Finanicial Stewardship Services. What is this? It's a business I've started to serve christian ministries and churches in raising funds through grantwriting particularly. I chose rather than just calling it after my name for two primary reasons. First so that I can expand by adding partners later, if I choose to do that. Secondly, I don't want to ahve the business associated with my name, personally, because I don't want to take all the credit for what is done, after all, if the work is done right, it will be the Lord who does it through me and not me, myself, or I. If that makes any sense?

Hopefully, as I learn more about stewardship I will be able to offer more services to churches and ministries, but for now I only feel comfortable offering grant writing services. These services could include bugdeting, raising funds through estate plannning, fundraisers, nono-related business income, etc... Most churches and ministries have never received a grant. Know why? They have never applied. This is too bad, from my perspective as there are many foundations and even a few businesses who will give funds to ministries and churches when the church/ministries objectives match the objectives of the foundation or church.

There are a lot of misconceptions about grants, though. Many people think a grant is like free money just waiting to be grabbed up by someone. That is seldom the case. In most cases a grant is given to accomplish a specific purpose agreed upon by the ministry or church receiving the grant and the foundation or business giving the grant. Another misconception about grants is that there is free money to help businesses start.... in my experience that is seldom if ever the case. Not only are there no start up monies available to businesses, but most foundations or businesses require the recipient agency to be a private non-profit organization. Usually this is a requirement to preserve the tax deduction a business or individual receives for donating the money.

So, what I'm trying to do is is support the vision of the ministries and churches by helping them find money to do the work God has called them to do. There are statistics that the church in America today does not give our resources to the church the way we should. One study I've seen reports as little as 8% of church learders tithe 10% of their gross income to the church they attend. This is startling as the leaders of the church ought to be the people who give the most to the church, right? What does this say about the "average" person attending the church. Barnum and others have released similar research recently documenting how the church is not giving the way we should. If all church members or people attending various churches gave the way we should, we could easily fund the various ministries and churches at levels they would need to do the various work they have been called to do. There would be no need for a service like I am offering if the church were obedient to the command to give. Unfortunately, we do not give the way we really should. This is the aim of a ministry like Crown Financial Ministries. I think my business compliments what Crown is doing.

How we handle the money we've been given is definately a tell tale sign of what we really believe. If we handle it the way God would have us He will be glorified. If we don't, there will be a day we wished we did. The scripture talks more about money than it does heaven or hell. There is a reason for that! I think God knew what would capture our hearts and spoke a lot about the things we spend a lot of time thinking about. Money is one of them, that's for sure. No matter how much we like to say, it doesn't matter to us, the fact is, it does matter. If we don't have it, we can't live the way we want to....Very few of us have the courage to live without it. I sometimes wonder what I would do when faced with that challenge, and yet it is precisely that challenge that made the rich young ruler so sad...because he had much wealth. If you live in America and have a house, car, and job, you are more wealthy than you realize. Jesus had none of these things when He was here. Yet God provided for Him just as He provides for you and I. What would your response be if Jesus asked you today to sell all you have and follow Him?

My point is you and I could probably give more to the Kingdom of God than we do right now, even if you do give to the church.