Les McKeown is the author of Predictable Success, a book that has greatly influenced our company.  A little more than a month ago, we attended a one-day workshop in Boston with Les, and how he’s coaching us through some big issues.

The more advanced you are in your planning, the better things will be when you get there.

“It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.” Whitney Young

Fall is a great time to fund missional projects through a one-year financial initiative or a Christmas Offering (yes, we know its July) but planning for those takes preparation.

Start praying right now that God would give you clarity about something you need to do as a church.  As you pray, look at the needs within your church and community.  You might discover there is a church need that has been neglected for some time that you could address through a special offering.  You might discover that there is a community need, which would give you the opportunity to minister to both the physical and spiritual well-being of people.  If there aren’t any needs being neglected, maybe there’s something you are currently doing that could receive some additional funding to make it excellent.  A Christmas Offering is a great opportunity to fund the support of missionaries.  Whatever you choose, now is the time to start praying, discerning, and deciding on what you will do in the fall to seize the opportunity to increase funding for ministry.

When you decide what objectives or projects you’ll be doing as a church, let us know!

Are you currently friends with someone who had a bad first impression of you when you first met?  After your friendship progressed to the “honest” stage, he or she came clean with their initial thoughts of you:

• “When I first met you, I didn’t like you.”
• “I thought you were fake.”
• “You acted like an idiot.”

What changed?  How did you cross the divide from “I didn’t like you” to “We’re friends” in their eyes?  Simple—they got to know you.  They saw what you’re really like.  Time and conversation allowed you to dispel those negative first impressions.

Did you know that people have all kinds of negative first impressions of preachers?  Maybe TV is to blame.

There are lots of “Christian” stations on TV these days.  Flip through those stations at any given time, and you’ll find at least half of them airing preachers in the process of asking for money.  There’s nothing wrong with those channels.  And there’s certainly nothing wrong with asking for money (check last week’s article!).  But when I observe a TV preacher asking me to give, I’m ashamed to admit that I start making some pretty strong mental accusations:

• “This guy’s just money hungry.”
• “They’re all out to get rich.”
• “He’s probably a con artist.”

 I realize that’s hyper-cynical (and unfair).  But I, like most people, have read enough articles about TV preachers being investigated or arrested to make me more than just mildly suspicious.

That being said, many people who walk through the doors of your church are skeptical like me.  They don’t trust preachers automatically.  In fact, they may be lumping you in with the guy from TV who just got incarcerated!

Those people don’t need stronger finance sermons or invitations to give.  They need to get connected!  They need to be able to put stories with faces.  They need to see life change.  They need to be involved.  Utilized.  Needed.  Empowered.

 Statistics show that people who give time give money.  Your most consistent time contributors are your most consistent money contributors.  The correlation is obvious—they’re committed.

So the most important part of you beefing up your budget may be to identify some clear, purposeful next steps for people in your church to move from spectators to participants.  Instead of asking, “How can we get more money for ministry?” ask, “How can we get more people connected to our church?

Take some time.  Go on a planning retreat.  If you have a staff, take them to the mountains.  Brainstorm some easy steps for people to get involved.  Some folks need to use their brains.  Some need to use their backs.  But you need to have something for everyone, and they need to know what it is!

 Sure, you want people who attend your church to say:

• “The preacher gives great sermons.”
• “The music is wonderful.”
• “I love the programs.”

 But…it would be even greater if they said:

• “I’m a part of my church.
• “God is using me to carry on His mission through my local church.”
• “I have a role in God’s story.”

 Whether it’s landscaping or leading a small group, watching toddlers or welcoming people at the door, get people—and their bodies, brains, and hearts—involved.

When people are involved, I promise they’ll be way more likely to give!

 The Boy Scouts have a very easy motto: “Be Prepared.”  While it’s easy to repeat, it’s more difficult to actually do.

That’s why we’ve spent the last two blog posts helping you prepare for the fall.  It’s not too late to make sure that your fall finances are in great shape.  Today, we will help you get your fall financial course ready.

