The mission of Giving Rocket is to help your church have more money for ministry. It’s really that simple.  We aren’t high priced consultants. We aren’t a capital campaign company. We deliver a system to increase OPERATIONAL revenue in your church, because we know everyday is more important than the big day.  Who cares if you raise money to buy a building if you don’t have the money to pay your team every month or do ministry every week?

The heart of the Giving Rocket system is the monthly subscription program.  Every month, we deliver practical content, plug and play resources and coaching to you and your church.   You’ll get a ton of practical information and coaching.  Here are the FIVE BENEFITS of membership.

• A Giving Talk Script.  A Giving Talk is an intentionally planned 2-3 minute focus that happens just before you receive the offering.  We write these and you use them or give them to a staff member or a volunteer.  The stats, stories and Scripture woven into the Giving Talk will help you connect the dots with your people.  Learn more about a Giving Talk in this free report.
• Monthly coaching.  You and your team will get coaching via conference calls, webinars and videos from Casey, the Giving Rocket team, and some of the sharpest leaders in the country.  We’ll help you talk about money, conduct special offerings, communicate with donors, engage high capacity givers, follow up with donors at all levels, lead your finance team and more.
• A resource every month.  See all of the resources in the store?  Over the course of a year, you’ll get members-only versions of each of them, on topics like budgeting, digital giving, follow up, developing high capacity donors, and more.  These eBooks are full of practical and helpful content.  No theory…just help.
• Cut and Paste communication.  We don’t tell you to send a letter…we write the letter for you.  If you can cut and paste, you can do this.  We’ll send you letters, emails and statements that are ready to send to your people.  And we’ll pay attention to the calendar so you don’t forget.
• Access to the Resource Vault.  We’ve put together tons of financial documents, forms and spreadsheets and you can download all of this valuable stuff.  It’s a 24/7 benefit.  Don’t start from scratch, start in the Resource Vault.

You don’t have to apply everything, but over time, you’re going to get a healthy dose of financial coaching that will help you create a healthy financial culture in your church.  Churches who stick to this program are sharing incredible stories of God’s blessing.

You can start with a 30-day trial for $1.  After that, the subscription is $99 a month. There’s no contract and you can cancel at anytime.

My good friend, Joe Sangl, is the founder of I Was Broke. Now I’m Not. His goal is to “help people accomplish far more than they ever thought possible with their money”. He recently did a great blog series on Personal Financial Margin and how it positively and negatively effects our lives. I wanted to share this one post in particular because I know plenty of pastors and church leaders who do not have margin in their personal finances and I believe it effects their capability to minister to people and have healthy relationships.  To read the other posts in the series, click here.

Margin – Part 3 – Improved Relationships

Individuals who are against the wall financially for extended periods of time can many times hurt people in ways that they never would do if they had financial margin. I’ve seen business owners (with no margin) who completely lose their minds on a customer who owed them $1,000 even though they are late on $10,000 of bills to their own suppliers. They are agitated, angry, and threatening. But a third party could easily say that the business owner is completely out of line. What is causing this issue? No financial margin!

I’ve seen countless relationships injured or destroyed because of no financial margin. Children continue to borrow money from Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad demanding money from their children. Friendships. Business relationships. Working relationships. My bet is that you’ve seen it too and many of you have experienced it! It is incredibly hurtful and can cause enormous stress and heartache.

Here is the question of the day:

What would these situations look like if each person had financial margin?

Wouldn’t there be a lot less borrowing? Wouldn’t there be less heartache, pain, and agony?

Make the greatest investment into your peace and state of mind – establish financial margin!
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How would your ministry be different if you had financial margin?  How would your relationship benefit from having margin in your personal finances?

You can connect with Joe and his organization here.  They would love to help you and the people in your church add margin to their finances and find unbelievable freedom in their lives.

Our mission at Giving Rocket is to help churches have more money for ministry.  And along the way, we’ve had the opportunity to work with some other GREAT people.  These companies are blog sponsors and serve church leaders in a major way.  I’m proud to be associated with them.

MinisterSearch is a great company that can help you find your next staff member.

Secure Give can get you set up with digital giving and giving kiosks.

I Was Broke Now I’m Not is AMAZING when it comes to teaching the people in your church about personal finances.

LS3P Neal Prince Architects have designed some of the best church facilities in the country.  They are amazing.

I 100% recommend these companies.

This post is from my good friend, Sandy Gibbes, and one of our partners at GivingRocket.  He is a Project Designer for LS3P | Neal Prince. They partner with churches to help design buildings that function to reach their community and accomplish the vision of the church.  This is part 2 of post he wrote.  You can catch up on part 1 here.

