Stop Pushing on the Rope

The most powerful factor in church giving is something the economy cannot touch, and it is already within your reach.

Lay a piece of rope on a table and try to push it from one end to the other. It bunches up and goes nowhere. You can push harder, and it only makes a bigger mess. Pull it from the front, and it follows you anywhere.

Albert Winseman used that picture to describe what most churches do with giving. Winseman spent years at Gallup studying what separates thriving congregations from struggling ones, and he published his findings in Growing an Engaged Church. His conclusion was simple. Trying to increase giving, serving, and inviting directly is like pushing on a rope. Engagement has to come first. Giving follows it.

The numbers behind that conclusion are hard to ignore. Engaged members give about 5% of their income to their congregation. Disengaged members give about 1.5%. Engaged members are also far more likely to invite a friend and to volunteer their time. Those differences show up among people with the same incomes, in the same neighborhoods, facing the same economy.

So what does engagement look like? Winseman identified twelve conditions, grouped around three questions every member is quietly asking. Do I receive here? Do I contribute here? Do I belong here? A few of the twelve will stop you in your tracks. Do I have a best friend in this congregation? In the last six months, has anyone asked about my spiritual growth? Do I get to do what I do best? Very few of these conditions depend on your budget, your building, or your programs. Most of them depend on whether people feel known.

Other research points the same direction. A 2024 study of more than 1,000 evangelicals by Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research found that the most spiritually engaged gave 4.7% of their household income to church and charity, while those with little or no engagement gave 0.8%. Work from Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center shows that people who practice gratitude give more, at every income level. And history offers the strongest proof of all. Melvin Amerson has documented how African American congregations sustained remarkable generosity for more than a century, often out of real poverty, because the church sat at the center of belonging, shared purpose, and mutual responsibility.

This changes where a pastor should put energy before the next stewardship season. A better pledge card and a cleaner appeal letter still matter. They help engaged members give at the level of their commitment. They do very little for members who have never found a reason to invest themselves. If giving is flat, the most useful first question is how many of your people could honestly say yes to ten of those twelve conditions.

Our white paper, The Giving Culture, brings these research streams together. It includes Winseman’s twelve engagement factors in a form your leadership team can use as a diagnostic, the history behind Amerson’s work, the connection between gratitude and generosity, and five practices that cost almost nothing and fit into the ordinary life of any congregation. It also ties together the full three-part series on church giving.

Consumer sentiment will rise and fall. The stock market will move. Elections will shift power in Washington, as this month’s midterms did. The engagement of your people is yours to shape, and that is where a generous church begins.