the vast majority of pastors in America spend less than ten minutes a week on stewardship.  For many the only time spent on stewardship is on Sunday when they say, “As the ushers come forward to take … [Read more...]

Why and How To Use A Mobile App For Your Church

Mobile Apps

Whether we like it or not the technological revolution is changing the way we work, live and interact with people and even churches.  Few churches are on the cutting edge of this revolution.  If you don’t want to get by passed by the people on the information highway you had better get up to speed quickly.  One way to do this is by … [Read more...]

Five Ways To Make Giving Easier to Your Church

Credit Card iPhone

Last week at the close of the year we were attempting to make a final contribution to our church.  The problem was that we had run out of checks.  We typically only write a few checks a month and those are to our church.  With no checks to put in the mail before the 31st I told my wife to go online and see if we could contribute there. … [Read more...]