The Money Series (Part 3)
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Talking about money in church can feel like walking on eggshells while juggling chainsaws. (Okay that may be a bit dramatic, but are we wrong?) What if it didn’t have to be that way?
In this episode, Pastor Jason Anderson (yes, that Anderson – he’s my husband and somehow still agreed to be on our podcast!) from Crossroads Church shares how he turned potentially awkward “money talks” into powerful moments of discipleship and life change. From personal stories that build trust to practical strategies that won’t send your congregation running for the exits, Jason breaks down how to tackle one of ministry’s most challenging topics.
Whether you’re a pastor who dreads the annual giving message or a church leader looking to build a culture of generosity, this conversation will help you find your voice on the topic of money. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about what we want from people—it’s about what we want for them.
This Episode is Brought to You By Planning Center
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Visit planningcenter.com to get started for free.
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Transcript
Sean:
Well, hey, podcast listeners. Before we start today’s episode, let me tell you about our podcast sponsor Planning Center. Are you struggling to keep your church organized and connected? Planning Center is the all-in-one church management software that solves your administrative challenges. You can effortlessly track first-time guests, manage volunteer schedules, and create easy ways for your congregation to get involved, all from a single platform. Whether you need a check-in system, event signups or an online giving solution, Planning Center helps you nurture your community and keep people connected. Visit planningcenter.com to get started for free.
Well, welcome to the Unstuck Church Podcast. I’m Sean here, your host here, again with my friend and teammate, Amy Anderson. Amy, we haven’t heard an update on any consulting highlights from you in a few weeks, and I checked your schedule again, you’re almost completely booked with consulting work for the entire year. I know you’re gonna have so many airline points.
Amy:
Good point, good point. But the last thing I wanna do is get back on a plane, so.
Sean:
I know.
Amy:
I guess my kids will benefit from that. No, man, I love it. I love being able to work with the teams. In fact, I worked with four churches in the last 14 days. So it was a bit of a whirlwind, but great times. In fact, one of ’em was MCI church up in Quebec, which I got to work with them several years ago. So it was great to be back with their team. They’ve since gone multi-site. They’re planning on another location.
Sean:
That’s awesome.
Amy:
Hey, as I say, Canadian, we’ve added another consultant to our team in Canada. You know, for many years we haven’t been able to cross the border. Well, we could that we can do it legally, but we could get stopped at any time. So we just said we can only serve Canadian churches virtually, which is great to fall back on, but we are now gonna be able to be live and in person with our friends up in Canada. So we look forward to serving you guys better—if I have any Canadian listeners on here today.
Sean:
Absolutely.
Amy:
Yep. We’re busy, but we’re busy with churches who really wanna lead unstuck churches.
Sean:
Yeah. I love it. And we have Canadian consultants on both sides of the country. We have Canadian consultants on kind of the west side of the country and the east side of the country. And so any Canadian churches, that we can engage with, we have people prepared to help them, which is really fun, really exciting for us.
Well, I’m actually genuinely excited also about today’s episode for two reasons, Amy. The first is the topic and that is this: How to not hate preaching about money. Many pastors that I’ve worked with over the years, they don’t enjoy talking about money on the weekends. And I get it, it’s a touchy topic. And it’s a lot harder to prepare for and deliver than some of the other things that we talk about in our service. But the second reason is that we have one of my favorite people joining us, who I think might be one of your favorites as well.
Amy:
Yeah, he better be, huh? Yeah, it’s my husband, Jason Anderson. But I just wanna make it clear to our podcast listeners. It was actually Sean who said we need to have Jason on the podcast when we’re talking about money. Right?
Sean:
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, since Jason sits in the lead pastor seat at your church Crossroads there in the Twin Cities, I personally like to tune in from time to time and listen to his messages. I just really like his delivery and his approach to speaking, and I’ll always find it helpful. Last year, one of the message series that I tuned into was called Money on My Mind, and I listened to all three weeks that Jason preached, and then I just thought, this is one of the most helpful series on money that I’ve personally heard. So, his name was the first that came to mind when we were thinking about how we would approach helping pastors feel a greater level of comfort and I would add to that responsibility when it comes to helping people grow in their generosity. So I had a few minutes to connect with Jason and get some of his wisdom, and I’m excited to share that conversation with our podcast listeners right now.
