Lead Time
Lead Time
Vision-Based Budgeting and Donor Involvement with Joel Landskroener
Imagine the intricacies of stewardship in the church, laid bare in a riveting conversation with Joel Landskroener, Executive Director at Mayer Lutheran High School. From his unique upbringing as the son of a pastor to his pivotal role in fundraising and development work in schools, Joel provides a fresh perspective on the significance of stewardship and resource management within the church.
This enlightening discourse takes us into the depth of church economics, detailing the cost of running a church, the value of vision-based budgeting, and the importance of donor involvement in strategic planning. Learn how openness, transparency, and effective storytelling can inspire generosity and cultivate a stronger sense of belonging within a congregation. We also delve into the controversial practice of publishing individual giving amounts in church bulletins, a fascinating discussion that underscores the importance of accurate record-keeping and the delicate art of handling donor gifts.
Lastly, we explore the importance of endowments for a church's longevity, breaking down common misconceptions and offering practical advice on when endowments are needed. The conversation concludes with an upbeat discussion on Joel's love for ties, a lighthearted anecdote that mirrors his underlying passion for stewardship. So, tune in - this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge for any church leader grappling with the challenge of stewardship.
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Leigh Time is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective, hosted by Tim Ollman and Jack Calliber. The ULC envisions the future in which all congregations fully equip the priesthood of all the believers through world-class leadership development at the local level. Leigh Time taps into biblical wisdom for practical solutions to today's burning issues. Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church and a post-Christian culture. Step into the action with the ULC at uniteleadershiporg. This is Leigh Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Leigh Time, tim Ollman, here with Jack Callberg, and it is a beautiful day. I pray that the love and care and support that comes first from Jesus and then from your local congregation is inspiring you in whatever vocation you have as a wife or mother, husband, father, out into our community, or maybe happen to be a church worker in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod whatever that that role, vocation is. We pray that the podcast today gives you hope, gives you joy, gives you clarity and maybe a little bit of challenge as we get to chat with a new brother that I just got the chance to meet, connected by one of our teachers in our school met and I'm going to get this name right Joel Lanskroner. Did I get that right? Close, lance Crainer. Oh, that's Crainer, ah, shoot.
Speaker 1:I should have just asked before we got going, Joel.
Speaker 2:Mr Lance Crainer serves as executive director at Mayor Lutheran High School in Mayor, Minnesota suburb of the Twin Cities. Bs in secondary education with majors in social studies, physical education from Concordia College in Seward Nebraska, go Bulldogs, and an MA in American history from the University of Maryland and then an MS in school administration from Johns Hopkins I've heard of that place. That's pretty legit university. Mr Lance Skroner, no Crainer, Lance Crainer.
Speaker 3:Why am I having a?
Speaker 2:hard time I got to write that down.
Speaker 3:Call me Joel, please.
Speaker 1:Joel, yes, thank you, brother.
Speaker 2:Serving in schools in Florida, maryland, indiana, minnesota, many, many boards, and the reason that Mr Stevens from our school said we got to talk with you, joel, is that you had an awesome presentation on stewardship. You've done a lot in development work as well, so tell us a little bit more of your ministry story and how you fell in love with the topic of stewardship. Thanks so much for joining us today on Lead Time, joel.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, tim. Yeah, I'm a pastor's kid, one of five boys. Four of my brothers are church workers. One's a pastor, three are actually principals, are heads of Lutheran schools, myself included. One's an attorney no idea what happened there and we raised almost from well from infancy, in the church and as church work.
Speaker 3:Family is married, a pastor's daughter, and when you're in church work, stewardship is part and parcel of what you do. I mean, it's kind of hard to not be a part of it, especially in our situation. Unfortunately, in too many situations in the church pastor wasn't paid very well. So being learning to be thrifty and frugal and at the same time being generous were things that just kind of I was raised with.
Speaker 3:And then when I became a teacher as history teacher, athletic director at Lutheran school in Miami, florida, and one of the first things I had to do was get sports uniforms, and we didn't have any money, so I did a walk-a-thon, right, I get to figure out some way to raise money, and we raised enough money to buy uniforms. And from that time on I've just kind of been involved in kind of raising money but also, more so, figuring out ways to best use that and to be the best steward of that and to bring people in to be partners in the ministry with their giving. I went to Baltimore and ended up kind of getting into the fundraising business there because we needed somebody. That's a typical school story, right, they need somebody.
Speaker 3:There's a teacher, I guess you could do this and just learned it from there. And then my first administrative job was to start a Lutheran high school to see more Indiana from, literally from a cornfield, and there it's all about advancement work and connecting people with their dreams and visions and their resources to the vision of the ministry. And was there six years, got the high school going and then I got the nod here to come to Mayor of Minnesota and work with a school that was quite older and had a lot of needs, and so I would say I've kind of like most people in fundraising, I've just kind of stumbled into that world and learned to actually kind of like it.
Speaker 2:So, Mr Lance Craner, yes, I got that right right.
Speaker 1:Finally.
Speaker 2:Mr Lance Craner, Joel, A lot of pastors may struggle with talking about resources. We realize Jesus actually talks about resources more than any other topic in the Bible and yet the percentage of times that pastors have to do once a year money, stewardship, sermon you know how do you help pastors. Any kind of leader who really bristles has a robust fear about talking about resources with God's people. What words of wisdom would you give to them? Oh boy, for me to tell a pastor, what to do?
Speaker 3:wow, we need help.
