A Winning Proposition

In most independent Baptist circles, fundraising is frowned upon. God ordained the church to be paid for by the freewill tithes and offerings of His people. I agree with this teaching.

However, we do allow our teens to do fundraising for specific events like camp. They've done spaghetti dinners, hire-a-teen campaigns and carwashes to raise their camp fees. I know Christian schools that do yearly Christmas card fundraisers or pizza fundraisers to help with additional school expenses or senior trips.

I believe that the regular bills of the church need to be taken care of by God's people, but perhaps extra needs could be done as creative fundraisers. Such as:

Need to update church kitchen tools and supplies? Have a "Walk-off" Fundraiser. Everyone knows that kitchen dishes, pots, spices, etc., tend to "walk off" over time. (RE: someone took them home.) So the walk-off fundraiser works like this:  if you've ever (admit it. You have) accidentally walked off with something that belonged to the church kitchen, you can make it right by bringing a brand new updated version of whatever you took. That way you can keep the towels you've grown to think of as yours, and the church gets brand new ones.

Does the nursery need some refurbishing? Have the nursery workers do a diaper fundraiser. They can get people to commit $1 for every diaper they can change in an hour. Extra pledges can cover dirty diapers, and creative clean ups when you're down to that last wipe in the canister.

Need new Junior Church materials? How about a candy fundraiser? People can pledge money based on how many pieces of candy you can hand out during the junior church hour. (These have to be individually handed pieces of candy. No hurling fistfuls into the crowds.)

But I think the best fundraising idea I heard of involves moms. This fundraiser is great for updating and remodeling in the auditorium. Have a sleep-off. Moms can collect pledges for dollar amounts based on how many consecutive hours they can stay asleep. Now, since this is a church fundraiser, of course it must be done at the church. Service requires sacrifice, Ladies, so you'll have to leave your children at home with your husbands for the duration of this fundraiser. Make sure to bring whatever pillows you need and your comfiest jammies. Eye masks, earplugs, fans and white noise machines are encouraged. In the interest of fairness, Benadryl and Melatonin may be used as necessary, but Ambien and other pharmaceutical helps are banned.

While sometimes it might be hard to get people to participate in a fundraiser, I'll bet the sign up sheet for this particular one would be miles long.

Put my name at the top of the list. I'm willing to make the sacrifice. How about you?