BETTER STEWARDS, BETTER GIVERS: WHAT FINANCIAL BEHAVIORS RELATE TO GIVING BY CHRISTIANS IN CHURCHES, PARACHURCH MINISTRIES, AND THEIR ALMA MATER?

The subject of Christian stewardship including financial behavior continues to receive heightened attention due to low giving rates in the ecclesial community and within faith-based academia. The purpose of this correlation study was to examine associations between the most frequently exercised financial management behaviors and giving by Christian devotees. The study identified and explained degrees of relationships among selected financial behaviors of giving, by percentage and amount, by participants to churches, parachurch ministries, and alma maters. A new theory of giving behaviors was introduced to analyze relationships between the giving and financial behaviors of participants who identified as Christian and self-identified as givers. The results from the feasibility study on giving behavior subscales to churches and alma maters reveal high internal consistency. Twelve of the 30 formulated hypotheses were supported. The findings reveal that prudence in some individual financial behaviors and overall financial stewardship behavior are highly relational in a statistically significant fashion to giving a percentage and amount to churches with parachurch ministries. The findings also demonstrate a highly associative nature between selected financial behaviors and overall financial stewardship behavior with giving behavior to churches. Savings and investment financial behavior was most pronounced with giving behavior to alma maters