Speaker 2:We need a lot of help.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what. It's not just pastors, it's everybody, I mean. People always say to me Joel, don't you have any fear of asking for money? And the reality of it is, first of all, a guy told me a long time ago if you ever ask for money, you always have a job. We're not afraid to do it, you always have a job. Two biggest fears is public speaking and asking for money. And if you can overcome those two a guy with limited skills, he can stay employed his whole life. And so that's kind of how I've gotten there. Good point, you know, I'm not afraid to speak and I'm not afraid to ask for money.
Speaker 3:And the reality is, for pastors, they're in a tough situation as opposed to like I'm the head of the school right or college or a hospital or whatever, because they've got so many, there's so many things demanded of them, and especially, ultimately, to preach, to preach and teach the word and word, sacrament ministry. That's what pastors do. But, and so I think the tough thing on that is a lot of pastors wanna make sure that they're preaching the law and gospel, that they're bringing the scripture to people, that the gospel has its chance to work, and too many people, I think look at the idea of stewardship as more law-oriented than gospel-oriented. You know, when I grew up and our kids have heard this a thousand times in our household you know thriftiness is not a virtue, generosity is a virtue, and no word scripture is thriftiness.
Speaker 3:As far as I know and if you guys, if anybody wants to call in and let me know, I'd be glad to correct this no word scripture that I know of is thriftiness held up as a virtue. It's held up as something worth noting, like in the feeding of the 5,000, they picked up leftovers right, probably a good idea. And in the Passover, you know they ate and you know left and did what they had to do in order. You know even manna. You know you had to collect manna for the day. Don't try to save it, don't try to get else, because it's gonna spoil on you. But nowhere in scripture do we find anything that says thriftiness or frugality is a virtue. It's only scripture talks about generosity.
Speaker 4:About the parable, where Jesus talks about the wealthy man who keeps building barns. He's just why I just guess you know and he's being thrifty, right, he's, he is investing in his business and growing it, but he just keeps building bigger and bigger barns, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah to one and more wealth, right, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely so. I think pastors I Think pastors struggle with that because it seems to be so unidimensional. Right, I'm giving a sermon on stewardship. That means it's time to give the money and frankly, I don't know, if I can, how you can preach on anything in scripture for too long of time before you come across the issue of stewardship. I mean, there's over 2,000 verses in scripture that deals specifically with money and with giving and with generosity.
Speaker 3:2000 Christ, 40% of his parables Involve something to do with, you know, vineyards or business or what have you, and so you almost can't escape that. But again, I do think. I do think there's been a common situation in so many places where the stewardship sermon Happens in late November, when they're getting their budget ready to start in January, instead of having it be part and parcel of all of the. The teachings of scripture that we have in you know that come from the pulpit each Sunday, especially if you you know our church that follows the precapies, you almost you can't avoid talking about stewardship, I would say in a third and a half of the precapies in some way shape or form.
Speaker 3:Because again God's generosity is what Christ death on the cross is all about, right? Well, we're still sinners. Christ died for us, you know, and Elavished his love on us, right and John. He didn't just give it to us. So I think thinking of the, the generosity of God and the generosity that he's given to us, is what would drive me if I was a pastor and preaching as I look at various you know the various passages of scripture and obviously you don't necessarily want to talk about it every Sunday, but I certainly think it's. You know. It can be more naturally incorporated than just saying, all right, the budgets do. We're gonna do is do a stewardship sermon this week, yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's I have a better a better answer for your question. You know from the.
Speaker 2:That's a perfect. It's a perfect response and if Jesus speaks about it, we get to speak about it too. And his yoke is easy, his burden is light, he owns it all. I love that you reference. We have a God who is generous with us. That's where it flows from. This is how it's gospel II right. Is God so love the world that he gave his only son and then gave his very life? And there's joy on the other side who, for the joy set before him, endure the cross growing of shame, is seated. Now. This is a resurrected and rainy run one, at the right hand of God. He owns it all.
Speaker 2:And and the fact, the audacity that we get to be a part time talent and treasure in the, in the Expanding the kingdom of God, in bringing people to a saving knowledge of the of the risen one, I mean it's, it's bonkers man, I mean and I think we work past. We work past the fear Through stories. Right, how do new, new skills get developed? It's trying something, getting feedback and then realizing that wasn't that bad. You know, people actually gave me good feedback and people actually believe the scriptures and want to hear me talk about the full counsel of God, and, and I just go back to stories like this past Sunday, one of our, one of our longtime members, who's bride Just went to be.
Speaker 2:His name is Ivan, his wife's name is is Lois. She just went to be with with Jesus and he comes up to me because we just had a vision two week series and we're talking about resources and things and update with the congregation, we want to maintain Transparency and things, and he comes up and goes Pastor, my wife and her part of the estate is coming in. I was gonna direct it at your gym, but now I hear that there may be some needs in the general fund. Would that be? Would that be a better place? To which I said yeah, I think right now I, even if the Lord leads you, that'd be, that'd be awesome. And then he looked me straight in the eye, joel and Jack, and said you know what? There's no you-haul behind the hearse faster. No, you, he'd heard that, you know, and. But he's got this joy you can't get Ivan to shut up about giving to the mission of Jesus.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that joy is what we call Christian freedom. Mm-hmm, right and then. And conversely, if financial anxiety is what's driving you all the time, you could say that that is a form of bondage and that is actually like a call for pastoral care.
Speaker 3:If you guys ever laughed so hard. I mean like when you're in grade school and lunch is spitting milk out of your nose right. Sure, yeah, when it says God loves a cheerful giver, the cheerful word really is hilarity.
Speaker 1:A hilarious giver.
Speaker 3:When you can't give, you just laugh so hard. You're so much love giving back to the Lord through his people. The gifts of him is always his people, right and when you just can't give enough and you can't. That's where the God loves a cheerful giver, and that's the thing about milk shooting out of your nose but that is really the intent when that's written, because I think Paul wrote that right and it's certainly the case. You talk about your friend Ivan. It sounds like he's a hilarious giver.
