I am reminded of the report of an associate pastor of a large church that hired a church fund-raiser to direct its ambitious financial campaign. The fund-raiser proposed his strategy at the first planning session. He wanted the members to visit every home .He was met with immediate resistance. One cynic at the stewardship meeting cited that this church had a high percentage of retired people on fixed incomes. They could not be expected to pledge, the cynic argued.

The fund-raiser asked for permission to see in confidence the list of major givers. At the next meeting he told the stewardship work area that he had completed an analysis of the church's giving patterns. "Please note that the majority of your top 50 contributors are ‘widows on fixed incomes.' Please note that, according to my calculations, those ‘widows on fixed incomes' pay about 60 percent of this congregation's annual budget. I'd say if you want to improve the giving in this congregation, you need to talk to those women first, find out why they give, then try to infect the rest of the congregation with the faith of these ‘widows on fixed incomes.'"