I have been thinking a lot about a recent Fundraising is Beautiful podcast from Jeff Brooks: The power of relevance.

“Relevance doesn’t just happen. The thing that just happens is irrelevance.”

- Jeff Brooks

The greatest obstacle church leaders have to funding budgets and raising money is that they assume that what is important to them is important to everyone else. Church leaders are often so close to the situation it’s impossible to have any objective perspective. They live with a sense of urgency because they know all the details and fail to acknowledge that the people in the pew are busy and will quickly forget whatever appeals were made Sunday morning by the time they finish lunch that same afternoon.

If you’re honest (and bold) enough to admit that your direct appeals from the pulpit aren’t getting the results in the offering plate that you’d like see, take 22:03 and listen how Jeff Brooks unpacks the incredibly successful Haiti relief funding appeals from people who largely lived with little connection to this country and were largely not personally affected by this natural disaster.

Are you relevant? Wait. Don’t answer that question yourself. Remember to ask the person in the pew.