Alright, well, Jason, I’m really excited that, you’re joining us on the podcast this week. Not just because you’re a friend of mine, but because you delivered a great series of messages. Really. I watched all three, messages from your series at Crossroads, and you spent three weeks just focused specifically on money. And in my experience, there are a lot of pastors who struggle to address money in the context of the weekend service. So what’s your perception on why that is?
Jason:
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. And I much prefer you interviewing me than my wife interviewing me at this point. But I have been blessed to be a part of churches that really had no problem talking about money. There was no hesitation. And so, even as I thought about this particular question, even within the churches that I was a part of that would often talk about giving and generosity, there was always some underlying tensions, I would say. And it may help answer the question why some pastors don’t like talking about it.
One of them may be that the attendance may naturally drop, because once people begin to understand that, okay, a giving series or money talk is coming up, they check out. Like they’ll won’t come back until it’s done. Another obvious response could be pushback from attenders, just saying, why are we talking about money again? And in some respects, I understand how a right pastor can get worn down by things like that. And one other kind of unique angle on this that I was thinking about was if a pastor only teaches about money in one particular way, they can feel like, or they might feel like, I don’t have any fresh material on this. Like, I don’t have a new way to talk about it.
Sean:
That’s true.
Jason:
So that could be another reason why pastors hesitate.
Sean:
So, what was your feeling as you, you went into this series? As you approached this, were you looking forward to it? Or were you dreading it?
Jason:
I was really looking forward to it. Now, in my unique situation, even though I’ve been in ministry for 25 years, I have been in this particular context, as lead pastor for not even a year when we got to this giving series. So part of it was trying to temper how much trust and credibility do I have built up? What feels like good timing to launch into this? And, in light of past leadership, it had been a while since, the topic of generosity, giving had been addressed. So I was very excited about it, very much looking forward to it, just so the attenders could hear my heart on this.
Sean:
So, as you started the series, very first message, I remember this distinctly, you said these messages weren’t about what you wanted from the people in your church, but what you wanted for them. And I just wonder how, how would you coach other pastors to just authentically communicate the topic of money is really about care and discipleship?
Jason:
Yeah. I think the first key word in your question is authentic, meaning that this really needs to come from a very real place for us as preachers. And I don’t expect you to remember this, but in one of the messages during this series, I said to everyone, “Listen, I’m never gonna, ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do myself or I’m not doing myself.”
Sean:
Yeah. I do remember that.
Jason:
Especially in the area of money and finances. And I could say that in, you know, with complete authenticity. And so that was a really big deal. The other key word that you talk about when you classified as a part of a person’s discipleship journey, that is exactly what it is. Like when I think about, how we as pastors, communicators and what we want for our attenders, like one of the things we want for them is to experience the joy of being used by God because they’re using their God-given gifts to serve somewhere. What we want for our people is to experience what can happen, the transformation, the growth when they’re connected to other believers. Whether that’s in a mentoring relationship, the context of a small group. We want the learning, the growth, the accountability, the prayer, the support. That’s what we want for our people.
So why wouldn’t we normalize talking about money in a similar way? Because it is as much, if not more, of the disciple journey for people, as much as serving and being connected to biblical community. And that’s why I love the idea of normalizing our language around it, whether we’re doing a specific series or we’re talking about the offering moment in a weekend service, we should continue to normalize that. And we talk about it the same way we would talk about serving or being in community ’cause it’s, it’s all important. It’s all part of the journey.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s good. One of the things that I love about, your teaching style, Jason, and I, this is not the first series I’ve tuned into. We don’t live close to each other, but I drop in from time to time and listen to a message. And I like to listen to my friend Jason teach, but you’re really good at telling stories. And I noticed that in this series, you used personal stories pretty significantly in those messages. I’m sure that was an intentional thing that you did. But could you just share more about why you did that? And specifically in this series on money, why you’re using those stories?
Jason:
Couple of reasons. It goes back to the authentic piece that we already talked about. It goes back to what, what we want, but I want for, the people to experience. And, I’m not telling people something that they don’t understand or haven’t practiced or used before. But when it comes to using our personal stories, number one, it makes us so much more relatable as communicators, and it makes what we’re asking them to do attainable. So telling stories, because Amy and I, we were raised in families where my folks never talked about tithing or generosity. Neither did her parents.