Speaker 3:You know living that joy, you just can't help. They have that belly laugh of joy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very true, very true. So we're trying to engage people in a variety of different places and seasons of life and I think the way the church kind of engages donors at different seasons I really I just was listening to a podcast recently about Gen Z wanting to become more generous and wanting to learn the youngest generation about biblical stewardship and maybe work toward the 80, 10, 10, live off 80, save 10, give 10. That's a good early goal and some people this is a wild thing about being a pastor in a multi-generational church like we are. I'm speaking to folks that have never given, to folks that are multimillionaires who could give more than they actually live on, and communicating to these donors is a different thing. There are some principles that are unifying, but give us top three or so best practices of churches engaging with a variety of different donors in a winsome way.
Speaker 3:You know that's a great. I wrote an article actually for the Minnesota South District newsletter a couple of years ago and I can give you five, is that okay? So yeah, and these are just practical things that churches can do. One of them is educate the congregation about the economics of the church. I mean, you'd be surprised how many people don't realize what the utility bill is. You're in Arizona, so I'm sure you got a nice electrical bill every month, right?
Speaker 1:I mean so can we get our city bills?
Speaker 3:You know what are those, what are the benefits, what do benefits cost? I mean holy cow health benefits. So you know the pastor who spent, you know, all day, saturday, with you with a dying relative or friend or whatever. I mean. You know what does it cost to have that person be able to do what they do? And I think you know a lot of churches and I'm one of the chief, I am the chief of center here.
Speaker 3:A lot of people don't go to the church meetings and hear about the finances. They almost don't like to do that. But you can, in a winsome way, you know, talk about, you know, every dollar that comes into how much goes to, you know, to our workers. Probably about 80% of your budget probably goes for workers. That's what we are people. You know world, but I do think that education piece is huge. You've done so, you know, in a, you know, probably using infographics or quick, easy ways. Nobody reads long reports, but you know something. You know. This is what your dollar does for ministry. And I always say in ministry, the dollar accelerates faster and faster because of what it does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and then let's pause on that one really quick, Jack.
Speaker 2:we're working right now on a vision-based budget and kind of communicating in a winsome way to the wider family and ministries here at Grace Greenfield. Talk about that vision-based budget, Jack.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean the vision-based budget means like, if you actually create the simple pie chart that you're talking about, does it actually reflect the values of the congregation? If the congregational's missional, do we show that a material amount of that resources is going to support mission? If we value the quality staff that's caring for people you know well what is that percentage that's going to staffing? If we care about being multi-generational, as an example, or do we show that our resources are going to support people across the generations? You know youth and our elderly and families with kids, right? So I think it's a great way. When you share a budget with people, you're not just sharing the financial condition, you're actually making an expression. You're drawing a line in the sand saying this is what we value and we're inviting you to support these values.
Speaker 2:And that builds so much trust At the end of the day. It's about trust with the donor right. Say more there, joel. Anything to add?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know when one of the key you talk about value-based budgeting right, Obviously, I'm sure you have a strategic plan right, and we have a strategic plan, and one of the things that we use our strategic plan for in fundraising is the four magic words, and so we'll go to all kinds of people our large.
Speaker 3:You said you had you know money, multi-millionaires, at your church, but maybe you know just regular people too, who's opinion you value, who you know are faithful supporters right, and the widows might right, it's not about the amount, it's about the sacrifice. And we I take the strategic plan to a lot of people and I say here's a strategic plan, what do you think? The four magic words, what do you think? And then, as you may know, I talk a lot, so I sit back and I take my mouth shut and I listen. And you would be surprised when people ask people what do you think about your vision, what do you think? And they share that with you and you start, you know, noodling on that a little bit, thinking what does that mean? And if you start hearing similar messages, and you start hearing messages that maybe you've never thought about before, all of a sudden they become part of the solution, they become part of the vision they see themselves because they've been asked and I find them to be a very fruitful exercise with our and we've been blessed with many, many donors to ask them what do you think? And you know, and I talked to them, I'm really ready to start a middle school here next year and that was our strategic plan, one of our five major goals.
Speaker 3:And I asked a guy you know what do you think about? And he goes you know what? That middle school is necessary? I think it's great. I know you've got feeder schools that go to grade eight, but there's so many people who won't send their kid to a church school but they will to a high school that has a middle school. And not only was he so excited about it, so I said to him, called in a little while later, I said you know you were really excited about the middle school. I go would you be excited enough to give a $75,000 gift so we can get this started and we throw the ball out there? It hangs a long time in the air.
Speaker 3:And he came back. Yeah, we can do that, we're excited. But because I listened to him, I asked him what do you think it enabled him to connect? You know his joy, his passion with our vision and we really get some support to get our middle school which, lord willing, next fall we will open. You know that's so fun, but that's tied into your vision, right? And I always tell anybody if you wanna raise money but you don't have a clear vision, it's pretty hard to ask, you know, because people will say what does my dollar really do? And that's my number two.
Speaker 3:One is always tell mission. I know you guys do this. Tell mission stories all the time, ministry stories all the time. You know about those folks who maybe I only have come to know Jesus, which are always exciting and great stories, but those whose faith has been grown and reinvigorated. You know the spirit's always been in there. But you know something that happened, something that your church was able to do. Maybe they went on a mission trip reluctantly and they fell in love with the concept, right. Or maybe they got involved with, you know, maybe, a men's group or some other group, kind of reluctantly and all of a sudden they just fall in love with it and you see the gospel grow and see lives change. You know.
