Funding Forward: A Pathway to More Sustainable Models for Ministry

Many congregations across the country are coming to two seemingly unrelated realizations. First, the "Sunday morning offering" may not be enough to sustain their mission. Second, their ministry has been so internally focused that they are almost entirely disconnected from the community they are called to serve. Funding Forward provides a path to help a congregation discern God's mission, reconnect with the neighborhood, and find a new, more economically sustainable model for ministry. Drawing on years of teaching, research, and field work, Pomroy shows there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for church and nonprofit finances. There is no single model that will work for every ministry. Each economic model has a distinct shape because each ministry has a distinct mission and community. However, common tools span these ministry models: repurposing church property, social enterprise, impact investing, grants, multi-vocational ministry, and more.

While the tools and models can spark creativity, congregational leaders often wonder what process they might use to discern God's mission, which tools will work best in their context, and how they might get other congregational leaders on board. Discernment and execution are much more challenging than the ideation process. Funding Forward can help ministers and ministries move through the funding forward process from start to finish--paying special attention to the leadership challenges and pitfalls they might encounter along the way.

Grace Duddy Pomroy is the director of the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. She's a lay, millennial stewardship leader, speaker, and financial educator. She is the coauthor of Embracing Stewardship: How to Put Stewardship at the Heart of Your Congregation's Life, as well as author of "Stewards of God's Love," a stewardship resource for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She blogs weekly on her website and is a frequent contributor to the Faith+Lead blog.