So being able to tell a story around, Hey, I know exactly how you’re feeling because I have been exactly where you are. I was sitting in a church where the two of us, we weren’t generous by any stretch of the imagination. We were tippers. We certainly were not tithers. And then you hear this transformational teaching in a church context that challenges you. And so to be able to talk through, Hey, we had credit card debt, we had a car loan, we had student loans. And we still took the big leap of faith and actually moved to become tithers. So I understand. So when you can make yourself relatable, it actually shows people that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel that you really do get me. Now, we absolutely need to provide the theological foundation behind what we’re doing, but my goodness, stories are so powerful for any part of, you know, the discipleship pathway for people, but man, especially when it comes to money.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s really good. So you, as the lead pastor, you spoke all three weeks of this money message series. Did you do that specifically because it just, money’s a touchy topic within the church. Do, do you ever think there’s a time when that money talk can be delegated to somebody who’s not actually the lead pastor?
Jason:
I’m smiling because what’s funny about that question is my very first time teaching on a Sunday morning was in a money series.
Sean:
Oh my goodness.
Jason:
I know. I’d only taught one other time before at a Thanksgiving eve service. And the senior pastor at the time, clearly didn’t think I completely stunk. And so the following January, he asked me to preach on a Sunday morning on a money series. I had very little trust with the congregation, very little credibility. And here I am trying to convince people to live more generously.
Sean:
You know what this sounds like, Jason? This sounds like the pastor was giving you all the times he didn’t want to speak, the Thanksgiving message. Yeah.
Jason:
Who can take Thanksgiving Eve? Let’s get that guy over there.
Sean:
We’ll give it to Jason.
Jason:
So, needless to say, maybe not the wisest strategic decision back then, but I will say this, yes, I, and again, might be unique to my situation, I wanted the congregation to hear my heart when it comes to generosity and that God owns it all, things like that. And so at least this first time around, I made sure that I was the one preaching those three messages. That said, yeah, I do believe, because again, being in ministry for 25 years, I have taught many, many times at, you know, into dropping into a series for other, you know, for my lead pastor as part of another series, things like that. And I’ve always been comfortable doing it mainly because, and I’m grateful that I was given the opportunity because I had a story to share along with it, you know—my own giving journey.
So my advice to, pastors would be, yes, you can have someone else chime in on a series, but it goes right back to the authenticity. I know how important that is. Like, I would wanna make sure I know their giving journey. I would wanna make sure that they’re down the road on their own giving journey, that they would be able to tell their own stories of how God worked in their heart and in their life. So I’m not saying no, lead pastor should only do it, but it should come from the same real place as it would be for any lead pastor.
Sean:
Yeah. Well, I think that’s important for pastors to think through, because again, I mean, we’re, the reason we’re talking about this is most pastors don’t enjoy talking about money specifically in the weekend message. And so thinking about, you know, if I’m doing a three or four week series, do I need to speak all three or four weeks? Is there someone else on my team who can pick up a week or two? Just how to approach that, I think that’s really important that they’re mindful about it as they go in to that series.
Jason:
What the only warning I would give, and I would add on to that is, if you’re preaching a three or four week series, you still should be the leading voice. A lead pastor shouldn’t be only one of the three or four weeks in there because they’re uncomfortable talking about it. I think it’s part of our calling and responsibility to shepherd our flock in this really important area of money.
Sean:
That’s really good. What would you recommend other pastors do as they start planning out their own money series? Any advice of where to begin, what the non-negotiables are to include, anything that you would say to avoid maybe?
Jason:
Yeah. The first thing I would say is assess the giving culture in your church. What is the state of the union when it comes to generosity? Do your best to discern like what do my people need to hear? I think some other questions to begin to ask are things like, okay, what percentage of my attenders are actually giving? Obviously, God wants every single person to be on their own giving and generosity journey. So we know that there are some elements that we should come back and be hitting on.
The question is what is gonna move the needle the most for where your giving culture is today? Do they need to understand the topic of ownership—that it all belongs to God? It all comes from God; it’s all distributed by God. Do they need to make that shift? Maybe do they need to understand things like real practical application? Some people, after a giving series, they will want to respond, but they may feel like I can’t because of the debt they have, how they every time a paycheck comes in, they’ve got the vast majority already spent kind of thing. So do they need like practical teaching, for example. Maybe you’re using some of the elements that Financial Peace University or other giving programs teach, you know. So really, I would say to the lead pastor, figure out what is gonna best meet your people where they are currently. There are absolutely fundamental theological truths that we need to communicate that will form the basis, but what is going to best serve your people in this season.
