(1) Give believers a full understanding of stewardship.
Stewardship includes several areas:
- Giving – Giving authorizes and initiates heaven to interfere and influence earth’s affairs. Since this is a brief article let me simply offer a few scriptures: Gen. 1:26; 2 Cor. 8:1-9:11; Phil. 4:13-19; Mal. 3:6-12.
- Saving – Proverbs 11 tells us, “A strong man retains wealth…” It’s not simply how much money you make, but how much you retain. In my book, The Greatest Secret I show how if a person saved $25 per week at 10% interest in 40 years, you would have $637,628. At 12%, you’d have $1,188,242.00. Those interest rates are more difficult today than when I did the research, but the point remains. Similarly, if you save $3,000 per year starting at age 15 at 10% for 5 years your investment with compounding interest would be $1,600,363.40 by age 65.
- The simple formula is → Give 10% → Save or pay yourself 10% → Invest 10% → Live on the 70% and don’t go over that amount.
(2) Discipleship is the issue.
Our dilemma is the church is not creating disciples effectively. Unwittingly, we are creating co-dependent believers who live vicariously through the exploits of their leaders. Instead we need to effectively cast and live vision. We need to help believers understand their Spiritual gifts, their Heart and passion, their Abilities, their Personality and to understand their Experiences (S.H.A.P.E.). We need to help them to know their ministry, gifts and callings in order that they may find their place in the Body of Christ. Most churches would be better served by employing a volunteer pastor, who would help reduce the budget of full time employees with effectively trained volunteers. We need more training and less meetings.
(3) Train people that true abundance comes from value. Your increase comes from direct correlation to your value. Therefore, continue to grow by tapping into resources to help you develop in your area of expertise. Use schools, seminars, reading, listening to teaching CD’s, trade shows, etc. Your formal education will make you a living, self-education will make you success. Leaders are readers. The highest paid professional, reads on the average of 2 to 3 hours per day. Yet, 80% of American families didn’t buy a book last year. Earl Nightengale said, “Study any subject one hour a day for 5 years and you can become an expert on that topic.” In other words, it doesn’t matter where you are right now; you can get in your hands resources to make yourself more valuable.
Whenever disturbing trends threaten God’s church, He shows answers so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.