What you need to realize as a church is that EVERYTHING you do communicates SOMETHING, from web to bulletins, from signage to facilities – a message is being communicated. Having a focused, clear and specific strategy will help change the culture of your church in a healthy way, from everything to involvement, to mission, brand implementation and definitely in GIVING. So here are the other two things that may help out with developing a strategy:

2. Reverse Your Perspective

This can be huge and is probably the most important. Many times (more often than not) we evaluate and develop strategies based on our own perspective. In other words, we make decisions based on what we “think” that our audience/church/family/friends needs or wants. “Hey let’s go do ‘this’ because it’s what they need/want”. But how do you really know? You have to reverse your perspective. Get away from an insider mentality and actually get into the minds and hearts of the “end users”. You do this by doing one thing. Asking. Embrace the awkward moment for a second and get over it. Get input from those IN your church (non-staff) and especially those OUTSIDE your church (Believers and Non-believers). You NEED to ask those outside your walls “What do you think about us, honestly?” and “What are we as a church saying to you as a community right now?”  If the responses are honest, they will startle you I’m sure. And better yet, they will challenge you on the way you communicate your message. Who do they say you are?

3. Stay Fluid.

This one is pretty simple. Culture changes and so will your communication strategy. It will change because your audience will change. You will change. Your church will change. People will come and go and the city and town that you are in will change – hopefully largely due to the fact that you were part of the change. But you have to be attuned to your audience and be in a constant state of evaluation. Be open to risk and reward will be open to you. The only thing that you can’t change is the Truth of the Gospel.

These are just a few things that I have learned over the years and have been able to be a part of in ministry and in mainstream. If you aren’t sure what you are communicating, let me know and I will try to get you in touch with those that can help. I know architecture, branding, and design, so I may be able to help as well – but if not, I’ll help you get in touch with the right people along the way. Just email me at sandygibbes@ls3p.com or hit me up on twitter @sandygibbes.

The pastor works hard on the sermon. The band rehearses the songs. At least, I hope both of those things are true in your church.

But there’s another important element in your church service that rarely gets attention, preparation or intentional thought? It’s the giving talk.

A giving talk is a 60-second or two-minute talk from a pastor, staff member or volunteer, that sets up the offering, connects the dots for participants, and gets everyone ready for what’s coming next. It’s an intentional, planned moment of explanation in your church service followed by a call to action.

You can learn more about The Giving Talk in this FREE REPORT. Simply enter your information below and get this free report.

One of the best things pastors can do to lead their church to financial health is to BE FINANCIALLY HEALTHY.

Seriously, if you’re crumbling under a mountain of debt, there’s no way that you can talk to your congregation with integrity and sincerity about what the Bible says about money. You’ve got to model it and you’ve got to live it.

One of the best ways I know how to do this is to set a goal and create a visual reminder. My friend, Joe Sangl, created the payoff spectacular for his house and he’s attacking his mortgage. Can you imagine how much you could do in the area of generosity if you didn’t have a mortgage payment? Can you imagine how you might be able to respond to a God-given opportunity if you weren’t burdened by debt? Take a look at Joe’s progress:

I love this chart because it’s a simple way to document and visualize progress. Paying off debt is a boring goal…coloring in squares somehow makes it more entertaining. Joe’s got several different charts available for free on his website. Maybe you should start on that credit card or auto loan.

My friend Jeff Kapusta documented his payoff journey on his blog. Not only did he do a great job, he was authentic and transparent with his church…that’s GREAT LEADERSHIP.

Jeff understands that you can’t take people where you haven’t traveled. If you want to lead a financially healthy church, take responsibility for your own personal finances.

What about you, pastor? Are you working hard on your PERSONAL finances?

Here are 3 things I know to be true.

1. The sooner people get connected to your church the more likely they will stay.
2. The more connected people are, the more they will give (and the more they give, the more ministry you can do)
3. Those connected to your church are the ones most likely to increase their regular giving.

That’s why I’m hosting a webinar with Jeff Pelletier, the church connections expert at FellowshipOne. Jeff was the small groups champion at Fellowship Church in Texas, where Ed Young serves as the pastor, and connected tons of people to small groups.

We know from experience that how well people are connected goes hand in hand with their giving.

On this 45-minute webinar, Jeff and I will talk about:

• Leveraging the summer to yield increased giving in the fall
• Connecting new visitors and long-time attenders
• Getting people to take real, practical steps

No matter what kind of church you lead, what size it is, or where you live in the world, these principles can make a difference in the health of your church. Learn how to connect people to your mission and vision in this valuable webinar. Register by filling out the simple form.