Speaker 3:I think, that ministry stories are just great, great opportunities.
Speaker 2:I don't think I love that. I don't think that churches can tell enough stories. The by worst, a storied people and I don't think I think most churches. Well, I'm dry general statement here Just do an audit of how many testimonies formal, informal and I'm talking more formal Sunday it could be a video or someone standing up take an audit of how many testimonies you, as a leader, allowed into the Word and sacrament time. This is word work, this is the word at work, the testimony of people whose lives have been transformed, and it doesn't necessarily have to be their joy in giving, just the joy of being a follower of Jesus that inspires people to give. My general I'd love to get your take on this too, jack. My general sense in churches in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod was that if we did an audit it would be less than five a year and five may even be generous, and I think there's major opportunity for growth here. Anything to add to the necessity of testimonies, jack?
Speaker 4:No, I entirely agree, and I think a great example of the testimonies is just reading the book of Acts.
Speaker 4:Right, think about how inspiring those stories are for us. We have it in scripture because of everything that happened in the early church and what the Holy Spirit was doing in there such a powerful story of transformation and that we're telling these stories 2,000 years later. And at the same time there's also those very same stories that are happening right now in the church and we really need to document that and archive that and keep and preserve that for posterity and just be able to share those stories over and over again. I know Michael told a very powerful story when he was preaching about a harvest festival in his old church where the only an association that this family had was that they had attended the church's harvest fest. But when she found herself in trouble she needed help from a church and that's the only church that they knew of because they went to the harvest fest and it turned out to be a powerful pastoral moment because the child had a terminal illness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, so good. Yeah, I agree with you guys.
Speaker 3:We're not a big testimony church, right? I mean Missouri Senate is. You know a lot of other church bodies have a different approach, right? We're not big into the testimony on Sunday morning, which is okay, it's actually just fine with me. However, those stories can be shared in a thousand ways. You know and you know, having your podcast, for example, is one of those great ways to help share stories of, and I always tell people you can talk about the ax. You know ax has the great blessing of the gospel right. It just loses through.
Speaker 3:But you also have the story of Ananias and Sapphira, if you remember that. Yeah, that's true, I do there is law and gospel.
Speaker 3:I was going to make that a sermon but I never. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I do think that you know these stories and real life stories, and certainly it's easier in schools. You know when you make a difference in a kid's life who was just going nowhere, and they came to your Christian school, your Lutheran school in our case, and they find out that there's a joy under the gospel when you don't have to do anything, when you get to do these things because of what Christ has already done for us, and kids are freed. Teenagers are just freed when they can come out of a life of rules and live that freedom with the gospel, which is not to say teenagers don't have to be, you know, have guidelines?
Speaker 1:They certainly do, but the reality of it is that makes a difference to our especially our families.
Speaker 3:A third of our kids this year new kids have like no Lutheran school, no Christian school background, nothing. And when they come in and hear this they're stunned, some of them. You know, I don't even tell those stories to people.
Speaker 1:Why is my dollar? Why should I give you a dollar, joel? Why?
Speaker 3:should that work in there? Well, you know, don't give it to me, but let me tell you about this kid, who, dow, loves Jesus actually, you know, went into church work or something like that because they heard what the gospel is all about in the truest, sweetest sense. And those stories, you're right, they absolutely pay off. I think we need to do that more and more, you know it's always dicey of course.
Speaker 4:Some of the powerful stories like even tied to our preschool. We hear stories that families are like these little preschool kids are evangelists. To their families They'll say, hey, we should pray for our meal like this. They never even thought of doing that before. And the influence that these little preschool kids are having. They're bringing their parents to church because they've got chapel services and they want to go see what's happening in the kids' chapel services and this may be the first time they ever go to church. It's amazing. We just built a gym too.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, joel, yeah, no, no, no. We just built a gym and our rallying cry for generosity Build the gym was actually the campaign. And then do it for the kids, do it for the kids. There was something about the older generation we need to pass down. There was something ingrained in us we need to pass down the gospel to the next generation. So you have educate the church on communicate the church finances to the donor, Tell mission stories. You got three more, and I'd love five. It's all good.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, I appreciate it. I love living under the freedom of the gospel. The third one is maintain accurate records, and I'll tell you this is just good business, right, but beyond that it's good ministry. And so one of my favorite records is called the Leibundt. Have you ever heard of Leibundt? Last year, but not this year. So, organizations, if you have some kind of software where you can manage the giving and you should, because people need tax receipts and so on and so forth, but last year but not this year just a report that you know who gave, say two years ago but didn't give last year, and let's find out why they didn't give, you know maybe they passed away.
Speaker 1:That's why they're not on there.
Speaker 3:Maybe they moved out of town but a lot of times on the ministry side good record keeping and say you know, pete used to be a generous giver and he hasn't given in the last two years. What's going on with Pete?
Speaker 1:Somebody go talk to me and don't talk to me. We want your money.
Speaker 3:Is there something going on? You've always been so generous and regular and we notice that stopped. And some of those people will actually tell these stories. I stopped giving. Nobody seemed to care. And the ministry pieces is there's something going on that we can help you with? Maybe Pete's had some significant financial setbacks, maybe some things have happened, but how would anybody know? Nobody's going to broadcast that about themselves on Facebook, I don't think. And so good record keeping doesn't equate to good ministry as well. And along with that number four is the concept of gratitude. I think one of the great things that the gospel drives us to do and frankly I'm always kind of disappointed is that people have forgotten how to say thank you.
Speaker 1:I'll just give you an example at.
