Twin Cities megachurch Eagle Brook reveals $17M donation

Yes, I know I probably should have chosen a “safer” and more soothing adjective, but here is my reason:

A church spokesperson said Merritt was not available for comment Tuesday. But in his sermon, Merritt said he met the donor in a restaurant in 2011 when the church had a $17 million mortgage from the construction of its Lino Lakes church in 2005.

“That debt is hard on a church,” Merritt said. “For the first six years, I didn’t sleep very well.”

The donor was a new member, the pastor said, and he planned to ask him for a donation.

“I began my pitch, and halfway through I thought I heard him say, ‘Bob, forget about that,’ ” Merritt said. “He said, ‘I am going to pay off the Lino Lakes debt.’

“My jaw dropped.”

Merritt said the donor ended the conversation with this comment: “I will not be participating in any other fundraising campaigns after this.”

That’s what I always do when I meet new church members over breakfast - I ask them for money. Lots of money. I even craft a “pitch” so I can be assured of success. Maybe I should give it a shot, it seemed to work for these folks.

How disgraceful.

…since I’m the one who wrote an article on them that was published on SI a year ago:

http://sharperiron.org/article/whatever-it-takes%E2%80%9D-my-summer-at-…

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I still keep track of developments at the church, and there have been some changes in the past year:

1. Average attendance, as reported in the OP article, has risen in the past year from about 20,000 to currently 22,000. Per Outreach Magazine, that makes them now the 8th largest church in the U.S.

2. They have adjusted their schedule of services at 3 of the 6 sites, so that they no longer have a uniform 4 and 6 pm on Saturdays & 9 and 11 am on Sundays at every site. Coon Rapids, the temporary site meeting in a 1,000 seat auditorium in a public high school, now meets twice each weekend, while Spring Lake Park and Blaine now each have five weekend service times.

3. Their total attendance this past Easter at all 6 locations, with added service times, was over 44,000 (meaning lots of guests & visitors—family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc)!

4. I know of three members of the pastoral staff who have left Eagle Brook this past year to start new churches. So Eagle Brook is a reproducing church, not only in the form of being a multi-site, but also in church planting.

5. On a sidenote, I recently met the owner of a new Chick Fil A that opened near my home. We soon got to talking about our churches. He began telling me how much he & his family LOVE their church: which turned out to be Eagle Brook.

[TylerR]

Yes, I know I probably should have chosen a “safer” and more soothing adjective, but here is my reason:

A church spokesperson said Merritt was not available for comment Tuesday. But in his sermon, Merritt said he met the donor in a restaurant in 2011 when the church had a $17 million mortgage from the construction of its Lino Lakes church in 2005.

“That debt is hard on a church,” Merritt said. “For the first six years, I didn’t sleep very well.”

The donor was a new member, the pastor said, and he planned to ask him for a donation.

“I began my pitch, and halfway through I thought I heard him say, ‘Bob, forget about that,’ ” Merritt said. “He said, ‘I am going to pay off the Lino Lakes debt.’

“My jaw dropped.”

Merritt said the donor ended the conversation with this comment: “I will not be participating in any other fundraising campaigns after this.”

That’s what I always do when I meet new church members over breakfast - I ask them for money. Lots of money. I even craft a “pitch” so I can be assured of success. Maybe I should give it a shot, it seemed to work for these folks.

How disgraceful.

I don’t mind if/when my church specifically asks me for money. We recently renovated about 40% of the building, entailing some (overdue) repairs and updates. To accomplish this, we (fairly easily) raised $1.6M this past year, and paid for all of the work as it progressed. Did the campaign involve making a “pitch” (or “appeal,” or whatever)? Well, yeah.

I know of another large church across town that is currently in the midst of a multi-million dollar building campaign. Are they making a “pitch” to their members? Sure.

Christian colleges conduct fund drives, sometimes even seeking donations from specific alumni. (I could give examples.) I don’t see it as a big deal.

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that Eagle Brook is an apostate place because they’re approximately 550 times larger than my church. I know little about them other than what I read in Larry’s article a while back.

All I want to emphasize is that I think’s it’s distasteful and disgraceful to corner a new church member to ask for a donation, because you know they’re wealthy. Shouldn’t you have other priorities for a new church member? Perhaps I’m just a naive, small-town fool, but the very last thing on my mind if have a new member is how much money the person has.

We really just exist in different worlds. Eagle Brook just got a $17m donation. Larry spoke about a $1.6m building project. At my church, we just replaced a $500 water heater and that hurt … !

Tyler R,

I couldn’t agree more. I remember when a church my parents had been a member of for over 30 yrs. paid a consultant $60,000 to advise them how to raise money to pay for a new building project. The whole church membership met on a Sunday morning (instead of the morning service) at a country club for a “free” meal and a sales pitch. The whole program was a flop and the church was out $60,000 plus the cost of the “free” meal and rental of the country club. No long after that we had joined a Baptist church in another area and within a week of joining we were invited to a “free” new members dinner (and a sales pitch). Needless to say we were not impressed.

1. Perhaps believers who live in big cities and who attend mega-churches are more used to being asked to make big donations for projects. I suppose the rich are used to this, being asked to support museums, political campaigns, charities, hospitals, etc. They are not offended by this and perhaps just see it as what comes with being rich.

2. Believers who make a modest or even low income and who attend a smaller church might be offended by this since such believers are living paycheck-to-paycheck trying to tithe, pay a mortgage, put away for retirement, put children through college, etc.

3. There is no way that I’d put anyone in a corner and ask them for money, no matter whether they could afford it or not. A church should let its needs be known and pray trusting that if someone can afford to make a big donation, then God will see to it that they do.

