Pivot

#62: Funding Forward: New Business Models for Ministry

Explore a sustainable financial framework for churches. Gain innovative strategies and finance advice for long-term stability with guest Grace Pomroy.

Wondering how to navigate church finances or needing a path toward financial stability for your church? In this video, we share our sustainable financial framework for churches today.

If your church is seeking a more sustainable financial framework, you’re in the right place. Together, we’ll unpack innovative financial strategies, explore finance advice for your church, and shed light on the keys to long-term financial stability for your faith community. Connect your money values with your stewardship leadership today. Join us for the Pivot podcast as we interview Grace Pomroy—financial educator, author, and the Director of Luther Seminary’s Stewardship Leaders program.

Show Notes:

Shift Ministry Models
Faithful Innovation

Featuring

Grace Pomroy Headshot

Grace Pomroy

Grace Pomroy is a financial educator, speaker, and blogger. She helps couples transform their relationship and deepen their intimacy by having open and honest conversation about money. She empowers them to connect their money and their values so they can create a more fulfilling life together. In 2017, she became a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI). She lives with her husband in Gig Harbor, WA. When she's not talking about money, you'll find her exploring new cities, hiking trails, or in her kitchen perfecting her sourdough recipe. She is currently the Director of the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN and co-owner of Embracing Stewardship, LLC.

Meet Your Hosts

  • Terri Elton

    Terri Martinson Elton began teaching at Luther Seminary as an adjunct instructor in 2004 before becoming the director of the Center for Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2008. In addition to her continued work with the Center, Elton accepted the position of associate professor of Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2010 and associate professor of Leadership in 2014.

    Prior to her call to Luther Seminary, Elton served as an associate to the bishop in the Saint Paul Area Synod where her responsibilities included working with congregations, leadership development, First Call theological education and youth and family ministry.

    Before her work in the synod, she served at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minn. for 16 years. While at Prince of Peace she worked in various roles within children, youth and family ministries, as well as served as the director of Changing Church Forum, an outreach ministry of Prince of Peace. She also authored To Know, To Live, To Grow, a confirmation curriculum, and co-authored What Really Matters, a book for congregational leaders, with the Rev. Mike Foss.

    Elton holds a B.A. degree in communications from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. (1986). She earned both her M.A. (1998) and Ph.D. (2007) degrees in Congregational Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary.

    Elton’s research and teaching interests include: congregational leadership, leading in the midst of change and conflict, helping ministry leaders craft a missional ecclesiology with an eye toward the First Third of Life, awakening a vibrant theology of baptism and vocation and reimagining faith and mission practices for children, youth, young adults and their families.

    Elton is a member of the Academy of Religious Leadership, the Association of Youth Ministry Educators, the ELCA Youth Ministry Network and the American Society of Missiology and is on the board for Real Resources. Elton spends much of her time working with congregations and congregational leaders and seeks out opportunities for enhancing ministry with those in the First Third of Life within the ELCA.

  • Dr. Dwight Zscheile

    Dwight Zscheile is vice president of innovation and professor of congregational mission and leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

    He is the author of Embracing the Mixed Ecology (with Blair Pogue, Seabury Books, 2025), Leading Faithful Innovation: Following God into a Hopeful Future (with Michael Binder and Tessa Pinkstaff, Fortress 2023), Participating in God’s Mission: A Theological Missiology for the U.S. (with Craig Van Gelder, Eerdmans 2018), The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age (Morehouse Publishing, 2014), People of the Way: Renewing Episcopal Identity (Morehouse Publishing, 2012) and The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation (with Craig Van Gelder, Baker Academic 2011) and editor of Cultivating Sent Communities: Missional Spiritual Formation (Eerdmans, 2012).

    A graduate of Stanford University (BA), Yale University (MDiv) and Luther Seminary (PhD, Congregational Mission and Leadership), Dwight previously served congregations in Minnesota, Virginia and Connecticut. Dwight’s experience growing up in a secular home in California has shaped his commitment to helping the church cultivate Christian community with neighbors in today’s changing world.