Speaker 3:Mary Luther and Mary Luther and we give out about 100 financial aid awards every year. We get maybe 10 thank you cards for it. So we give out almost $350,000 of other people's money of gifts right For our financial aid. And maybe we get 10 cards of gratitude and frankly, I never sent Concordia sewer to card of thanks for the financial aid they gave me. So I'm cheap as sinners on this one right.
Speaker 3:But I think this is hard for the pastor and this is where it's easier, like in a school, like a my position, because they expect me to ask for money and be they expect me to thank them for those gifts, right.
Speaker 3:But I always think when you get your, your giving report in the mail from your church, has anybody just written a note on it and I say thanks, pete, for your thoughtfulness this year, or included, just dropped in a one of your ministry moments.
Speaker 3:How the how those dollars really made the difference in the fundraising world is proven to be pretty successful that when somebody gives a gift and they get a phone call thanking them for that gift, whether it's 10 bucks or a million bucks they're likely to give the gift again next year. The easiest way to have recurring giving is regular personal thanks. Now that can be really tough if you're the United Way right With millions of people. I don't think the CEO is going to call them on the phone, but certainly a team can do that. And and churches are a little dicey here again because everybody knows everybody and they kind of always worry they're going to know their business too much. But if you know, if there was even just a team that just called and said you know, thank you for the gift that you, thank you for your support this year at our church at Riverside right, or thank you for you know what?
Speaker 1:you did for it. They don't know how much it is, In fact, you don't you don't tell the callers how much it was.
Speaker 3:It doesn't make any difference how much it was, but we do know that that gratitude intangible ways does lead to continual giving and oftentimes a growth in giving as well. And again it's work and it's got to be organized by somebody, but it's. It could be a volunteer position, but perhaps when people know nobody knows their exact details but just that we're just grateful because we know you support our ministry.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking right now about how, in Jack, you can give the numbers for scale.
Speaker 2:But we have a lot of donors Like, how could I personally write a note on 600, 800. I don't know how many cards that go out as our team, but I'm serious about this, that personal, even though I wrote the letter, even though I had the God stories, that personal touch can go a long way. So, starting to from a, from a gratitude perspective and a relationship building perspective, I'm starting to have a rhythm of just engaging with donors personally and they happen to be maybe the top 75, top 100 or so that are, you know, giving it a certain level. But like, how could that be stretched? Because everybody's gift, first time recurring, and those that are kind of the legacy givers of our, everybody matters, and from the widows might to those that are given millions, you know everybody matters. So it's a really good charge to express gratitude in a in a really, really tangible way for folks, because that does inspire generosity. Jack, are you trying to help me figure this out? How can I get better at this man?
Speaker 4:Well, we actually decided for our new givers. We're actually having a message that goes out from joy, our business manager, because it makes sense to people that they would get like that the finance people would see the gift coming in. They might not immediately think that the pastor seeing every single gift that's coming in. So we actually decided, like for those types of gifts unless it's like something really like whoa, that's crazy gift then obviously we would pull Tim into it. But for our regular first time gifts, we're sending out a video from joy thanking them personally for for beginning their gifts. Great, yeah, your strategy. What was that acronym? Again last year, but not this year.
Speaker 3:I think that last year, but not this year.
Speaker 4:I think that's probably one of the biggest lapses that happens in the church and I know we've talked at great length about that and I don't know how well we could say that we've executed on that particular strategy is, and I don't know that any church has done an amazing job on that. But the key thing that I do know is that you can't just go in there and saying, how can we didn't give it's really more of when you're trying to reach out to these families, just trying to understand what's going on in their life, and there may be yeah it's a pastoral care concern it's
Speaker 2:a pastoral care concern for sure, Right. So what do you say to the pastor? I've heard lots of opinions here. I'm sure you know what is coming right now. I don't want to know what people give who gives that would really, really hamper. You know, maybe in the good intent is I could start to have favoritism kind of come in terms of how I care for the flock and so what words of wisdom do you give for a pastor and the level of knowledge they have around donor gifts?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, tim, and that, yeah, you're very prescient on that, because that is a tough thing for pastor I don't know if I'd want to know either.
Speaker 1:frankly, I mean, and again I have a different position at the head of an independent high school.
Speaker 3:here you know more congregations. I don't know if I don't know what your whole staff looks like, but I've seen a growing number of positions called Minister of Generosity or in case you're talking about or Minister of something or have a position. So you have kind of a fundraiser on your you know at your church, but they're not the pastor. And everybody knows that when you know fundraiser joy comes in here. It gives you a call. There's gonna be some talk about a gift. It's not fair for the pastor to be in that position.
Speaker 3:I think about those churches where you only have a single pastor I mean for trying to allow you know how's that going to work and if you have a single pastor in a small church, people are very skeptical about who knows what right. I mean, I don't know if you guys do it, but I've been here. I moved here in Carver County, minnesota. It's pretty traditional Lutheran County, a lot of Lutheran Missouri, some Lutheran churches. I was at a church for a church meeting. We have a report on Lutheran High. It's kind of a 10 minute thing and I was sitting there and they handed me this piece of paper. There's actually a book and it had what everybody had given last year. I don't know if you guys are aware of that, but in the old days Lutheran churches were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they called it the scandal sheet, but for sure. But the idea was, you know, everybody knew what everybody gave, because everybody had a pitch in, especially, you know, the smaller, maybe more rural congregations or maybe less affluent. You know they did that and before I could even open it up, another guy reached over the pew, grabbed it out of my hand and he says I know what you're going to use this for. You can't have this. Wow, don't think. No, they don't have it. In fact, I don't think any of our churches have it anymore. But a generation or two ago it was very common that they would publish what everybody gave. Wow.
