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| Subtitle | Why Tithes and Offerings Are No Longer Enough, and What You Can Do about It |
| First Written | 2019 |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | Baker Books |
| ISBN-10 | 0801094798 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0801094798 |
| My Copy | borrowed paperback |
| First Read | February 24, 2025 |
| Collections |
The Coming Revolution in Church Economics
I was kind of amazed they didn't even mention the one thing that absolutely works: go get a big-ass endowment.
Noted on February 27, 2025
This makes big promises: hey, you're part of a church and you know for both demographic and social reasons, you can't run this thing indefinitely on tithes and offerings. Even if you replace your old, retired church goers with young families - which you probably won't - and even if they made the same kind of money - which they don't - you're still running uphill. Younger churchgoers donate money to other charitable causes, whereas your older folks just donate to church. So? the authors say: here are solutions.
But this just boils down to a few things the they suggest: real estate (sublease your building! lease your land! develop a strip mall!), a nonprofit arm that can go get grant money, and some handwavy for-profit business. These aren't bad ideas, and it was good to read through this, I think I just hoped for something a little more dramatic.
Noted on February 27, 2025