Road to Financial Freedom

Crown Financial Ministries -

This user-friendly action plan for launching a church-wide emphasis on biblical financial stewardship includes preaching, small group, promotional, and other resources.

The kit is presented in 4 easy-to-use components: a tri-fold “Getting Started” brochure, a handbook, a series CD, and a series DVD.

Crown designed the series so that every church member will have the opportunity to experience 4 levels of learning for maximum life impact: preaching, teaching (small groups), celebrating, and applying.

The Welcome section of the DVD is a great primer for those unfamiliar with the mission of Crown Financial Ministries to learn more about its mission and impact here and around the world. This portion of the DVD also features a success story of a church that effectively used the Road to Financial Freedom series. Many churches will draw ideas and inspiration from this front-lines example; however, for most churches the take-away value may be limited as the featured church is a 13,000 member mega-church which included highway billboards in its city-wide promotions.

The Preaching section of the kit makes it easy for pastors to lead their congregations through a 4-week sermon series on biblical financial stewardship. The CD-ROM includes ready-to-use sermon outlines with corresponding “Road to Financial Freedom” PowerPoint presentations. There’s even a blank template slide if a pastor wants to insert any of his own material. Also included are 4 light-hearted audio clips that can be used to promote next week’s sermon.

The Teaching section of the kit includes a 4-week lesson plan for Sunday School classes and small groups. The lessons correspond exactly with the sermon series, giving the congregation a great opportunity to unpack the biblical principles taught in the sermon that week, and to discuss how it applies in daily life. It is important to note that the fill-in-the blank lesson plans and leader guide must be purchased separately from Crown. On both the DVD and CD-ROM, Crown highlights several more of its teaching resources for further study.

The Celebration section of the kit is designed to encourage churches to gather for the purpose of praising God for what He’s done in the life of the church and in the lives of individual members as a result of this series. Several good celebration ideas are listed on the CD-ROM (Hawaiian luau, graduation ceremony, dessert night, etc.); however, this section lacked the meaty implementation help offered in other sections (i.e. promotions, preaching, etc.).

The Application section was probably unnecessary as it didn’t add anything new that wasn’t already covered. For example, every reference to Application in the handbook and CD-ROM referred back to teaching resources. Additionally, the “application” clips on the DVD included 4 excellent sermon highlights from other pastors speaking on financial stewardship and would have been more appropriate in the “preaching” section of the DVD as an idea generator for pastors.

The administrative support sections on the CD-ROM are outstanding. It includes a thorough guide to organizing the plan and training volunteers, as well as excellent promotional resources (clip art, posters, etc.)

Adaptable for short-term or long-term use. Short-term: the basic kit provides a 4-month action plan leading up to a 4-week campaign. Long-term: the handbook suggests next steps for developing a thriving, ongoing financial ministry (i.e. working with a Crown consultant, using additional Crown resources, etc.)

Available at:  Crown Financial Ministries