Speaker 3:And now you could ask is that gospel oriented or law oriented? I don't think it's as simple as it sounds, but certainly people knew what everybody gave. I don't know what to think about that. I don't either. I know what to do. I don't like it.
Speaker 2:That would make me uncomfortable. I think even churches that maybe publish my first congregation this is the second congregation I've served at first congregation would weekend and week out kind of publish how much was given that day. I don't know if we've ever done that at Christ Greenfield, but we certainly wouldn't do it today.
Speaker 4:I think maybe this was the last month, or something like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, a quarterly report, maybe a longer range report and kind of trends, I think, is what we're more leaning into and just inviting folks to be generous around that because it can create, I don't know. I think we ought to communicate, but I don't think it needs to be we should not break confidentiality and I don't think it needs to be weekly.
Speaker 4:Sometimes just throwing a stat out there and all kinds of speculation around the topic.
Speaker 3:Your tension is transparency versus sending the message that you want to send. Some people at a lot of churches still, in their weekly bulletin, have the last week's giving. Okay, that's great, People kind of get used to it. But what if you're a visitor? What if you're a guest? What does that mean to you when you see it? Does it mean anything? Maybe not. Maybe it's something or whatever. You're a guest and they see that you're behind every week, They'll even put the deficit on it. Deficits don't touch people's hearts. Again, generosity and surplus touch people's hearts. I know a lot of churches. They still do this for the transparency piece, but they do it in their maybe their quarterly whatever they do, or a voter's meeting or something like that.
Speaker 4:Yes, because you do have to do that.
Speaker 3:Transparency is a huge, by the way, if you want to raise money, you better have a lot of trust that the dollar is going to be handled appropriately and within accepted principles of money management. You want to lose a quick way to lose the donors is scandal.
Speaker 4:One of the things I did in the early days of taking, when I was initially the business manager of Christ Greenfield, is I really, really wanted to press the concept of transparency. I set up a cloud folder like a Dropbox folder and said look, every single month I'm going to put our financials in there, it's going to be put in there and anybody who wants to see it can see this link. They can look at every single financial statement that I'm publishing every single month and you can get like real time access to this kind of stuff. I want you to be able to see it without any restrictions. Of course, I didn't put any like confidential you know age stuff in there, but they could see month to month how we were doing. They could always reach out to me and ask me any questions.
Speaker 2:So this is so good. I love these five best practices. Educate the church, so clear communication plan. Second, tell mission stories, testimonies. You can do that in a variety of ways Sunday, in between Sundays, accurate records and the libyant report. I think that's what you called it last year, but not this year. Who stopped giving? Find out why. That's an opportunity for pastoral care. Gratitude, in so far as you can engage a team to be grateful for all that God's people have given. And the fifth one is drum roll Joel.
Speaker 3:And the fifth one is work on estate planning.
Speaker 4:There you go, I love it you know.
Speaker 3:I will tell you what. In the fundraising world, we've just come out of one of the more difficult generations of fundraising and that's the greatest generation, the baby boomers. And the other and, by the way, the greatest generation has been very generous, but they're not as large in numbers. The baby boomers, of which I am you guys, you young pups I probably would have taught you when I was a teacher right, baby boomers like me, I was born in 1960, yes, sorry to believe, in 1960, baby boards are a lot of people and they have still kind of a traditional understanding of philanthropy. They're generous. You know, jen, like you mentioned earlier, jen Ziers have a different view. We don't know where they are, although they seem to be trending towards being interested in being generous.
Speaker 4:You know very much so.
Speaker 1:Jen.
Speaker 3:Exers maybe not, so they like to give to a particular project, but not to organizations that need their regular recurring gifts like your kids or or you know, not as much institutional loyalty.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 3:And we also see this as frankly again, as a long time LC and I was dying in the wool LC mess guy, I'm a page 515 guy, right? Everybody knows what that means, right? The reality of it is, you know, the nomination loyalty is declining significantly. You know, lutheran, a lot of Lutheran schools no longer have a large percentages of their denominational people, whether it's a Baptist school or Lutheran school or whatever. And so the reality of it is.
Speaker 3:But the baby boomers are golden and they need estate plans, and so we've been blessed in the Missouri Senate with the LCMS Foundation. They'll come out and work with anybody to help them put their state plan together. That includes generosity and of course we always say philanthropy will solve many of your tax problems in your estate plan. So my wife and I just redid our plan. We have been blessed with four kids and we are giving you know that'll I can say the amount, but it'll probably be about 80 to $90,000 right now to our two favorite charities Lutheran charities, to ministries and our kids will actually get more money. If we both died today, they would get more money than if we didn't do that, because it would it would create tax liability for them.
Speaker 3:Now I'm way out of my league if I say anything more about estate planning. Right, that's where you want to have an expert, but when you think of all of those, especially the baby boomers, I mean that's a lot of potential. It's trillions of dollars sitting there and too many churches and other organizations, for that matter, don't do a really strong job at promoting that, because it's a blessing when you can have your ducks in a row and have your estate in a row and take care of your favorite charities with that. That's. The fifth one is to really emphasize that, and again you know just a word and win some. Certainly we want to do that in a way that creates joy and again stories from that.
Speaker 3:I don't know how many Lutheran organizations that I know of who haven't done great things because somewhere along the way they got a nice estate gift and we have kind of our rule at Mayor Lutheran is all the state gifts are invested. They're not used in operations, and so we have to either in an endowment yes, we'll talk about that maybe or in building, which is an investment, and so that's always our rule with that, because if you start spending estate gifts to keep in place or not recurring in the way that you want to be recurring.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's right.
