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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: What Happens on the Web Stays on the Web, Teaching Generosity, and Tweaking Our Financial Efficiency Ratings

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Editor’s Note:  Most Saturdays we will feature this “Editor’s Notebook” column. MinistryWatch President Warren Smith will comment on one or more stories in the week’s news, adding an additional perspective or, sometimes, a behind-the-scenes look at how the story came to be.

What Happens On The Web, Stays On The Web.  The student pastor at a South Carolina church has been placed on administrative leave after reportedly giving out stickers to students that read “i (heart) hot youth pastors.”

The stickers caught attention online after they appeared in a social media post from someone who claimed their 14-year-old sister had received the sticker from her 35-year-old youth pastor, who had given them out to students.

The student pastor, Cory Wall, has acknowledged that he made a poor decision by making the sticker.  He said he intended it as a joke, but has acknowledged that it was in poor taste and a mistake.

But the stickers touched a collective nerve on social media, and that may be one of the more interesting aspects of this story.  It’s proof that in the Internet Age events can take on a life of their own.  And ministry leaders should understand that and behave accordingly.

An Ohio pastor is also learning this lesson.  On Wed, Oct. 5, Bill Dunfee, pastor of New Beginnings Ministries in Warsaw, Ohio, was arrested on federal felony charges in connection with he Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Dunfee has been charged with interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, in addition to five misdemeanors.

And, once again, this is a story that came to pass because of the Internet.  

The FBI investigation into Dunfee’s involvement began in February 2021, after someone posted information about Dunfee’s involvement on Facebook.  The Facebook post read:

“My local ministry group was there and members of our group ‘stormed’ the Capitol for a redress of our grievances. Leading the way was Pastor Bill. We as Christians have the duty to overthrow evil.”

Well, yeah, but we should not be stupid about it.  More than 900 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol riot, several of them pastors and church leaders. And many of them have had their exploits caught on social media.

Teaching Generosity.  According to the 2022 Bank of America Private Bank Study of Wealthy Americans, most well-to-do people of all ages feel compelled to give to philanthropic causes, and the majority of them (72%) aren’t in it for the publicity —they prefer to give anonymously.

However, although 82% of parents believe they and their children share the same vision and goals when it comes to giving, members of younger generations—especially women—actually feel the need to pave their own way in the world of philanthropy.

In fact, 76% of younger survey respondents said they would prefer to establish a philanthropic identity separate from that of their parents, including 88% of women.

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So why are these numbers significant?

They’re significant on a personal level, and significant for the church, because financial stewardship is a part of discipleship.  These numbers indicate that we need to teach our children about generosity.  

But there’s also a lesson here for ministry leaders, high capacity givers, people involved in foundations, and others.  And that is that you can’t assume that those who follow us – even if they are family members – will follow in your footsteps.  

There are lots of stories of philanthropists who set up foundations for a particular purpose, but if you look at those foundations 50 years later, they are funding causes that in some cases are almost the opposite of what the originally donor intended.  

So this survey highlights twin dangers we talk about often here at MinistryWatch:  Mission Drift on the part of organizations, and a failure to honor Donor Intent.  

And that’s why I wanted to highlight this survey with an article on our site.

Always Reforming.  A quick closing word:  We have slightly tweaked our Financial Efficiency Rating formula.  We now divide the database into fifths, or quintiles.  That means the top 20 percent of ministries get a five-star rating, the next 20 percent get four stars, etc.  That’s slightly different than the dividing lines we used before, and it has resulted in about 100 ministries getting new scores – some higher and some lower.  

We made this change for the following reasons:

  1. A lot of really bad ministries were getting 2 stars.  We wanted the ratings to more clearly demarcate the “good guys” from the “bad guys.”
  2. A lot of ministries were contacting us to say they appreciated our rating system, and wanted to improve, but despaired of ever changing their score even if they made significant improvements in their numbers.  We believe this change will create more “mobility” in our ratings and more directly and immediately reward improvements made by a ministry.
  3. Dividing the database into quintiles is simply easier to understand and explain that the previous percentages.

We’ve got a complete description of our Financial Efficiency Rating here.

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Warren Cole Smith

Warren previously served as Vice President of WORLD News Group, publisher of WORLD Magazine, and Vice President of The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He has more than 30 years of experience as a writer, editor, marketing professional, and entrepreneur. Before launching a career in Christian journalism 25 years ago, Smith spent more than seven years as the Marketing Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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