The Executive Pastor group, of which I’m a part, recently did a survey to calculate the Average Annual Contributions by Weekly Attendee. It was an interesting exercise to say the least, putting every church on an equal playing field regardless of location, ministry philosophy, leadership structure, etc.
Average annual contributions were calculated for each church by dividing the total general fund contributions for 2009 by the average weekly “adult only” attendance for the same period. Out of a total of 23 Independent Christian Churches from all over the country, we ranked 20th (4th from the bottom) at $1,324! Nice!
Of course the list was sorted from highest to lowest with the highest being $2,843 and the lowest being $931. The highest church is located in Indiana and the lowest in Illinois. Hmmm … The top and bottom of the list are churches from basically the same part of the country. In fact, there’s not any real correlation between location and average annual contributions.
So, what is it? Does it have more to do with the spiritual maturity of the people attending the church than anything else? Does it have more to do with the fact that God knows better than we what a church really needs in terms of financial resources?
What do you think?
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Hmmm a little late to the game am I. But since there was not much comment activity I’ll throw my 52 cents in… David repost like to hear opinions!
ranked somewhat in order although the top 2 interchangeable:
– the ability and effectiveness of the staff to communicate the needs and financial state of the church
– the spiritual state of the majority of the attendees as I believe spiritual health and financial sacrifice go hand in hand(although you would have to account for average income if you were running a comparison)
– shared vision – in this shared being the keyword here. People will only sacrificially give to a vision they share, NOT to a vision they’re pulled along behind. If you don’t get full buy in from your supporters and if they don’t share your vision fully it will be a half hearted show of support.
Bill,
The EP Group to which I refer is a group of around 90 Executive Pastors around the country who connect via a Google Group. There’s also an annual Summit where more than 40 of them come together to talk about ministry.
The research is a bunch of data in a spreadsheet this group compiled shortly following the last Summit.
If you’d like more information shoot me an e-mail and we’ll go from there.
Thanks for checking out my blog!
Kevin,
You mention an “Executive Pastors Group,” what group are you referring to? Where can we find this original research?
BP
David,
I apologize if something you posted was deleted. I encourage any and all feedback on this blog and am not moderating comments.
If you posted something that was deleted, it was unintentional. Please feel free to re-post it.
I appreciate your interest!