Speaker 3:And when the last baby boomer you know has their funeral, then what are you going to do? Right, it's a disciplined piece, but it's also a planning piece and, frankly, it's a prayerful piece, first and foremost. So those are the five.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. Let's dig into endowment. How does a ministry, you know, not for profit and I think we've got to differentiate churches maybe from schools here, higher ed and things but how does a ministry discern, like, when they need to pull the trigger on putting together an endowment? And we've? You know, this is a podcast of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod. Lots of guests are from our wonderful denomination, so the Lutheran Foundation gives wonderful guidance toward this end. We've been engaged with them now for some time. Any other words of wisdom, though, in terms of knowing when you need an endowment? Joel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I think you need the endowment. If you look around in your church or your school is looking a little raggy. What happens in a lot of capital campaigns is people build but they don't plan. So we just built a large field house here at Mayor a couple of years ago, but we planned for it with an endowment a maintenance endowment that it isn't large enough yet, but it's enough to spend a few dollars every year to help us maintain this monstrosity. And I think the end you look around there's a friend of mine told me a long time ago. When you look around, you say, wow, this place is looking tired and worn and we don't know how we're going to find the funds to fix it. That's probably a good time to start your endowment, one of the things we're always careful with in congregations. Of course and you hear this all the time an endowment shows a lack of trust in God.
Speaker 4:I've heard that before from places you have an endowment.
Speaker 3:Now you're living on your endowment. Now people don't think they have to give as much. Now the endowment becomes your God and all that. I don't agree with that. Obviously, where I lived in Indiana and Seymour Indiana is a unique state the Lilly Foundation gives tons of money for nonprofits and especially churches to start endowments, and in Seymour Indiana I think every church down there had an endowment because of the vision of the Lilly Foundation who supports churches and so forth. But that's the time to do it. The problem you got to be careful with, of course, with endowments is you can lock up so much money that you don't have any money to feed your workers, and so the challenge there is to do it is to plan Really. It's just part of your planning process.
Speaker 4:It's like setting certain vision and boundaries on what the endowment's for and what it's not for.
Speaker 3:Exactly right Now. We've been blessed with a culture at Mayor Lutheran. Our donors in their estate plans are usually giving us unrestricted gifts and that's one of the things I always encourage anybody If we give a gift, make it unrestricted. Trust the people who are running the ministry that they'll be able to put it in the best use. And we've been blessed with that culture. It is a culture piece. It takes a long time to work that, but the reality of it is if you get too many and you've maybe seen this before you get too many restrictive gifts from estates and you can't use them.
Speaker 1:I want a new typewriter room for.
Speaker 4:Lutheran high. There was a million dollars. I want a specific color of carpet to be put in a room that doesn't exist anymore. Yes, right.
Speaker 3:Right, it's all those things. We want new overhead projectors for all the classrooms, and so that's a piece as well. And the trick always is and this is where it's helpful to have somebody who just kind of does this as part of the church organization to help kind of guide people to what's needed best for the long-term interest. And again, schools are easy because our endowments mostly a lot of them go for financial aid.
Speaker 1:And we always need that.
Speaker 3:That always ends up in an operating budget, but yes, so when do you start a budget? I would say, or start an endowment. I would say as soon as you can.
Speaker 2:And the LCMF.
Speaker 3:Foundation is golden in our church body to help us understand how that works, how to best set them up and have policies. And the other thing is too, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can find sister churches everywhere.
Speaker 1:That have them, do them well and again you don't have to reinvent all that.
Speaker 2:One of the awesome opportunities right now, joel, is to help the congregation with estate planning and to find your local lawyer who works on wills and trusts and things. We happen to have one on our board and she does it very inexpensively and things, and so to offer that for folks, and that's a great time. Then, to bring up the endowment opportunity too, as folks put together their estate plan, because the church should be a place that offers gifts to people, meets felt needs and putting together an estate plan with the dearth we don't have hardly very small percentage I forget what the numbers are people that actually have an active will and trust. It's like 15 to 20%, and a lot of our folks that are nearing retirement don't have that done. This should be a major gift that the church can bring to her members. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And I know that I don't know who your local LCMist Foundation person is, but I know if you want to make their day, you give them a call and say, listen, we want you to come out and do a presentation. They love this stuff because that's their job and it is. You're right, it's such a small number that have got their ducks in a row for the future and this is an issue of stewardship too the future, what the Lord's given to you and we live in Minnesota. Here, of course, the greatest story, one of the story about estate planning, how not to do it is our good buddy Prince Right.
Speaker 1:When Prince died a few years ago, he did not have a will.
Speaker 3:And it was a conundrum. And of course Prince has quite the holdings and resources and actually he was Jehovah's Witness. In fact I don't know if he gave anything to his church at all in his will, because he didn't have a will. And so you know, that's probably one of those great and we use that line all the time. You guys know what happened to Prince, right? Well, you don't want to be stuck like Prince. You got to get your will done. You got to get your estate done. And we always like this.
Speaker 3:And a rule of thumb is. So let me ask you, tim, I'll put you on the spot. You got kids, oh yeah, how many kids do you have?
