By Jennifer Colosimo
Last year, Shauw Chin Capps, president of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Foundation, began a deeper dive into the resources they provide Fellowship congregations. Whether churches are battling debt or hoping to grow, the Foundation already provides programming like congregational financial assessments, best practices, lessons for adult givers and sample stewardship calendars. They’ve helped guide many churches into the black and beyond. Part of that “beyond” is a cohort launched in 2022 called Cultivating Generous Congregations. This cohort is convened in partnership with the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving, and it invites church groups to develop “a healthy theology of generosity and understanding of the latest statistics and giving trends.”
Georgia’s Johns Creek Baptist Church is one of those groups. And they’ve gone all in. Already working on something called an Impact campaign, they were able to take what they learned at the cohort to flesh out some of their goals and motivate their congregation from a place of informed stewardship. In addition to an annual impact report sent to the congregation, they have implemented more strategic and ongoing messaging about weekly offerings and curated a dramatic push among the congregation to increase giving in several different ways.
“We wanted to explore a broader conversation around stewardship development, seeking to learn best practices outside of our system,” said JCBC’s senior pastor, Shaun King. “We recognize that all genuine learning begins with ‘unlearning’ what previous best practices may have served well, but perhaps have outlived their effectiveness.”
They sent four church members to the cohort last winter, including Connections Pastor David White; Carolyn Carter, the current stewardship chair; Bob Prator, JCBC’s treasurer; and Bret Hegi, the current assistant treasurer. Topics included ongoing stewardship education, how to develop members into donors, understanding generational giving motivation and more.
King said that honing a simplified and crystal-clear statement for the purpose of the ministry at JCBC was helpful. “We expressed our purpose in this way: We exist to share the transforming love of God. As such, we tethered every appeal for generosity to a reminder of that purpose. We were reminded of the power of personal experiences and storytelling. As we gleaned examples of God’s transforming love being experienced and encountered in the life of our congregation, we lifted up those stories in celebration and in a continued appeal to participate in that transformation through our generous giving.”
The Impact JCBC campaign is a great example to other churches of how they can implement more education around giving to encourage giving in all aspects of life, not just tithing. It began with the pastors at JCBC asking the congregation to complete a deeply personal and challenging commitment card that asked how many Sundays they would commit to attending church, how many hours they would spend in service to others, how many families they would invite to join them at church in the coming year and, finally, how much they would increase their giving. While it addresses major areas within the church outside of financial giving, King feels that what they learned at the cohort helped undergird their campaign.
“When it became clear that God was ushering in a new season of authentic spiritual renewal within our congregation, our focus became crystal clear: ‘Making More and Deeper Disciples of Jesus,’” King said. “For the full sweep of a year we centered our congregational consciousness upon the call to deliberate church growth and authentic spiritual revival. We examined the scriptures to rediscover the promise of fruitfulness that would emerge from lives that were deeply rooted in practicing the way of Jesus in the world.
“Out of an ever-deepening desire to share that fruitfulness with the community and the world around us, we imagined what kind of impact our congregation might have if our singular priority were to grow deeper in relationship with Christ and in the tangible practice of his way in the world.”
Since its inception, the campaign has carried a robust series of sermons from King and fellow pastors on the call to a deeper life of impact. They have celebrated as a church, and they continue to encourage and support their members in their commitments. “The results have been inspiring,” King noted. “We have hosted testimonies in worship from individuals and families whose personal spiritual journeys have deepened because of their desire to have an impact in our church and in the world.”
Connections Pastor David White further explained that Impact JCBC helps people develop a focused commitment to spiritual formation and church growth.
“A number of things we learned from our participation in the Cultivating Generous Congregations cohort were valuable in our creative design and strategy planning,” he said. “Having an informed understanding of giving trends, generational proclivities, and the general state of religiosity in the United States was critical. Our learning was certainly helpful in shaping our Impact JCBC generosity strategy; but we were also able to modify much of what we learned to address commitment to faithful attendance, selfless service, and developing an invitational culture as well.”
King also mailed a mini-impact report to every single person after the first quarter, including a photocopy of their pledge card and the status of their financial giving to date. He’s holding them accountable—and those efforts are already bearing fruit. King shared that one of JCBC’s seven core values is congregational courage, and what gives him the greatest sense of pride for the congregation is the willingness to try something new if it means the continued growth, health and vibrancy of the church and its gospel message.
“We have never asked our church to pledge anything beyond their financial contributions; and, frankly, that ask had run its course,” he said. “But calling on them to consider a pledge that encompassed the fullness of their lives may be making a difference. Those who may have been reluctant or intimidated to pledge financially in the past are asked to begin with what they can pledge in other areas of their lives. They can pledge being present and serving and inviting others into the life of the church. As they become more confident in these areas of discipleship, financial generosity becomes one more natural expression of the continued surrender of their whole life back to God.”
Giving is contagious, really. And the bug is catching—no matter what it looks like when they decide to start.
An in-person Cultivating generous congregations cohort is scheduled for November 15, 2025, at First Baptist Church, Greenville, South Carolina. for more information, contact Bradley Boberg at bboberg@cbf.net.