I have been in over 20 different church services over the last 18 months. Every church I have been in takes up an offering in one form or another. The offering time seems to be the same in most places and lacks creativity. The next four days I am committing to teaching pastors how to creatively take up an offering!  We have 52 opportunities each year to help people with their giving! Let’s teach people how to follow Christ during these moments.

Provide multiple on-ramps for giving

In our recent work with Granger Community Church, we developed a plan to help their congregation understand that there are multiple on-ramps for giving.  Kem Meyer and her team develop a brand called 3 Ways to Give.  In our culture people are carrying less and less cash so we have to get creative with providing digital solutions for our church.  I believe the Granger 3 Ways to Give concept is reproducible for any church.

3 Ways To Give

1.  Service – Giving in the service is still the main place most people give

2. Online – Online giving is a necessity now and moving forward with our digital culture.  It allows us to take up an offering 24/7/365 verses 2 minutes on Sunday.  Make sure you have an online system that will create REOCCURRING gifts.  Letting people set it up once and not think about it is huge for consistency.

3.  Kiosks – Kiosks are becoming more and more popular.  I don’t eat at restaurants that do not take cards!  I LOVE waffle house but didn’t eat there for years because they wouldn’t take my card!  Our churches have got to realize it is 2009 and provide practical on-ramps for people to give that do not have cash.

During your offering time, you can stand up and let people know that there are multiple on-ramps for giving!

Does your church have online giving or kiosks?  How well are they working?

I have been in over 20 different church services over the last 18 months. Every church I have been in takes up an offering in one form or another. The offering time seems to be the same in most places and lacks creativity. The next four days I am committing to teaching pastors how to creatively take up an offering!  We have 52 opportunities each year to help people with their giving! Lets teach people how to follow Christ during these moments.

Tip 1: Connect your mission to the moment

At my home church we have done something called Mission Moments before the offering. This is where we help people understand how their money helping change others lives (mission).

You can:

1. Read a life change story that has been emailed in off your website

2. Share about what is happening in different ministry areas

3. Celebrate any win that is connected to people finding and following Christ

4. Have a student or child write about what God is doing in their life and share it

I could give you 100 different ways to connect the moment before the offering to the mission of the church! Have your team brainstorm some creative ways for people to understand how this moment each week accomplishes the mission.  Just make sure you make the transition and say, “That is why this moment each week is so important!  Every dollar you gives goes toward changing lives.”

Whats the most creative way you have seen the offering taken up?

When I ask church leaders the question, “How many spiritual decisions did you have this weekend?” I am told how many people accepted Christ into their life.  I LOVE HEARING THESE STORIES!

However, I have noticed one spiritual decision that usually isn’t measured and definitely isn’t celebrated well: First Time Givers.

When someone gives a first time financial gift, that is a HUGE spiritual decision.  Why?  Jesus said (paraphrased), “our heart follows our money.”  When someone gives a gift to your church for the first time you should measure it and celebrate it.  It is a line of faith people are jumping over.

I suggest someone on your church staff handwriting a thank you note to these people.  It will make a HUGE difference in retaining first time givers and helping them become a second time giver!

What gets rewarded gets done.  Start next Monday!  This system doesn’t cost a lot but will produce a lot!

Did you know there are five different cycles of generosity during the year? Most church leaders we work with don’t ever think about the cycles that affect people’s giving.  This is a VERY general overview but it can help you develop your intentional system to fund your vision.

1.  New Year Cycle – Key word is priority.  If people are creating priorities for their finances for the next year, why not help them see that the Kingdom of God should be in the list?  Great time to help people with personal financial education as well.

2. Pre-Summer - People and pocketbooks are notorious for leaving in the summer months.  Pre-Summer Cycle is a great time to help people move their gifts to ONLINE giving.  If you don’t have online giving, quit reading this and go get it now!

3. Summer – The summer is a great time to connect with people relationally! We use the summer in churches we work with to help key ministry leaders and givings connect with staff in some sort of way!  The more relationship you have with somone, the more likely they will fund the vision.

4. Fall - This is a great time to make an ask.  Attendance is up and people are not BROKE like they are after Christmas.  I suggest a four week message series with some sort of financial elements to it. 

5. Holiday - People are very generous near the year end.  Creating an intentional strategy for year end giving is worth the time and effort. 

I know I didn’t give you a ton of PRACTICAL but just understanding this will give you a frame work to plan 2010!  

The Change Group has a new website coming online in a few weeks. Because of our new site and vision to help church leaders grow in their financial confidence, I (Casey Graham) am starting a blog.  I am going to start off our blogging by giving you a simple road map for your church finances.  We have created a system called The Financial Confidence Process.  If you adopt the process, the financial capacity of your church will sky rocket!  During this series, I will provide a small principle that you can hear today and do tomorrow.  These PRACTICAL tips will add confidence to you as a church leader and ultimately increase operational revenue in your church.

Second step towards financial confidence: Intentionality

It is super easy to develop some great objectives but never accomplish them.  You have to answer the question, “How are we going to accomplish our objectives?”  I am about to provide you a grid that can assist you in creating a plan to increase your revenue.

1.  Create a success matrix

What you monitor gets accomplished!  Let me give you a simple EXAMPLE grid that can help you monitor your progress.

-Overall Giving: Important because at the end of the day this number is what finances your mission.

-Per Capita Giving: Important because it breaks down how well your families are contributing.

Total offering/total attendence = Per Capita Giving.  $25,000 offering/876 attendance = $28.54 per capita

-Digital Giving: Important because we are becoming a cashless society.  Providing online giving and giving kiosks in your lobby are great solutions.  It REALLY helps people with consistency.  www.securegive.com

-First Time Givers: Important because we need to see if people are being moved to give to your local church.  This number shows how well you are moving people from off the sidelines and into the game.  This is a spiritual decision!!! Measure it!

-Personal Financial Education: Important to measure how many people are being helped with their personal finances.  It will make a difference over the long haul in their giving if you can help them get financially free.  Visit www.joesangl.com for one of the best personal financial ministries in the country.

I will continue tomorrow with how to engage your people so they will give more.  This first step toward monitoring information monthly will help you significantly.

The Change Group has a new website coming online in a few weeks.  Because of our new site and vision to help church leaders grow in their financial confidence, I (Casey Graham) am starting a blog.  I am going to start off our blogging by giving you a simple road map for your church finances.  We have created a system called The Financial Confidence Process.  If you adopt the process, the financial capacity of your church will sky rocket!  During this series, I will provide a small principle that you can “hear today and do tomorrow”.  These PRACTICAL tips will add confidence to you as a church leader and ultimately increase operational revenue in your church.

First step to financial confidence: Clarity

Answer this question: What three objectives would we like to accomplish financially in the next twelve months?

Most churches when asked this question stare at me like a lost puppy dog.  To build financial confidence and increase giving you will want to WRITE DOWN very clear objectives.  These objectives will drive success.   

Example: We will increase our savings from $45,000 to $95,000 by August 31, 2010

Example: We will increase digital giving (online giving/kiosk giving) from 5% of total intake to 15% of total intake by December 31, 2009

Bad example:  We want giving to get better

Make your objectives clear and simple.  If you can’t twitter the objective, its too long. 

Get a white board out and take your team through this exercise.  If you do it and keep your objectives visible on the wall you will more than likely accomplish them! 

Tomorrow we will look at how to create the intentional systems to accomplish your objectives!