Offering talks, special offerings, and quarterly giving statements help remind people to give and help the church’s bottom line.  Offering your church a finance class, will help their bottom line.  Eventually, it will produce more generous people.  The number one reason why people don’t give obediently to the tithe is not because they want to hold onto the 10% that belongs to God.  It is because they don’t know how to manage the other 90%.  A finance course will help people learn how to plan their spending, get out of debt, save, and give generously.

There are a number of excellent programs to chose from. Your denomination may even offer one. We recommend Joe Sangl’s “Financial Learning Experience” and Dave Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University”. If you could choose anyone in your church to lead this course, who would be?  Once you have that name, ask them to lead!  Pick a date you will begin the course.  We suggest you work with the same schedule as your church’s other small groups.  That way, you can capitalize on the already-existing registration process for small groups. You’ll want to advertise this course 6-weeks prior to the start date.

When you select your class, let us know which one you chose and why!

 The late, great coach, John Wooden, said to do two things:  “Be prepared and be honest.”

Knowing the numbers helps you prepare to finish the year strong.

Here are a few of the numbers that you need to know:

1. Overall Giving

This number helps you track where you are compared to last year. It will also give you a projection for where you will be as you approach budget time.  Lastly, you can gauge your actual cash standing.

2. Overall Giving vs. Overall Spending

Do you know where your church’s finances stand right now?  This is something that you should evaluate each month.  It is also something that you should share with your staff each month.  That way, they will not be caught off-guard if you need to adjust the budget.

3. Digital Giving

The higher the percentage of digital givers, the healthier the finances.  Knowing this number helps you plan initiatives, like “Automate the Important,” to increase digital giving.

4. Non-givers and First-time Givers

This number will give you the ability to see how effective your overall financial system is.  You can plan a Tithe Challenge for the fall to help move givers forward in their generosity.

 While there are more numbers you need to know, this will definitely give you enough to think about as you prepare for the fall!

Proverbs 6:6 says, “consider the ways of the ant and be wise.”  The ant is wise because the ant prepares. Our next four posts will share four important things you can do to prepare for the fall.  After each post, we’d like for you to do some homework.  Complete each task, and let us know about it when you do.

Fall is a great time to connect with your leaders. Host a “Leadership Appreciation Event,” to celebrate, encourage, inform and disciple your leaders. The event can be exclusively for your generosity leaders or it could include your ministry area leaders.  Determine who to include based on the culture you serve.  Today we will share how you can plan for this event. Giving Rocket members received a complete ebook about hosting such an event.

First, select a date. 

You should probably wait until summer ends, but before too many school activities begin.  A Friday evening in early fall is a great time, people are more relaxed and less distracted.

Second, select your leaders.

Because this event will include your generosity leaders, you need to carefully determine who these leaders are and the standard you will use for making this determination.  One very specific way is to access your community’s demographic information and discover the average household income for your area.  There’s a great, free report you can obtain at www.link2lead.com that will provide this information.  When you have that number, just multiple it by 10%, and you’ll have a baseline for determining those who lead your congregation in giving.  This list will still be subjective and limited, but it will give you a great head start.  You can add to the list people who you know are giving in obedience to the tithe or sacrificially more than the tithe, but don’t appear on the list.

Your homework today is to select a date and select your leaders.  Post a comment so we can be praying for your event.

3 Ways To Get Out of the Money Pit

Have you hit a summer slump in attendance and giving?  Are you in need of some emergency work on your finances?  Today we’re offering financial triage.  Here are three things you can do to help relieve some of the financial burden you might be feeling right now:

• Maintain a long-term view

When summer is over, people will return.  When people return, giving will return.  This happens every year in almost every church.  So, don’t freak-out completely.  Better yet, use whatever freaking-out you’re experiencing to your advantage.  Use this summer to plan for next summer because, guess what?  The same thing will happen again next year.  When you maintain a long-term view, you should be able to forecast your shortfall pitfalls, and budget your spending around decreased giving.  OR, you could increase your giving during summer with an “Automate the Important” initiative.  That way, even when people are on vacation during the summer, their giving isn’t.  When you forecast better, summer won’t feel so hot.

