Frequently Asked Questions...

What do you mean by generosity?

Generosity is the leveraging of time, talent treasure and touch to advance the kingdom purposes of God and to impact the lives of people.  Generosity is more than an attitude, it is a lifestyle. 

Why not call it stewardship?

Honestly…we could.  But where, outside church circles does anyone use the term “stewardship”?  And who, outside of church circles, thinks of stewardship in a positive way?  Generosity speaks to a larger spectrum than stewardship.  Stewardship seems to look “in” – my possessions, my time my talent, my treasure.  Generosity looks “out” – potential and opportunity.  It’s the difference between the boat we need to take care of and open see that we have opportunity to explore.    Here’s another big difference – in our minds stewardship often starts us, but generosity always starts with God.   If we can see what who He is and what he has done, we can’t help but become like Him.  He is a generous God and we are to be a generous people.

Why do we need a conference to teach us how to develop a generous culture?

From a “church culture” viewpoint, every pastor knows that there are certain things in church that are counter-cultural.  Two obvious examples of that are prayer and evangelism.  Why isn’t every church outreach-oriented?  Why isn’t prayer a driving force in every church?  Both are commanded by God and modeled by Jesus in Scripture.  Both are acknowledge as necessary and right by most Christians.  So why aren’t evangelism and prayer trademarks of the normal Christian life? 
 
If we were to explore this in more depth, we’d realize that there are certain parts of church life that are more leadership-intensive than others.  In other words, it takes a higher level of intentional, focused leadership to help a church develop in these areas (such as evangelism and prayer) than in many other accepted attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that are common to churches.  Generosity is one of those arenas. 

From a practical viewpoint, do you think you have maximized that generous potential of your church as it is?  Is the average believer right side up in their finances and looking for opportunities to give?  Is each family in your church starting to give 10%, hoping to be able to increase that percentage?  Have your high capacity givers stops asking “What do I have to give?” and started to ask “What do I have to keep”?  When you talk about finances in church, do your people instinctively know that you want something for them, not just from them?  If your answer is not “yes” to all these questions, the Summit is for you.

Will there be a request for funds?

Absolutely not. We designed this summit for church leaders because we want something FOR you, not FROM you.  The cost of the summit includes many tools for the church team and gifts for the individual to help them begin this journey of generosity.