Church Fundraising Ideas
|
Church fundraising ideas are certainly a popular theme for many local congregations that are struggling to find ways to do various ministry efforts. There is no doubt about it, a local congregation that wants to do ministry in a community will need plenty of money to do so. There has been, and rightly so, a serious criticism of local churches putting too much money into just keeping the ecclesiastical machinery greased, but there appears to be a renewed interest by many congregations to quit being so inwardly focused and begin doing what they were supposed to be doing all along: be salt and light in their communities. In order to do so, many churches have begun all out blitzes on their towns, sharing God's love in demonstrable ways. Passing out cold water to crowds at a fireworks party in local parks, feeding local homeless people, giving out turkeys at Thanksgiving, delivering Hershey kisses to every business person in and town and telling them they have been "kissed" with God's love are all examples of creative things people are doing to show people God's incredible love in tangible ways.
"Kissing" people and giving out Thanksgiving Day dinners and passing out hundreds of bottles of cold water takes real money. So do mission trips that send young people overseas to minister to another culture and sadly, church money raising ideas must be sought because the giving in churches often fails to cover such efforts. Protestant churches, especially those that are conservative, teach members that God desires and demands a tithe of income, which is 10%. There is no time here to talk about the biblical directives for such a position, but in most churches that promote tithing, about 25% of members practice this injunctive. Should even 50% of members of local churches tithe, there would be little or no need for church fundraising ideas. But reality calls for such a need, especially for projects that church members do not fully support.
For most local congregations, the youth ministry is the one that needs the most outside of budget help. Car washes and selling candy has always been the big two of church fundraising ideas. In many cases, members are hesitant to fund trips for young persons when they are perceived as just vacations. Sadly, even when the young people are often involved in mission trips there can be some hesitancy on the part of many congregations to fully fund the projects. In the case of young people wanting to raise money in churches, there are some ways to raise money creatively. One of the newest ways for charities to raise money is through scratch off cards, and no, these aren't lottery tickets. Here is how these church fundraising ideas work.
A card is given to a young person, for example and that person goes from door to door introducing himself. The young person asks the person asks the home dweller to scratch off two dots on the sheet, revealing no more than three dollars on each dot. While no more than six dollars is collected from each person, it may be as little as two dollars. The home owner will then give a donation up to six dollars to the young person and in return, will receive a coupon book for up to fifty dollars off local merchants' products. One hundred dots scratched off will earn the church or youth group one hundred or more dollars. This becomes a win-win for the youth group and the local merchants. This is one of the better church fundraising ideas.
With the flood of old cell phones that are beginning to pile up, collecting these old phones and selling them to recycling centers is becoming one of the popular church fundraising ideas. But there have been congregations who needed to raise a lot of money and have stepped out in faith and held very large events in order to raise big money quickly. These churches have sponsored high profile speakers, music groups and Christian comedians and sold tickets to those events. Dinners, garage sales and selling frozen cookie dough are among the many traditional church fundraising ideas that are always successful. Usually people will respond to a vision that the fund raisers have, even outside the church walls, so it is important when trying to raise money that those being solicited understand implicitly for purpose the money will be used. Fundraisers in churches need to remember Paul's great teaching: "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19)
God never intended the local church to have to resort to church fundraising ideas in order to accomplish His work. He did intend His children to learn how to give in such a way that they would have to trust Him implicitly for all their needs in life. Many Christians can find other ways to spend God's money that rightfully belongs to Him, and in doing so never experience the joy of Him taking care of all their needs. The average local church in America is about eighty members and should each of those members who probably average about twenty thousand dollars a year in income tithe their money, those churches would have an income of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year. But look at the budgets of most churches with eighty members: struggling to meet their bills with fifty or sixty thousand dollars in their budget and wondering why they can't do more to have an impact in their community.
|
|
|
|