[Jonathan Charles]

1. Perhaps believers who live in big cities and who attend mega-churches are more used to being asked to make big donations for projects. I suppose the rich are used to this, being asked to support museums, political campaigns, charities, hospitals, etc. They are not offended by this and perhaps just see it as what comes with being rich.

This is a large, suburban, evangelical (BGC) church that is about 10 miles or so away from my own church. This is a church of about 6,000 - 6,500 (it’s a 2-site church, with 5,000+ at the larger site, and the balance at the smaller site). As you’ll see, they presented a request to the church for $6,000,000, to be used for renovations/expansion at the larger site, the launch of a 3rd site, and $1M for church planting in Asia. So it’s a for broad scope:

http://wooddale.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Vision-22-congregation-l…

Well, the result was that the membership voted in favor, and the money began to pour in.

My point? This is just one example, but I really think it can be O.K. to ask…………..

Does this church have some wealthy people? I believe it does. But then I know some people of very modest means who go there too.

(If it matters to anyone, this church’s annual missions giving is about $2M, last I heard.)

“That debt is hard on a church,” Merritt said. “For the first six years, I didn’t sleep very well.”

Is there wisdom in taking on a loan that robs you of sleep for 6 years?

Is this what is necessary to do God’s work today? Having $17 million in debt that you are sitting on for 6 years, not able to pay? I am pastor of a small congregation hundreds of times smaller, so I don’t want to sound envious, but what is the point of “mega-mania”? Is this what people are assuming is necessary today to do God’s work? I realize it is necessary to “up-scale” where there are more people, but can’t neighborhoods have their own “local church”, even in a large city?

It seems as if there are alot of assumptions being thrown around about this situation. Just because the donor was a new member doesn’t mean that he was “cornered.” And we don’t know what other conversations/interactions have taken place between the pastor(s) and the donor so we can’t really assume that asking for money from the donor was more of a priority than watching over their souls.

As one who happens to know a few rich Christians because our ministry (Urban Transformation Ministries) would not survive without them, being asked to help fund a capital campaign or a worthy ministry project comes with the territory of being wealthy. However, the rich Christians that I know do not like being treated like an ATM machine. They value relationships.

Meeting with someone for the purpose of encouraging them to give to the church for God’s glory is a good thing, new member or old. But it should be seen as an act of discipleship done for the benefit of the one who is learning to trust God by giving.

The depiction here is of a pastor who sees this discussion with this donor for how it benefits him. He admits he’s anxious about the financial status of his church. And the donor seems to see the interchange the same way: ~No more after this.~

A decision to give should be seen as completion of faith - as God’s grace in the life of someone. It’s fine for your jaw to drop, but if you’re happiest about how it affects you as a pastor than maybe your heart isn’t right. Why ~No more after this~? Is this act part of his learning to trust and give?

The article linked to in the OP mentions Eagle Brook’s current annual budget as being $21,000,000. On first glance, that sounds enormous. One might think there’s a lot of bloat, or waste, involved. Think about it though: $21,000,000 divided by 22,000 average attendance works out to be about $955 in annual expenses per attendee. (With capital campaign giving & some other giving types, Eagle Brook had total giving in their last fiscal year of about $28M.)

Does your church have an annual budget that spends less than $1,000 per attendee? Mine doesn’t. Our current budget is about $3,300,000, and our average attendance right now is around 2,600. Doing the math, that’s about $1,269 in annual expenses per attendee. (Missions giving is a separate fund from our general fund. With that & other types of giving, our total in our last fiscal year was $5M.)

To use another example known to many on SI, Fourth Baptist’s annual budget works out to be about $1996 in annual expenses per attendee.

All I’m suggesting is that larger churches can sometimes financially operate more efficiently due to economies of scale.

Larry:

I appreciate what you’re saying, and you are certainly right to emphasize that proportional spending per church member is not significantly more (and may even be less) at larger churches. My objection is to deliberately asking a wealthy church member for a significant financial contribution to cover the cost of new construction. I know that there are tactful and appropriate ways of soliciting funds, and I’m sure folks will chime in and provide some wonderful examples. I just don’t think funds should be solicited in this fashion. I find it reprehensible and distasteful. I couldn’t imagine ever going to a church member and flat out asking for money. I won’t go further than a general appeal to the congregation to donate additional funds for a particular endeavor as they see fit (e.g. teen summer camp).

I am an alumnus of the Fourth Baptist Christian School, currently located in Plymouth, MN. (As my SI bio indicates.)

The school was founded by Fourth Baptist Church in 1966; by 1970 it was rapidly outgrowing its rooms and space within Fourth’s building.

Church leadership had a bold plan: they dreamt of building a spacious, very-well equipped school building that would be able to house hundreds of students. Plans took shape for a three-story structure. To construct it & furnish it would cost around $1M (in 1970 dollars, mind you…an inflation calculator I just consulted indicates it would be over $6M today).

This was during the age of burgeoning Christian schools, and the church was feeling called to build it.

The story I heard was that the general fundraising appeal was preceded by some sort of personal request to some potentially large donors (the church at that time had at least two members known to be wealthy…). The story went that their participation was thought vital to get things rolling.

Well, funds were raised, and the building opened in 1972. Student enrollment continued to rise, peaking at about 650 during the 1980s.

Curious about the building? It’s the one partially visible in the left background of this photo:

https://fromtheunknown.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/old-1974-fourth.jpg

The building in the foreground being demolished is Fourth’s 2,000 seat auditorium, which opened in 1974. The school building itself is now gone too, having been torn down a few years ago. (The church, school, and Central Seminary are all now relocated to Plymouth, MN.)