We invite all who consider WCPC to be their home church to work through the pledge campaign pre-work and to make a pledge of intent toward 2025.
Pledge Campaign Pre-Work Consideration
Step 1: Spend 10 minutes in prayer each day over your pledge commitment.
Step 2: Talk with your spouse (if applicable) about next year’s pledge of intent. If you are not married, consider having this conversation with a trusted friend in your community group. Pray together.
Step 3: On a scratch piece of paper, write down the amount you intend to give weekly, monthly, or annually for 2025.
Step 4: Revisit the amount and ask God: Does this amount seem appropriate? Should I give a bit more? Or a bit less? Write down the final amount on the card.
Step 5: Bring your card to church on any one of the pledge Sundays (Nov 10, 17, 24) and place it in the blue offering box. Alternatively, submit your pledge online, drop it in the office mailbox on campus, or mail it to the church office.
Note: Only the Stewardship Team, comprised of elders elected by the congregation, will know the nature of your pledge. These matters are treated carefully and with confidentiality.
Why a Stewardship Campaign?
WCPC’s annual Stewardship Pledge Campaign occurs each November, encouraging every member to make a pledge of intent reflecting their regular giving towards our General Fund budget. Intentional and faith-driven giving sustains and enriches the diverse ministries and missions we embrace.
How do I become generous?
The path to becoming more generous isn’t a one-size-fits-all journey; it’s a practice that starts early, continues throughout life, and even extends to your children.
Why give to the local church?
Despite past shortcomings, when aligned with Jesus’s intentions, the church becomes a powerful force for good, offering baptism, communion, teaching, counseling, and more. Giving to your local church not only sustains a 2000-year-old institution but also creates a profound ripple effect of generosity strengthening the social fabric of our society.
Why do we have a “Stewardship Pledge Campaign”?
Perhaps you have experienced a Capital Campaign in church–the church was raising funds to build a community center, to improve the sanctuary, or to expand the Fellowship Hall. You gave a gift in response to a particular vision or unique need. You have also, no doubt, experienced capital campaigns in schools and nonprofit organizations.
A Stewardship Pledge Campaign is not a Capital Campaign. Instead, a pledge campaign happens yearly and informs our church’s “every day” giving towards the general fund budget. Each November, every person that calls WCPC their home church submits a giving pledge for the following calendar year (January through December). This pledge is a “pledge of intent”–what you intend to give for that next year. Sometimes unforeseen events or circumstances might cause you to need to give less, while at other times, they may allow you to give more. Only God knows the future!
Taking time to complete a pledge card is a faith commitment. It allows you as an individual, or as a couple, or even as a family, to invest some intentional time, effort, and prayer in determining how much you will be able to give. This exercise may put you on the journey of giving for the first time, or on the path toward giving more consistently, generously, sacrificially, and joyfully.
The pledge campaign not only helps you to plan well but also allows our church to be both prudent and faithful in the building of a budget. An annual pledge campaign helps ensure we aren’t merely surviving year to year, but thriving–not clinching our fists while holding on for dear life, hoping that we “make budget,” but rather, open-handedly building our budget wisely. Our general fund budget is built to support our local congregation – as we care for the sick and hurting, support children and families, develop and encourage our students with the gospel, provide excellent and reverent Sunday worship, train our people in Christian formation, and equip for ministry as we love and serve our city and world. Generous support for local and global mission partners is also included in the General Fund.
This Stewardship Season and Pledge Campaign is also a moment for us to consider the pledging of, not only our “Treasure,” but our Time and Talent as well. At WCPC, we believe that Christian Formation involves the mind, body, and soul—it includes our time, talent, and treasure. It is a season where we seek to, by God’s grace, surrender all…
How do I become generous?
Here are some suggestions:
- Start Early– Generosity does not begin when you are moving up the ladder in your late 30s. It begins when you are in college or when you take your first job at hardly minimum wage. This practice will allow you to build a habit that will last a lifetime. Being generous with your giving at an early age will also train you to not live up to the very limits of what you have. To live over your means is to get in “debt to debt.” To live within your means is to be prudent. But to live well within your means is to create space for generosity. And, it is actually easier to give when you have less to give. If you were to take the tithe, the giving of 10% mentioned below, as an example: It is much easier to give $10 of $100 than $100 of $1000 than $10,000 of $100,000 than $100,000 of $1,000,000 because there is a lot more you can do, buy, or be with $10,000 than with $10!
- Start your Kids Early– As a parent of three teenagers, my most consistent hope and prayer for each one is that they would know the grace of God, would respond in gratitude, and would lead generous lives. Each of my three daughters had three jars ordered and labeled in this way: Give, Save, and Spend. The first part of every dollar went into the “Give” jar. And this leads me to my next piece of practical advice…
- Give First– If you were hosting a celebrity or dignitary in your own home for dinner, I would imagine that you would not rifle through the fridge to find the leftovers stacked in the back–yesterday’s roast beef or last week’s cottage cheese. Instead, you would give of your best and first fruits–you would plan the menu weeks in advance, and shop at the “fancy” grocery store. God wants your first and your best, not your last and leftover. Consider making your generous giving the first check you write or first autopay draft after you receive your paycheck. Cultivate the practice of over-giving rather than over-spending or over-saving.
- Consider 10%– There are plenty of complex, biblical interpretations that endeavor to erase the “first-fruits giving of 10%,” called the tithe. These teachings view the tithe as “old school”–under the law of the Old Testament rather than the grace of the New. And yet, the plain and simple reading of most texts (e.g. start with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount) might suggest that the giving of 10% is actually “the floor and not the ceiling” (Tim Keller) of generosity, the “training wheels” (Randy Alcorn) of generosity. Here is a suggestion: Make this a five to ten-year goal for you and see what happens. You might even find yourself one day stretching well beyond the tithe.
- Start Somewhere– It might be a mistake on your part and unloving on my part if I were to suggest that you must start with the tithe. You might have a lot to sort out concerning your finances, so don’t be paralyzed by what might feel like a large number, an unattainable impossibility. Instead, start somewhere! Give 1% this year, and try to give 2 or 3% the next.
- Tell Stories– If you are a “seasoned veteran” in our church, please tell us your stories of generosity! People in their 40s, 30s, 20s, and teens need to hear that God provided for you–that He cared for you every step of the way. We need to be inspired by stories of sacrificial and joyful generosity. Tell us all about it. We want to listen!
But why should I give to the local church?
I readily acknowledge that the church can have a littered history of financial malfeasance. As with any institution, the church can be riddled with sin and evil that becomes greater than the sum of its parts. And when the church fails, she should ask forgiveness. Yet, when she is singing the way Jesus intended her to sing, the church can do mighty things. In fact…
The Church is God’s ordinary means of doing extraordinary things!
Jesus built the church and pledged that even hell itself would not prevail against her (Matthew 16:18). Jesus loved the church so much that he gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25). And, the Apostle Paul was on a mission to change the world. Paul’s world was more war-torn and impoverished than ours. There were fewer educational opportunities for all, there was poor sanitation in the cities, there was more injustice in the streets. And what did Paul do to address these ills? He planted churches all over the known world. Paul knew that the church was not merely a limited “Social Service Provider” (SSP) as she is called in our day, but instead, was a “Direct Service Provider,” a DSP that offers baptism (re-creation), communion (restoration), teaching, pastoring, counseling, the formation of children and students, service and outreach both locally and globally, and the list goes on and on.
Further, the church is both sustainable (a 2000 year organizational history) and strategic (the premiere social network!), making her a worthy investment. Malcolm Gladwell once wrote that social networking online does not bring full revolution because the ties are too weak; instead, activism must involve “strong ties and real presence.” Look no further than the church: The church builds social, relational, emotional, financial, and spiritual capital that grants strong and lasting impact generation after generation.
And, just in case you are wondering, people that give to their local church are far more generous to other causes (see Robert Putnam’s American Grace). Yes, you read that correctly. Christians that prioritize giving to their local church give more generously to many other noble causes. Why? Because generosity begets generosity. It’s contagious.
Ron Sider’s challenge in his book review of “Passing the Plate: Why Americans don’t give away more Money,” is a fitting conclusion:
“Imagine what Christians could accomplish if they would just tithe. If just the ‘committed Christians’ (defined as those who attend church at least a few times a month or profess to be “strong” or “very strong” Christians) in America would tithe, there would be an extra 46 billion dollars a year available for kingdom work. To make that figure more concrete, the authors suggest dozens of different things that $46 billion would fund each year: for example, 150,000 new indigenous missionaries; 50,000 additional theological students in the developing world; 5 million more microloans to poor entrepreneurs; the food, clothing and shelter for all 6,500,000 current refugees in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East; all the money for a global campaign to prevent and treat malaria; resources to sponsor 20 million needy children worldwide. Their conclusion is surely right: ‘Reasonably generous financial giving of ordinary American Christians would generate staggering amounts of money that could literally change the world.’”