Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Try Faith Promise Giving, It Works

Faith Promise giving, a method of enhanced missions giving, is spreading slowly throughout our ABA churches. I am so thankful that more churches are practicing this exciting way to give by faith every year.

In missionary and ministry circles it is becoming apparent that missions funds are getting tighter. There are more missionaries and more new ministries vying for support. It is also interesting to note that churches which practice 'faith promise giving' are very popular churches with missionaries. Faith Promise churches have caught a vision for missions that is putting many other churches to shame. So while some churches faithfully give 10-15% of their general fund to missions, there are the faith promise churches that have doubled and tripled their giving by simple faith going beyond the percentage system of giving to missions.

I once spoke with a pastor about trying faith promise in his church. He proudly stated to me that his church gave $100,000.00 to missions that year. I simply asked him, "wouldn't he like to see his church do better?" He soon learned what that meant and is now doing faith promise and watching the blessings of God increase. Some pastors think they're doing pretty good already with their church missions budget, but if they could only understand that they haven't even begun to scratch the surface of God's resources.

No matter how small or large your church is it will be blessed by faith promise giving. It's not just a 'missions revival' or a 'missions conference' that we are talking about, it is about challenging God's people to have increased individual faith in the matter of trusting God to supply through them what He would not give to them for the cause of reaching people for Christ around the globe.

Try faith promise, it works.
Go to our website and click on Church Planting then go to Faith Promise for more information.

We can help you conduct a faith promise giving conference in your church. It costs nothing but a little faith.

David

7 comments:

Penny Bowhay said...

I've read the first two PDF documents that are listed under "Faith Promise Giving," the third and fourth documents do not download or open properly on my PowerBook.

I enjoyed the PDF document "Sacrifice" and have used the story of the anonymous Zimbabwe minister described therein many times in my sermons. Also, the PDF document "faith and doubt" asks alot of pertinent questions good for study.

But, I still really have no idea what you mean by "Faith Promise Giving" and would appreciate your further explanation of this.

Thank You!

Blessings In Christ,
Gene

Bro. Matt said...

Ebenezer started our Faith Promise program last October, and it has been a real blessing! I don't have time to explain it all, but God has moved us from giving $1,200 per year to Mission work to over $15,000 per year to Mission work. Now that may not be a lot to some people, but to us, it is a great blessing! May God receive all the glory for His faithfulness!!!

ZipperBobWayMan said...

I think the reason we have to beg for faith promises and the like from our churches is because they don't have any faith and don't desire to cooperate. That's where the SBC has a huge advantage in its convention system. To be an official member of the SBC as an entity, a church must give a certain portion to the cooperative program which goes to fund a wide variety of things including missions. I'll have to say, its rather effective in reaching its goals. Sadly, it was an invention created because of the lack of faith in Baptist Churches. Churches weren't in unity with Christ and with each other. Therefore, they couldn't trust one another and depend on one another. That's basically why the ABA has always been begging. Unless people get serious, we might have to consider going to a covention to get the Lord's work done. Even now with faith promises, those who give fear that others will not step up... but at least they had faith enough to risk it so that souls could be won. It's something we could all learn a lesson from.

Unknown said...

We can always try.Try is a start of the mission ,church.

I believe to consider faithful try is needed for the church.

And we can watch church member growing.

thanks ,David.

Penny Bowhay said...

What Jeff Turpin said is what I am finding to be the case in speaking with my ABA brethren. As I have been posting, I feel led by the Lord to plant a church in Vancouver, BC, Canada. When I first mentioned this to the ABA brethren, they were all excited and hyped up, obviously believing that somehow I was going to undertake this venture solely on my own dime. The second that I mention "financial support" their whole demeanor changes and, you can see just what Jeff Turpin said: "they don't have any faith and no desire to cooperate."

I am still very concerned about the e-mail that Bro. Cloud sent out on August 31st reporting a deficit of $78,159.38 in the ABA Missions Treasury.

Praying here! Always praying....

Billy Howard said...

It works! We started Faith Promise in April. Our missions offerings have doubled and our general fund offerings have increased! I was eating with some church members the other night and one made the comment, "We have more money now than we ever have!"

Lane said...

Brother David,

We are into our second year of "Faith Promise", I can only say it works! It really boils down to whether we truly trust our Heavenly Father or not. If I give when I have it, that is not faith, that is walking by sight. For me and many of my local brethen, we view faith promise as a covenant with God, IT IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.

We have seen God provide for our church in ways that we could never imagine three years ago. The first year we decided to have a Faith Promise Conference, the money was not there to put the conference on the way we wanted to. The church voted to do the conference believing that God would provide. Did He ever! The following week the church received almost four (4) times the amount budgeted to have the Faith Promise Conference. Over half was from a non-member. Brethern that is a "God Thing"!

It is impossible for me to convey the joy and excitement that Faith Promise has brought in my writing, but I hope and pray that many more of our churches will get envolved. Our church has always been a giving church, but now we are supporting 12 missionaries. Prior to Faith Promise we were directly supporting one in addtion to our monthly per centage given through the ABA. We have continued to do all the things that we were doing in the past as a church and have seen our budgets actually increase. All the time our Great God has more than met our needs.

As the Lord's church we are charged to carry the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the world, that means to me personally getting envolved with missions. Faith Promise has been the means by which we have been able to personally get envolved.

It is my humble opinion that when we do as God has instructed us to do in Mark 16:20 we will begin to see His awesome power. Faith Promise is certainly a place for us to start. In fact is that not what Malachi 3:10 tells us?

I could go on and on, because really, I'm just bragging on our Great God. He is so Awesome and Faithful!

Faith Promise is allowing God to give through me what He would not give to me and this bring's such joy to one's heart.

Thank you Brother David for introducing me to Faith Promise.

In His Service

Lane