Real quick on, even on terms of like non-negotiables: Even if you don’t have many personal stories, you still gotta tell stories. I mean, it’s so helpful to have someone else validate with what you are teaching and let them tell their giving story. And again, lend credibility and shows people, okay, this actually can be done. One other thing I would even encourage, well, actually two things I would encourage. If you can offer a class like Financial Peace University in conjunction with the series, that’s huge. Because again, some people are gonna sit there and be like you’re crazy. There’s no way that I could even think about tithing right now. I’m so, you know, under, so is there tools that we can offer to help them do that?
The one other thing I would even say is there are so many great books out there on the topic of generosity. So whether it’s a Randy Elkhorn Treasure Principle, whether it’s an Andy Stanley, Fields of Gold, you may want to even consider giving away one of those books in conjunction with this series. And if you’re hesitating because you’re thinking, Ugh, I don’t have that in our current budget. I would say any investment you make in giving away a book or something like that, my goodness, it is gonna return like fivefold, tenfold going forward when a person begins to understand how to handle God’s money, God’s way. The money will come back. Anything that you spend, is not gonna return void. It’s gonna come back multiplied.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s great advice. My last question for you, Jason. What was the response of your church to this series? What was the feedback like positive, negative, both? Do you have a mix?
Jason:
I’ll answer your question, and then I’ll end with a quick story. The response was it was good. I mean, when I finished teaching, I take off my microphone. I’m walking through the lobby. The feedback I get, it was positive, but then again, rarely does someone stop me in the lobby and was like, that message was awful, pastor. That was terrible. You know? So people are polite. I’m sure it rubbed some people the wrong way. The topic always is. I didn’t get any nasty grams. I didn’t get anyone sending an email, like, why are we talking about this?
But what really surprised me, and it shouldn’t have. Well, I’ll back up. The response in giving increased. People who were giving very marginally, we saw significant jumps in a lot of people, holding on or embracing the principles that we were teaching in the series. So that, I love seeing that, and obviously not for our sake but because they’re surrendering more to God. But what I loved, the conversations I would have were from people who were already living this way, whose stories were very similar to mine, that they were living this way at one time. But then they started adopting and living according to God’s principles when it came to money. And here they are experiencing the same blessings and joy and freedom because they were living this way. And they would walk up to me and be like, that is so good. I want so many more people to experience it. You were dead on, kind of thing. So that that really, you know, made me smile knowing that, again, people living the way that God wants ’em to live.
Here’s my closing story. I’m at a fundraising gala. I’m sitting next to a gentleman a little bit older than me. It’s a fundraiser. And he gave a lot of money that night. And he happened to find out that I was a pastor. He said, we’re looking for a church. I told him, Hey, I’m lead pastor at this church at Crossroads. I’m gonna be speaking the these three weekends, you know, I’d love to to see you. And he took, took me up on the invitation. He showed up for one of the messages in the giving series. After the message was done, I’m out walking around in the lobby. He walks up to me, he says, Hey, do you remember me? And I’m like, of course I do. I’m so glad that you’re here today. And then he paused and kind of leaned in and looked at me and said, that was a tough subject, wasn’t it? And I said, not really. Now, he lives closer to a different campus, so I don’t know if that was his one and only visit, and he hated the message and he never came back. But what I found fascinating is he had no problem being generous at the fundraising gala.
Sean:
Yeah.
Jason:
But here he is as a professed Christian, you know, hearing this subject and being like, that’s a tough subject, which goes right back to the very reason why we as preachers need to be regularly teaching on giving and money because there are all kinds of people like that sitting in our congregations who wanna be generous. They will be generous in some cases. We just have to help them understand that God wants the same thing for them when it comes to being generous towards his kingdom and kingdom purposes.
Sean:
That’s great.
Jason:
So I just I found that absolutely fascinating and intriguing and actually inspired me to continue to teach on this topic.
Sean:
I love that. I love that. Well, Jason, thank you for doing this. It is great to have the other side of the Anderson household on the podcast this week. Appreciate your insight in this ’cause you sit in a different seat than Amy or I or many on our team, have ever sat in. And so your perspective on this is really invaluable to us. Thank you.