Speaker 2:Teenagers Okay, three teenagers.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, you don't have a great hair. What's going on with you? I'm on the way, baby, every time. Well, anyway, here's what I would say Tim and Tim. What's your wife's name? Alexa. Okay. So, tim and Alexa, here's what you should consider. You got to get your estate plan together. You have three awesome kids, what? Pretend you have four and make the fourth the kingdom of the Lord, your church, you can, your college, christian college, yeah, you know, luther and I, or whatever. Make that your fourth, and it's a nice little rule of thumb and it works really well for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:You know, and typically yeah, and your third, your three kids, will actually come out just as well, if not better, because you had that heart of giving and generosity when you did your estate planning. It's a nice little. It's a nice little rule of thumb and it works for a lot of people, and my wife myself same way.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. This has been so fun. I shout out to Brian Hyde, and he is our Representative for the Lutheran Foundation, working with us and many churches here in the Pacific Southwest District. So hit them up, maybe. Or hit up, mr Landscrainer, we're coming down the home stretch. I just would love to know, next to the word of God, brother, what are some good resources for pastors and leaders looking to shape a heart of generosity, a culture of generosity, in their respective ministry?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I will tell you what there's. Just there's so many good places. I almost you almost have to Google Christian stewardship. But I did ask some friends for some help and I'm gonna find them here, right here when do.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3:So there's a group that's I find a very useful. I just got turned on to them the other day. They're out of Grand Rapids, michigan, and it's called the, the Timothy group, and it's a. It's, you know, there's a zillion fundraising companies and so forth and there's, you know, millions of Christian, christ, of religious based. But I found the Timothy group out of Grand Rapids to be very interesting. They have a blog, they have lots of materials, lots of information and they're bill of please, centered and in Christian based.
Speaker 1:I will tell you as well. So that's a group.
Speaker 3:What's your donors? Here's a great book what your donors want and why, and I forget their first name, but a hair and a h, e, a h, e are in a hair and what your donors want in why and and. Then there's another guy. He's like the dean of fundraising and we used to have an organization called the Association Lutheran Development Executives, aldi, and now it's changed, has become more pan Christian, I believe. Change its name, but I heard this guy back in 2000.
Speaker 3:His name was Jerry Panas and the fundraising, especially old fundraisers like me. This guy was like you know, he was the it and he has a couple of books. One's called asking, and and Just a word, asking and Panas, pa and AS, and the other is building the case. And in fundraising, building the case, why are you doing this? What's it gonna turn out at the end? I have a friend who again was a fundraiser for a large hospital and when you, when you talk to people, he would say them you know what? If we don't raise a million dollars, three kids are gonna die. Whoa, because they needed whatever the you know, whatever would nick you or whatever they were working on and having that case.
Speaker 3:That's really clear on why you're doing it and what the results are gonna be. It's an art and before you can ask anybody for you gotta know that case. You just built a gym. I think you knew your case right away. Let's build the gym, right yeah?
Speaker 1:It's really good.
Speaker 3:So those are those are a couple I would share with you to the church extension, lutheran Church Extension Fund as a Relatively affordable a fundraising group and I've used them a couple of times and for with great success. So as a resource that would be, that would be a good group to go to as well. And outside of that, boy, I'll tell you why. If you went to any Christian bookstore or went online any Christian bookstore and you and you, you know you searched for, you know, biblically centered funders, you're gonna find a lot of great books and at the heart every one of them is gonna do the point out.
Speaker 3:You got to come back to scripture. You got to do what's god-pleasing, understand what that means and communicate it clearly, amen.
Speaker 2:Hey, this has been so much fun. There's only one, joel Lanscrainer and I finally got it so much fun hanging out with you today. Last last I said there was a last question. I got one more. We got to bring the tie back, joel.
Speaker 4:I mean that is a rocking for those of you who are not thing man. Yeah, not watching.
Speaker 2:Go to YouTube check out mr Lanscrainer's tie. How did you fall in love with ties? We got to bring them back and has to do with kids.
Speaker 3:It has to. So my wife's an organist, so I would sit with our four kids on Sunday morning in church and sure enough one would puke on my tie.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm an old-school guy.
Speaker 3:I wear tightest shirts, I'm an old-school and you can't clean a tie, right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think if you got a cotton shirt I can clean a cotton shirt. It's out of the danger zone.
Speaker 3:So we all have them, we all know it, and so I thought I can clean a shirt. And then I saw a doctor, one of our kids. I had a hole in his heart when it was born, so we went to Johns Hopkins Hospital and the doctor was a British Older grandfather, lee guy, and he had a bow tie. And I'm sitting there I'm thinking that guy is not only giving us good news on Our son, he is rocking a great tie. I started wearing bow ties and it's become my what I do. At that, mayor Lutheran, and when I meet somebody at a restaurant it's so nice, you don't know me I'll be wearing a bow tie all of a sudden.
Speaker 2:Sure, ties are just fine in the Again let's bring the bow tie back, make it great again. For sure, I'm actually gonna be rocking a bow tie, a red bow tie, for Reformation Sunday coming up. So this is this is probably coming out after Reformation, but we're actually using it as a communication handle to tell the the narrative of scripture, the five, the six acts of Scripture. So so much fun to be with you today, joel, if you wanted to connect with you. How can they do so, brother?
Speaker 3:You know, probably my email is the best and Unfortunately it's a long one. Joel dot lands, Crainer right L a m d s k r o e m e r at Mayor Lutheran dot org. Yeah, yeah and so much or if you just went to mayor Lutheran's website mayor Lutheran or you could connect with me there as well.
Speaker 2:So good. This is lead time. Please like, subscribe, comment, share. Please share with a brother, pastor and the ministry. These are volatile times right now. The world is a is a wild place, and the Lord owns it all, and so we're not leading out of fear, but great faith and trust and hope in all that Jesus has for us as his people, and so share this with a pastor or a leader who needs to be encouraged to take that next step to Steward well the people of God that he or she as a female leader in the church too has been given, because, man, we need more courage to have these sorts of conversations, and the wisdom that you have dropped with us today has been Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today on lead time. You rock, joel and Jack.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you, thank you, guys, appreciate it. Blessings to you, you too.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to lead time, a podcast of the Unite leadership Collector. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods to partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to the Unite leadership org to create your free login for Exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned.