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Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Phil Ling, a renowned expert on generosity in the church and founder of The Giving Church.

Did you know that in the average church in North America, 45% of the people that give a church money give less than $200 in a year? Listen in as Phil offers help on how to do an analysis of your giving, and coaches churches on how to cast vision to increase generosity.

• Take a deeper look. // In addition to a significant portion of churchgoers contributing very little financially, churches typically experience an 18% turnover in giving units each year. That means they constantly need to attract new givers. A lot of churches think they did well during COVID, but Phil suggests that you take a look at where your money came from, rather than how much money came in, to see if those givers are still around.
• Do an analysis. // Do an analysis of your giving to see what percentage of your money comes from what group of givers. Break giving down into categories by looking at givers of $0-$200, $200-$1000, $1000-$5000, $5000-$10,000, and $10,000 and up. Take a look at where you’re strong, where the challenges are, and where the churn rate is.
• Cast vision in three rooms. // When casting vision, Phil advises that pastors need to communicate in three different rooms: the large room (Sunday services), medium-sized rooms (like-minded groups within the church), and small rooms (leaders and influencers). The large room is best for communicating the idea of participation. But Phil warns against relying solely on the large room to solve financial challenges. Instead, engage with your key stakeholders to fuel generosity and support the church’s vision. Celebrate when people become part of your vision.
• Take the time. // Remember that the bigger your project, the more time you’ll need. This includes taking time for analysis, determining if your giving is below capacity, and where you’re trending. Before you build, count the cost. Do research and take time to lay the foundation. Talk to banks about financing before bringing in architects. Make sure you take time to vision cast to the three rooms.
• Lead the leaders. // There are certain roles that will always belong to the senior church leader and that is casting vision and leading leaders. Small room conversations are particularly critical because a church’s leaders and influencers want to be treated as partners in ministry rather than just donors. Give them the opportunity to ask questions and learn about initiatives before they happen.

Download the free resource 5 Ways to Grow Your Church Giving and learn more about how The Giving Church can help you by clicking here.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?

Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.

Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Today’s a super special episode. We have got a real expert on. You know every week we try to bring you someone who will inspire and equip. Ah, but today we are particularly honored. We have somebody who has worked with nearly a thousand churches in over 40 different denominations. And and they have the issue that they have helped with has been transformative to so many of them. We’re so honored to have Phil Ling with us today. He was a church planter, business entrepreneur, and a sixth generational ministry leader, if I’m counting correct, which is amazing. Ah, he’s got a great leader and really is helping churches on the whole generosity side through his organization, The Giving Church and The Ling Group. Super excited to have you here today. And this is the thing they have helped—this is an incredible number—raised over $1,000,000,000 for the purpose of helping church’s fuel ministry. And execute their visions. This is incredible. Phil, we are so glad to have you here. Thanks for being on the show – we’re we’re honored that you take some time to be with us today.

Phil Ling — Honored to hang out with you, and to see you even if it’s just on a screen.

Rich Birch — Ah, yeah, that’s great. Always good to see you. Um, fill out the picture a little bit. Tell us the Phil story, kind of, you know, fill that in a little bit just from the bio. Ah tell us a little bit about yourself.

Phil Ling — The how great I am stuff, you know. That’s that’s ah… yeah.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Phil Ling — So ah, grew up in Ohio, Dad was ah, not only a pastor but a church planter so that was kind of my life experience.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — So I went off to college and then felt that you know the best church jobs are if you to start your own, so planted. And got a call to go to Seattle, Washington. Was on the north end of Seattle and spent 10 years out there planting a church, hanging out.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — …doing, just having a ball, an amazing place it is. You know, there’s a lot of great churches now. I’m the old dude. So when I was out there, it was planting before it was cool.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — And and now there’s some some early great churches. But it’s still very unchurched area.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — But where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. God blessed us, grew, lots of people – all that junk. And became acquaintanced with a guy named, John Maxwell. John and I became friends. He gave me the opportunity to work with him. I became Executive Vice President of Injoy, his group. And spent 8 years running around a country with John and working with some really cool people. Got to live on a little farm in central Kentucky, which is where my wife is from…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Phil Ling — …while I [inaudible] on because I got on airplanes. And then he did a weird thing, which is really weird looking back now because the dude’s like the ever run ever ready bunny, he won’t quit. But when he was sixty years old he wanted to downsize and I didn’t want to work for anybody else. So I slid over and became Vice President of Billy Graham Association. That’s a whole story in itself. Ah, they had just relocated from Minneapolis to Charlotte, built the Billy Graham library, all that stuff. But their donor base had aged.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — And so part of the reason I was brought in was to work with that because Billy had gotten old, and everybody else gotten old. It’s still a huge ministry.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — So they they were kind enough also to allow me to throw out my shingle and start working with folks. And had a separate agreement with them to do that. So commuted, got on airplanes on Monday, flew to Charlotte, home on Thursdays, and helping them out, and then doing my own thing. So we put out our shingle.

Phil Ling — We’re boutique. Ah, we work with 90% probably referrals and references people just saying, hey, you know, call Phil and and talk to those guys.

Rich Birch — Yeah, Phil will help you.

Phil Ling — Ah yeah, exactly, exactly. So I um you you rattled off the numbers – crazy. I told my wife yesterday – I said, here’s here’s my claim to fame. Here’s my claim to fame. More than anything else, I literally—and I don’t I challenge, I’ve not met one person that can say, yeah, I did that too. I literally have been in over a thousand church board meetings.

Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah, that’s incredible.

Phil Ling — Now think about a thousand different churches.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — Yeah, yeah. I’d say. And you said 40 different denominations. I didn’t know there were that many. I mean I mean it’s yeah, it’s crazy.

Rich Birch — That’s incredible.

Phil Ling — And it’s so and and all over the spectrum.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — But they all have the same challenges…

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — …ah leader cast vision, but generosity fuels vision.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So if you have great dreams, aspirations, and vision, it still can run out of gas on the side of the road.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — It’s like, Okay, how do we pay for this?

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — And so my early on I said, you know that’s the part, pastors don’t like talk about money. The ones that do go to jail. [laughs] You know it’s not…

Rich Birch — Okay, that’s funny.

Phil Ling — Okay. So that. So that’s what we’ve done. So we’ve fast forwarded. Ah, we’ve been up and running for over 14 years, like you said. Work with a zillion places. Literally all… We are international.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — This will let you know because we’re in Canada a little bit so okay.

Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Yeah, that’s great. Well, that’s that’s so good. And you know, I’ve got a chance to get to know you a little bit. And um ah the thing I love about you Phil is you have a heart for helping the church. Like there’s, you know, particularly in this area. You know, you made the joke about the pastors that like talking about money end up in jail. Sometimes folks on this side of the equation, it’s like they just see the church as like another market. And the thing I love about you is you’re you’re really trying to approach this from like, hey, how do we help? How do we come alongside support? Um, you know you’ve got a vision. We want to help. Let’s let’s work through some of that stuff. And and and even the fact that you come on today is amazing. Because we want to take advantage of kind of your place in the in the community and the body of Christ. You see a lot of churches. You kind of see what’s happening. Bring us up to speed on kind of generosity in the broader, you know, body of Christ. What are kind of the trends? What are you seeing? What are, you know, what’s what’s happening out there that that we should be thinking about, particularly on this side of of what we do?

Phil Ling — Okay, so it’s my favorite subject right now to talk on. Coming out of Covid, especially.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — And and I I say coming out of Covid. Anybody thinks we’re out of all that crap is is stupid.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — Because we’re… it’s it’s going to be a long time get that toothpaste all back in the tube.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — And it’s affected churches… you got to understand that for 3 years at least we have been told by a lot of folks in the world that church was a nonessential institute.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — It was a nonessential place. So you know, bars were essential. Down here in the US, strip clubs were essential.

Rich Birch — Right. Right. Crazy.

Phil Ling — But churches not so much.

Rich Birch — Not churches. Yes.

Phil Ling — And that’s kind of and that creeps into a church that I would have said, say up to like 2019, that the church, North American church overall, if you look at 360,000 churches, there were on a decline. There were always bright spots. There’s always aberrations. There’s always these these tent pole churches that are doing well. But overall, if you looked at average church attendance, all that kind of junk, were were declining, especially within a lot of the the mainline denominations. Then you go into the covid situation.

Phil Ling — And we we released a ah book that we did ourselves—not trying to make money, just try to get information out there—before covid that talked about the coming giving tsunami that, how the changing giving patterns in in North America are affecting church. And that was before all this stuff happened.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Now if you read it looks like we actually were prophetic. You know, like hey those guys are brilliant, you know.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — Because what here’s here’s a few of the stats that I saw before coming into covid that I’m seeing now exacerbated.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — So in the average church in North America, 45% of the people that give that church money, give less than $200 in a year. So 45% of the people sitting in that building that give you money give less than $200 in a year. It’s not because they’re broke.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — That’s a very low threshold. It’s just that they’re not that connected or whatever.

Rich Birch — Yes, yep.

Phil Ling — [inaudible] God, all that stuff.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — We’re a safe place to hear a dangerous message. We’re the only club that exists for nonmembers. So I get all that. I’m not I’m not trying to say we got to get our averages up. I’m just trying to understand, its the blameless autopsy.

Rich Birch — What’s actually happening. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — So if you looked at that whole 45% given less $200. That collectively only gives about 1.5% of the income.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — So it’s it’s negligible. And we can’t track people that don’t give. You know if you don’t give I don’t even know you’re there. So don’t even know those folks.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So over half the people walking in your halls really don’t contribute financially.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling. You just have to understand that’s how it’s designed. That’s how it works.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — …is on top of this piece, and I’m not a stats guy. I’ve hired stats guys because they’re smart; I’m not. They’re no fun at a party, but they’re really smart. In the average church, you lose about 18% in your giving units every year. And you replace them with somebody else. So average church, you lose 18% of your giving units. If I’ve got 45% giving less $200 a year and I’m losing 18% of my units every year in the average church—that’s a growing church; that’s not a bad church.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Phil Ling — That’s just average shift [inaudible]. So every 3 years you got to stand up as a pastor and introduce yourself because that half doesn’t even know who you are. Yeah think of that.

Rich Birch — Right. Wow. Right, right.

Phil Ling — And and yet as leaders we often talk to everybody like they all have the same tribal history. Like they all have the same tribal [inaudible].

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Phil Ling — They all sat around a campfire and heard the stories. and they didn’t.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — So I say all that. Then we go into the Covid situation, we have lockdowns. It’s different.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — I mean we’ve got clients just about everywhere so they all experience it differently, depending where they were.

Rich Birch — Yep, yep.

Phil Ling — You know, some always middle in Nebraska they’re saying, what’s covid?

Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. That was a blip 3 days in March 2020. Yeah.

Phil Ling — Yeah, exactly yeah, but then you know Long Island, New York, Pasadena, California – those are all different experiences. So what what one of the things that I’m seeing that al that’s ah, a preamble. One of the things that I’m seeing coming out of this and coming out of all this experience is I think a lot of churches are kind of fat, dumb and happy. They said, you know, what we we did pretty good financially during all those tough times for a couple of years in covid, and our people were faithful and all that kind of stuff. I’m saying yeah, it’s good. Look to see where your money came from, not how much money came in.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Phil Ling — And what you’re going to find, I think in my humble but accurate opinions—that’s what I tell my son—my humble but accurate opinion, I think what you’re going to find is that your 18% churn rate was actually grew. And the number of new folks that normally come in in a given year was really shrunk. It’s with the front door was not nearly as active as it used to be.

Phil Ling — So the reason you did okay financially is the people that love you and are there are holding on really tight and have white knuckles from pressing down.

Rich Birch — Yes, right.

Phil Ling — But you’re going to eventually and what I’ve been saying all along, and I know this is doom and gloom and I don’t mean it to be, but the last quarter of this year is really going to be the test.

Rich Birch — Yes, right.

Phil Ling — It’s now that all kind of the dust settles and it’s like, okay this is who we are. So I got to get away from thinking how what do we look like three years ago, two years ago? Let’s get back to that. No no, this is who we are.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Phil Ling — And who I have here who’s contributing, who’s supporting. How many new folks are coming in? How many people are moving away? My observation looking forward, and I got actual anecdotal evidence, but observation looking forward is that we’re going to continue to see really cool churches grow and do cool things and do some amazing amazing things. But overall, the average church is going to speed up the decline. Um, so I I can tell you one denomination that we work with in Pennsylvania, greater Philly area, that in a district there they identified 26 of their churches that closed during covid and never reopened.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — And I know that’s it’s easy to watch and say, well, what was the denomination, and are they struggling, and all that stuff. That’s true. But I think you’re going to see that, and for the first time and I’ll say this [inaudible], for the first time we’re going to see churches that still have people in them, but don’t have a lot of money.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — And they’re wondering, why do we keep having to struggle with the budget even though our people are there. We’re used to dying churches that there’s nobody left…

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — …but not ones that attendance not that far off, but the money is. part of the reason largest transfer wealth in the history of the world’s taking place right now.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — First time in history we have 4 generations alive. And the people that are receiving that wealth are more consumers of your product than stewards to your ministry.

Rich Birch — Oh That’s good. That’s good. Man. Okay, there’s so much there. That, I love that. You know and I that I think is a good segue. A good kind of reminder for us as we think about this season we’re in as being kind of the, okay, this is who’s here? The people that are here are who is here. Um, it’s a good time for us to look at those numbers. And what you’ve said there I’ve heard from multiple churches. It was like, yeah, when you look at what happened during Covid, it was like our core people leaned in more. They gave more, but but that seems to be ending. You know, that that seems to be ah running out. So now so now what do we do? So how do we? Maybe we’re at a church of, you know, let’s say or a church of a thousand people. Maybe I’m executive pastor listening in and I’m thinking, yeah that that could be us. What would you suggest as, you know, as the as the trusted friend along the road? What what should we be doing in this season to kind of look at that more closely, stare into those issues, take some steps towards, you know, trying to rectify that, trying to grow that that revenue side?

Phil Ling — Yeah I um, you know, hope so is not a strategy.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — You know, churches that sit at the last quarter of the year and say, I hope we get budget. You know, hope so’s not a strategy.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — You count what counts so you have to have metrics. Like I said, I’m not a stat guy. I live in the world of numbers, but I’m not a stat guy. I’m a vision I like vision stuff more.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — Um, but there I think in order to talk intelligently and cast vision intelligently, you need to know a little bit analytically. So the first thing I would do is an analysis of the giving of where your money comes from. We developed one years ago, hired a really smart guy with a degree in statistics, and we looked at 4000 churches from a whole bunch of denominations and said okay, where does the money come from?

Rich Birch — Yep, yeah.

Phil Ling — And break it down into some simple pieces. It’s not it’s not like this huge spreadsheet. But this simple pieces.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — And as I tell churches every time we go through one, they’re your numbers. You know your numbers. I’m going to hopefully tell you what some of them mean.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — So let’s look at A, if if the average church gives ah 45% give less than $200, where are we in that? Maybe we’re not average.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.

Phil Ling — So let’s let’s look at that. Second, if the average church churns giving units 18% a year, where are we in that? Let’s can see what our churn rate.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — Like then I break it down in the categories of of the giving, and this is every church. I don’t care 30,000 people on the weekend or or 150. Um we’re going to look at 0 to $200 how many folks do we have two hundred to a thousand dollars giving units. How many folks we have? A thousand to five thousand, five thousand to ten, and ten plus. That’s it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — Those are the categories. And then we want to look say, okay, where are we strong? Where are challenges? Maybe we’re really top heavy. Maybe we’re really strong at the bottom two groups, you know, whatever it is. And where does the churn take place?

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So if I looked at it and said, you know what? Our churn rate’s really high between a 200 to a thousand dollars giving rate group. And my response would be okay, that’s not all bad. That means they’re at least attached to you. They’re still kind of kicking the tires and checking you out. I would expect movement there.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — If I looked at the top two groups and there was a lot of churn I’d say, okay, you got some issues.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So a you’re changing. Maybe you’ve been changing philosophical direction in your ministry and maybe you change key staff people and have some bumps in the road with that. You know, there are some reasons. Or you happen to be in a place like Toronto or Dallas or something where there’s a lot of management movement. People come in with their companies for a while, there a couple of years, they move on.

Rich Birch — Right, right. People coming and going.

Phil Ling — Or your near military base with huge churn.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — You know, so it doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy. It’s just like understand it. So first, understand this is where our money comes from.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — This is where we’re strong. These are the challenge areas. And then I would roll over, and and this is the key piece. And if any time you ever hear me get on a soapbox I talk about this stuff. I said a leader casts vision, generosity fuels vision. How you cast that vision and what room you do is the huge piece.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So I coach folks that you need to constantly being communicating be communicating in 3 rooms.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Phil Ling — A large room with Sunday mornings online, all those kind of things, large room. Medium size rooms which are like-minded groups within your group, like-minded groups within your group. What are my medium-size rooms? And in small rooms. These are my leaders and influencers. How am I getting front of my leaders and influencers and casting vision? The problem a lot of churches do is they want the big room to solve all their problems.

Rich Birch — Yeah, so true, dude.

Phil Ling — [inaudible] platform driven and smoke mirrors. Ah I am the old guy.

Rich Birch — That is so true. Like I so this is I’m not I’ve been in that you know executive pastor seat, you know, on the leadership team but not in that lead seat. And I would say one of the ongoing conversations I’ve had with lead pastors over the years is so many times lead pastors, which makes sense when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail. You know it’s like if if we’ve got an issue, in this case talking about giving, their knee-jerk reaction is let me preach about it. Like we’re going to do a three week series. We’re going to preach on it. And I’m like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa like that’s the last step. I’m not saying we shouldn’t get there, but I love that you know small rooms, medium rooms, ah, large rooms. And you know I’ve seen even those you know guys that are amazing or people that are amazing communicators. It’s like they don’t want to do those other 2 steps. Or they’re reticent to do those other you know those other rooms. But man there’s there’s huge power in that.

Phil Ling — Well Okay, so. Well, Okay, so here here’s deal. First of all, where I come from personally, I never take off the fact that I used to be the church planter. I used to have hair.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yes.

Phil Ling — You know it’s a price you pay for ministry.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.

Phil Ling — Ah, and so I’m the practitioner guy. I look at it as like I sat on that side of the table. So I understand that

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — I’m not just the little expert dude, came in and said tell let me tell you how to do your job.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — But you have to understand if you’re the if you’re the lead vision caster, lead…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — …the lead vision caster in an effective church, you have a vision caster that casts vision and you have others at different levels that echo the vision.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — So everybody’s echoing the same vision.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — But the big room, and you have to understand what the the purpose is. In the big room, the best thing I can accomplish in a big room is get across the idea of participation. So when I talk about generosity, money, those kind of things in the big room, it’s because I want to stress everybody gets in the car. That if it’s a family vacation, we don’t leave somebody out and leave them sit in the driveway. And we all get in the car with. So we celebrate, we we analyze. I’ve got a church right now that could tell you they just celebrated crossing one thousand five hundred families that have given to their project.

Rich Birch — Wow, Wow. Yeah.

Phil Ling — How much money? Yeah, it’s a lot of money. Who the heck cares.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — Anything that costs more than the price of my house is a number I don’t understand.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Phil Ling — So and the number the dollar thing is, yeah okay, we can throw that out. But the number of families…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — …I want to be one of the 1500. So participation.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — Medium size rooms those those what I call target audiences, those those like-minded groups. They all are listening to your vision differently based upon who they’re with. So if I’m an empty nester, all right, I’m much more motivated by how if you’re raising money how it helps us pass a baton of faith to the next generation then I am what it’s going to give me.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — You know, I always talk about buildings. Buildings are great, but the older I get because I’m now I’m the old dude—my son’s a you know, long haired musician in Boston—I’m the old dude now.

Rich Birch — Yep, yep.

Phil Ling — So the older I get, the less I need out of your building.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — So that didn’t move me.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So medium sizers, who are who are those medium size rooms. What’s their unique question about what we’re doing? Who are the early adopters in those groups? All that junk. But then the third, and this is this is where I love to to jump on this this thing with with lead lead pastors.

Phil Ling — Look at your job, if you’re at a church of 2000 people and your lead pastor, if your church doubles in size, what will you still do? What will you not do? Because if church doubles in size you’ll have staff, programming, all those kind of things and some responsibilities will slip and go somewhere else. But two things: you’re always the lead vision caster. So you don’t give that up.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — You don’t advocate that. You’re always vision casting. In my opinion, my humble but accurate opinion, you always lead leaders. Always lead leaders.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — So small room. It is the number one thing you do.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — Is like okay, how do I orchestrate getting in front of leaders and influencers on a regular basis so I can vision cast. And catch me, I hope you’re hearing this. The reason you do it is you give them a safe place to ask you a question.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes. That’s good.

Phil Ling — And it is the one time when you get in front of them that’s not driven by crisis.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — Most of the time lead pastor sits down with a leader or influencer in his churches because their family’s fallen apart, the kids driving them nuts, they lost their job. There’s something going on.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — This is not. Its vision.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — It’s like hey let me… and it has to happen first because leaders here, they answer the bell so they should hear things first.

Rich Birch — Right, right. Love it. So good. That’s great. Um, now I want to loop back on just one thing you said. You talked about these four different categories and kind of an analysis that you would recommend. Hey let’s get this numbers out; let’s look at people in these categories. I love that analytical approach of understanding, Okay, like let’s look at even this churn rate. Is are we above and below that 18% in each one of those. um that feels like the kind of thing if I was embarking on a capital campaign that I would do. And I’m sure you could help with that. But is that the kind of thing even a church that’s not in that kind of season, should they be looking at that? Is this kind of thing they should be looking at even in this season like, hey getting a clear sense of where that as a regular practice?

Phil Ling — Yeah, so yeah, this is my self-serving answers.

Rich Birch — Sure. Okay, sure.

Phil Ling — Yeah, so so if we sit down with a client or a potential client that we’re talking to, and I’ve got one I just did this week. And cast two him – I said, yeah, you could hire us to work with you, and that’d be great, and we’d love it. Blah, blah. But…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — …I really think you should just bite off an analysis piece.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — Doesn’t cost a bunch. Do it first. And what I tell churches going forward and as is clients and past clients is what we’re going to show you, it’s not hard to do. And once we show you how to do it, you should do it every every year for the rest of your life.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — It’s like you always, because if you don’t here’s what happens in church. We all, if I ask every pastor on a Monday say hey, how was this weekend? I guarantee they’re gonna say hey it felt pretty good. Like what’s that mean?

Rich Birch — Felt pretty good.

Phil Ling — What’s pretty good?

Rich Birch — Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — So people went out and hugged you and said, you did great. I mean so there’s got to be some kind of benchmark. It’s like, all right, how do we judge? If you have a McDonald’s franchise…

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — …those guys have been so analytical for so long they can say, hey, you know what on this day last year at eleven o’clock in the morning, this is how much we sold.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — And measure that crap. So…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — …we need to have some things that we measure. And so what what I like to do in the analysis is like, okay, let’s measure number one, where’s our money come from?

Rich Birch — Yep.

Phil Ling — What areas does it come from? When we lose folks and they move on as somebody else comes in where do that where does that take place? Because that there’s two things I’m always looking for. In an analysis um, looking at the numbers and say what does capacity look like for this church? Are we operating below capacity? We really have the ability to do a lot more.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — General fund, capital, whatever it happens to be. We’re we’re below capacity.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — And trends where are we trending?

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Phil Ling — And so if you don’t have a benchmark, how do you measure?

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — You remember when you’re growing up as a little kid and they put you against the wall and put a little pencil mark above your head and said, Phil was this high…

Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.

Phil Ling — …you know, in in 1979 or whatever it was. So we got to have those as well. I know the numbers represent people. Don’t over-spiritualritize me; I get that too. But if you don’t count something then you delude yourself.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. You just you just go on feelings or instincts or… And that that flows both ways. Like I think there are times where you know you’ll talk to a ah pastor who’s kind of down because they looked out on Sunday and it was like, man I think we were down 20% this one weekend. And it’s like, okay, well that’s just one weekend dude. Like you know, like don’t get so caught up on exactly what happened seven days ago or five days ago. Like where is where is the entire thing going. That’s that’s good advice.

Rich Birch — Well, let’s talk specifically on the the kind of capital campaign. You know I’m as sure there’s people that are listening in that are thinking, Okay, we’ve come out of covid they have that feeling of, okay this is the new community. That’s here you know there’s a number of churches I coach that are have either just launched or are launching a third service. And I always joke on the church growth side, the coaching I do, there I always say the third service, if you’re going with a third Sunday morning service all your, it’s a stopgap decision. You’re saying we’re going to do this and then quickly after that you’re going to have to make some other decision. And that is like build a new building, launch a campus, do something else. Because you go from one of your services one of your 50% of your services being done optimal times to two thirds of your services being non-optimal times. It’s not like you get this great, you know, it’s not it’s not a great solution. So I’m sure there’s churches that are thinking we we might have something a year from now, 2 years from now. We need to be working on that. If I’m at a church in that shoes thinking, man, like we’ve got a bunch of people there. You know we we’ve got needs. What what should I be thinking today, obviously outside of going to thegivingchurch.com, but what would, you know, what what what should I be thinking today? What kind of questions should I be asking um, you know in those early phases?

Phil Ling — Okay, so yeah I always try to answer if I’m if I’m that church, what would I be doing?

Rich Birch — Yep, yep.

Phil Ling — Um one is sooner rather than later, so have your your conversations about working with somebody that give you some help and some guidance along that way long early. It doesn’t cost you anymore to have a guide with you longer. So [inaudible]…

Rich Birch — Right. Oh that’s good.

Phil Ling — … because it’s not I hate it where this like, hey, we spend a bunch of money on architects. We to spend a bunch of money on all kinds of stuff, and then it’s like now we need to raise money.

Rich Birch — Yeah, where were you…

Phil Ling — It’s like, well that’s kind of backwards.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Phil Ling — You know it’s a first in the analogy I use, and I know I won’t take God out of it. I can tell you some God-stories. But then I can tell you what God does on average. So here’s here’s the average. Ah if I’m going to move to Toronto, and I say I would like to go live in Toronto. Let’s get Zillow and let’s look for a great house in Toronto. And I just type in Toronto, great house, with no parameters. It’ll show me some great things probably that I cannot afford. So instead it’s like why don’t we do a little, you know, crunch it down a little bit and say how about houses in Toronto within this price range.

Rich Birch — Yes, good. Oh that’s good.

Phil Ling — You know, the analysis is the first thing to me to sit down, so as a church starts a dream and cast vision, it’s like what do we have capacity to do? Yeah, God can do more than that. I got it. That’s cool.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Phil Ling — But nobody builds a tower without counting the cost. Let’s do a little research. Let’s look at what that that capacity looks like. And I need more time. The bigger the plane, the longer the runway.

Rich Birch — Oh good, good, good.

Phil Ling — So the bigger the project, the more time that I need. I’ve got churches that we’ve worked with for a year nobody knows we’re doing anything.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — And it’s because you’re you’re laying a foundation for a big plane.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Phil Ling — So, start early. Get some analysis so you got you have some ah reality that you’re dealing with. Talk to banks early if you’re going to have short term financing things like that. We have all kinds of relationships we can aim you to. We don’t get any kickbacks or anything. We just try to find good people. Ah but don’t wait. I see too many churches wait.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phil Ling — Ah, churches are designed not to make decisions.

Rich Birch — True. True. That’s true. There’s way too many people that can say no than can say yes. Yeah, right. Yeah, interesting. Well, that’s yeah, that’s good advice even, hey, if we’re even if you’re on the out side edge of thinking, hmmm, we might be a couple years out from needing to, you know, build more space, launch another campus, whatever. Ah, the the joke I’ve made on the multi-site side – very similar – I’ve said, you know, no one’s ever come to me when their campuses aren’t working and said, you know, we just took too long in the planning phase. We just we took took too long and in and getting this thing ready before we launched. It’s it’s always the opposite.

Rich Birch — It’s like, Hey, we’re going to push this thing out the door in three months. And and that’s when you run into all kinds of problems. The same would be true on these kind of initiatives. You’ve got to take time. And particularly related to early what you said earlier those small rooms or small groups, those conversations, that takes time. Like that that that the reason we’re drawn to large rooms is because I can stand up this weekend, get in front of a thousand, two thousand people quickly. Ah and it feels good because we’ve kind of done that but it doesn’t necessarily actually penetrate and get you know deeper into you know the actual conversations we need to be getting into. That’s that’s good.

Phil Ling — Um, and the deeper the deeper your, here’s the reason I go back to to lead pastors and everybody doesn’t want… You know, sometimes you get into the rockstar pastor mentality. It’s like I just gotta stay in the green room.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So it’s like oh no no – gotta get outta the green room. And the small room leadership conversations, the deeper your need, the deeper my questions.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — Deeper your need, deeper my questions.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Phil Ling — So if you’re trying to raise a lot of money for a project, then your leaders have questions they wouldn’t have for just something inspiring on Sunday, take up an offering, and and raise a little bit of money.

Rich Birch — Yeah, and by definition every kind of capital campaign, like where you’re you’re you’re making a significant gift, or you’re asking for significant gifts, you know when you’re you’re asking people to give out of illiquid access access assets or out of their their wealth rather than just their income. That, you know, if if you’re asking me that, if you’re saying, hey, can you sell some stocks or get rid of that you know investment property and give that money to us? Man, I’m I’m going to have some serious questions right? I’m going to I’m going to slow down and want to get a clear idea. And that’s fine. And then to actually execute on that to actually make that this isn’t they can’t. That kind of money just isn’t instantly available. It’s illiquid by definition. And so it takes a while to for that to happen. Yeah, that’s great. Super helpful.

Rich Birch — Now I want to draw, I saw this great resource on your website that I want to make sure people get. And so this is at thegivingchurch.com, there’s ah big button there. It says “5 Ways to Grow Your Church Giving” – it’s a pdf. I want to send people over there. Make sure they pick that up. Do you want to tell us a little bit about this. This is a I can’t believe it’s free, but it’s a great resource for people to pick up. Tell us a little bit about that.

Phil Ling — It’s a lot about what I’ve been talking about, breaking down the three rooms, how we communicate vision casting, all those kind of things. Tried… ah my big deal is I’m I’ve done this long enough, like I said I’m the old dude now, so I’ve done this long enough I want to see fruit grow in a lot of different trees. I want to put good information out there. I think it’s a category that people don’t talk about on how to fuel their ministries.

Rich Birch — Right.

Phil Ling — So we produced this. It’s cookies on the bottom shelf. This is not, you know, [inaudible] stuff. This is very practical steps. This is what you can do. I guarantee if you download that, read that, talk about it as a leader, you’ll get good stuff that you can use, whether you ever work with us or not.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, love it. So good. Well I want again, that’s just thegivingchurch.com ah look for that link there. We’ll also put a link in the show notes. So you go over there. Make sure you pick up a copy of that. Just as we come to land, Phil, anything else you’ve said? This has been super helpful. Anything else, you’d you’d love to talk about or anything else we want to make sure we cover today before we wrap wrap up today’s conversation?

Phil Ling — I just want to hit the hammer one more time because you said you know you got a hammer and a nail thing. Ah talking because a lot of your listeners are are senior leaders in their churches. And there are a lot of things you can delegate, a lot of things you can give to other folks to do. Leaders lead leaders.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Phil Ling — Um, so your job is to lead leaders. And and when I talk to senior pastors especially, you’re the leaders and influencers in your church, and I I divide leaders into this: we’re positional leaders – some people have positions. They’re tribal leaders. They got groups of people that follow them, whether they have a position or not. And financial leaders. So put those three together – that’s your job; lead those folks.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Phil Ling — And the reason you take the time have sit down have a cup of coffee and share with them, you treat them as partners in your ministry, not donors to your ministry. Partners talk about stuff before it happens. Donors just say let me show you the glossy brochure and ask you for money.

Rich Birch — Oh so good.

Phil Ling — Your leaders want to be treated as partners. So.

Rich Birch — Oh so good. Oh I love that, Phil. I that’s I think that’s a great insight. I’d love to have you come back on in the future and and maybe we even just talk about that specific, let’s get into that even more deeply. And let’s drill into how do we have those conversations and how, you know. And because I’ve seen this in my own church. I worked with a lead pastor who was resistant, not in a not in a like I don’t ever want to do that, but just didn’t know what to say. And how do I have those conversations? And you know, and it doesn’t take a lot, it’s like a little bit of coaching ah, could be really helpful. So maybe in the future we have you back on and we could drill into that issue specifically because I think that would be hugely helpful for folks.

Phil Ling — I would love to, I will love too, Rich, because here’s the last thing I’ll say and I know I’m I’m babbling on.

Rich Birch — All good.

Phil Ling — With leaders, your job not to get in the room and ask them for money. Nobody – that’s why nobody wants to do it. You’re not selling ’em vacuum cleaners.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Phil Ling — Your job is to get in and cast vision. Let them ask you questions.

Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.

Phil Ling — Because good people ask questions privately. Others ask questions in front of groups because they want an audience. Not an answer. We’re not giving audiences but we do give answers.

Rich Birch — So good. Again, so much there. That’s that’s fantastic. Folks that stayed till the end they got a ah good little nugget there at the end to chew on for this week. Well friends, I would love for you to to track with Phil, to track with thegivingchurch.com, you know, to reach out if if you guys are looking for to do one of these analysis. Now is a great time to do that. If you’re thinking about a campaign, take Phil’s advice, you know, don’t talk to an architect or think about drawings before you talk about the financial piece. Ah you know, let… reach out to them. They would be ah would love to help with that. So thanks so much, Phil, appreciate you being here. Ah, where where do we want to send people online, one more time, before we wrap up.

Phil Ling — thegivingchurch.com, thegivingchurch.com and we, ask us questions, get the pdf, anything, we’ll we’ll respond – this is what we love to do.

Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Phil. Appreciate you being here, Sir.

Phil Ling — Thank you.