Jason:
Well, glad to be a part of it and good luck. Good luck to all the pastors. Don’t be shy of this. It’ll absolutely be worth it.
Sean:
Well, Amy, I always enjoy my conversations with Jason. We don’t always talk ministry every time we’re together. So it was great to talk and connect specifically on this topic. Here’s a few things that stood out to me. First, I really appreciate how Jason set up his messages by saying, this is what we want for you, not what we want from you. And he also said, I wouldn’t ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do. And then he told personal stories, shared examples to model and make his own story more relatable. And I think on this topic, maybe more than any other topic, it’s important to be authentic. Right?
Amy:
Right. Absolutely.
Sean:
Our culture struggles to trust institutions as a whole. So the more that a pastor can model that they practice what they’re literally preaching. The more trust they can build on that topic. So I thought that was so great. Secondly, another thing that stood out, I thought Jason’s insights about why pastors don’t talk about money were really interesting. I hadn’t thought about the fact that some pastors might get worn down over time when attenders are pushing back on the money talk. And that leads to concerns about then how we’re talking about money or how talking about money on the weekend could actually impact attendance on the weekends. So I wanted to share some real world examples though that I’ve heard about in recent weeks, just to illustrate what happens when we don’t discuss personal and ministry finances with our church. I’ve had conversations with two pastors in recent weeks that admitted they don’t talk about finances at their church. And then when I looked at the data from both churches, I learned that their per capita giving was actually in about the $20 range.
Amy:
$20? Wow.
Sean:
$20. And for context, the benchmark that we’ve identified over the years is around $60 per capita. Now both of these churches are actually growing in attendance, but their financial situation has led them to a place of not being able to staff accordingly for their growth. Their staff teams are working at 110% and trying to serve all those people that God’s sending their way. They have very little margin in their ministry budgets and have to consider, you know, even going into debt in order to grow their facilities to keep up with that attendance growth. So those may be more extreme examples, but their real world examples can give leaders a sense of how shying away from talking about finances can actually impact your church.
And then one last thing that stood out for my conversation with Jason. I thought that the story that he closed our conversation with about the gentleman he met at the fundraising gala who attended service, I thought that was fascinating. Jason made a great point that giving to the purpose of the charity was a no-brainer for this man. But at church, it was all of a sudden a difficult topic. And Jason said specifically in this, I’m quoting him, “This goes back to the very reason why we as preachers need to regularly be teaching on giving and money because there are all kinds of people like that sitting in our congregations. We just have to help them understand that God wants the same thing for them when it comes to being generous towards his kingdom and kingdom purposes.” I thought that was so true. This is more about how we help people grow as followers of Jesus and practice generosity in their personal life than it is funding the ministry of the church. But you know this Amy though, if we are followers of Jesus and we’re connected with a great commission-minded church, what could be more compelling to align our finances with than that mission, right? So pastors need to be courageous in how they challenge people in this area just as they do other areas of spiritual formation. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.
Amy:
Yeah, I’m so glad we’re talking about this, and Jason’s passion for teaching on money, it probably rubs off on me, but he said our lives changed when we started serving. Our lives changed even more when we got connected in a group and our lives changed even more when we started tithing. So it’s a real story. It’s a real big part of our story.
And I just wanted to add in one thing. You mentioned the guy from the fundraiser. Culture talks about money constantly. Culture is trying to get in our pocketbook constantly. There are so many things every day that try to get me to spend money on things. It is just an absolute miss if we don’t help people in this area because God’s way on money is the way to freedom. It’s the way to peace. And so, just wanna echo the point of this whole podcast, pastors, we have to continuously get better at helping people understand God’s perspective on money.
Sean:
That’s good. Yeah.
Amy:
Well, Sean, any final thoughts you wanna leave listeners with today?
Sean:
Yeah. Well, first, just a reminder on where we started this series and the key thought to keep in mind: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15. If we are faithful stewards of God’s resources, then he will generously provide all we need to accomplish his mission.
And for church leaders, if you’d like to dig deeper on this topic, check out the free PDF on funding ministry in uncertain economic times. We’re sending that out for free via email to all of our podcast subscribers each week of this series. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do that for free at theunstuckgroup.com/podcast. Next week, we’re continuing the series. Amy, we’re back with another great interview. I can’t wait to share that with listeners. But until then, everyone have a great week.
