If you're going to address ministry in the 1990s, you have to believe there is a tremendous need for conversion in the suburbs. Pete Velander, a layman and president of a religious publishing company, Logos Productions in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., endorses the conversion of giving in to joy. Jesus said to be free, you have to be a captive. To save your life, you have to lose it. But joy can't be the only ingredient in a successful stewardship campaign.
Some denominations push certain principles to increase the level of giving.
Hugh Majors, head of stewardship for the Episcopal Church in New York City, encourages three guiding ideas. They give to meet their own needs. If you're telling them to give to pay the light bill, it doesn't work. They want to hear about lives saved and changed. The second principle is, of course, there has to be good clean accounting.