Our experience with Crown Financial Ministries
History
Howard Dayton and Larry Burkett, after becoming Christians, each started their own ministries in the 1980s, both in Florida and both helping people (mostly evangelical young couples) with budgeting. It seems to us that engineer Larry leaned more toward “prophecy” (we don’t mean that in a theological manner), such as warning of pending debt fallout in the 2000s, while Howard took a more corporate/diligent CEO type approach with his materials. Eventually, the two of them met, and sensing Larry’s imminent death due to multiple health problems, agreed on a merger of the two ministries (“Christian Financial Concepts” and “Crown Ministries”) around 2000 to form Crown Financial Ministries.
Our involvement was only with the post-2000 merged entity, having heard about it as a teenager at a megachurch. One of Dayton’s real estate investments was near our middle school. Supposedly, tens of thousands took the course, and the average person reported significantly reducing debt and increasing tithing or giving, as well as more time spent in prayer.
The Bible studies sought to teach Christian bible-based financial concepts to churchgoers and their neighbors. Here was the format:
Usually taught at someone’s home or at the church on a weeknight
—sometimes during Sunday school
90-120 minutes including a video, discussion, homework, scripture memorization and prayer
- Commitment to doing homework (budget, reading, estate plan, etc.) and prayer for others in the study; if you didn’t do your homework, you were to remain quiet during the discussion the following week
- Commitment to scripture memorization
- Two informal social events
Not tied to any specific denomination though mostly found in evangelical churches (we don’t know if mainline denominations used it widely, though it would be compatible). The leader was not allowed to use the class to promote any specific product or service, such as his own wealth advisor or attorneys.
Personal experience
Your blogger spent time both as a student and a trained teacher of the material over a course of 10 years.
Sometime around 2010, Crown Financial Ministries, having moved to Gainesville, GA, replaced Dayton with a new CEO and changed its charter to evangelical missions (especially overseas) with money-themed illustrations. As we understand, some of their videos were shown to groups numbering in the thousands in Africa, and it understandably had more reach than the smaller house studies. The Bible study format for local churches to use was abandoned and not updated, leaving teachers working with books that looked to be from the 1980s. Dayton got the rights to the old books and tried to keep the studies alive as Compass Ministries, though we have not heard of its use in many years. According to their websites, both ministries are still active. (Part of our reason for this blog is to give more accurate and up-to-date information). We seek to provide you with advice that both Dayton and Burkett would be proud to recommend.
As a follow-on, we will provide book reviews and some feedback from the latest/final materials. Were you involved? Did you like the course? Did we get anything about the history wrong?
P.S. Howard Dayton, the founder of the original “Crown” legacy ministry, is completely scrubbed from the official webpage history (https://www.crown.org/history/)