• Spending Freeze

A spending freeze might be necessary to prevent heat exhaustion.  Review the past few years’ giving records to see when giving returns to normal levels.  Then, calculate whether you can make it until that timeframe.  If you can’t make it, stop spending money.  It’s alright to tell your staff that they can’t spend any money for a time.  Next year, you’ll be better prepared, but this year, you need to do what you need to do.  If your staff complains, tell them it’s better than losing their job.  In the process, you’ll better discover who can make a lot happen with little and who generally has a good and positive outlook.

• Cut the Budget

When finances get tight, it actually can make you better.  Tight finances force you to determine what isn’t working or who isn’t working.  Determine if that July event you typically offer isn’t working or the person who runs it isn’t working.  Summer’s financial slump should never replace the truth about a ministry or a person’s value, but it might give you an open door to address it.

• BONUS IDEA: Send-out a Mid-Year Giving Report

Sending a giving statement for the first half of the year will remind people to give. Along with the contribution statement, include a letter sharing about how your church is helping people and changing lives. Complete the form below for a sample you can cut and paste.

The following infographic comes from The Millennial Impact Report. Let’s take a look at a couple of highlights.

1. People prefer to give online. This correlates with our finding that offering online giving was the #2 factor in churches whose giving exceeds budget. Your greatest opportunity to engage donors is not in your church service (when people don’t have cash or checks) but online. Sadly, in our survey of more than 1,000 churches, 37% did not offer any form of online giving.

Action Step: Download the 2012 Church Giving Survey results and learn all five factors that help church giving exceed budget.

2. People want to know how their gift makes a difference. Giving to pay the pastors or the mortgage might be important, but it’s not very inspiring. And people who don’t give regularly to your church are even less inspired by paying the bills. You must engage people with a cause, and connect their giving to the bigger mission.

That’s why we advocate sending quarterly contribution statements that highlight the vision and ministry of the church, not just donation amounts. That’s why we advocate sending a personal thank you note, connecting someones first time gift to the larger mission. Regular communication, attached to the vision of the church, will inspire people to stay connected in generosity.

Action Step: Check out What Happens When You Give, a unique, all-in-one, thank you note and inspirational booklet.

In 2006, Waffle House made a big move.  No longer was it a cash only establishment as it had been since its inception in 1955.  It purchased the technology to accept Visa and MasterCard.  Bring on the plastic, people, and save your change for the jukebox!

Waffle House’s leadership saw a problem, and they tackled it directly.  They wanted more money, so they utilized technology to achieve that goal.

Church today isn’t facing a similar problem—it’s facing the exact same problem.

I didn’t eat at Waffle House because I didn’t have cash, and many people don’t give to their churches because they don’t have cash.

Here’s another way to put it: most churches take cash and checks only.  Most people never have cash or checks on them.

 A couple weeks ago I spent an afternoon at a Barnes and Noble bookstore.  I paid particular attention to people in the checkout lane.  I wanted to see how many of them paid with cash.  In two hours, I saw one person pull actual bills out of his wallet (must be on the Dave Ramsey plan!).  Everyone else: swipe and go!

There’s certainly nothing wrong with carrying cash or stroking checks.  The goal is not for you to remove opportunities for people to place those things in your offering bucket.  The goal is for you to add new methods for people to give in different ways.

The easier you make it for people to give to your church, the more people will give to your church. 

Conversely, the more difficult it is to give, the less people will give.  So why not take some steps to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible?

#1. Get a Kiosk.  When you read the word kiosk, do you break into nervous cold sweats?  It’s a strange word, but it’s not brain surgery.  Kiosks allow your church to accept debit card payments on the spot.  Creating that simple option will increase your tithing instantaneously.  But you must embrace the technology.

Would putting a kiosk in your church lobby seem equal in your congregation’s eyes to putting in an alien space ship?  Here’s a simple fix—don’t call it a kiosk.  Call it a “Giving Station” or the “Debit Card Tithing Area.”  Get churchy with it.  Call it the “Electronic Stewardship Space.”

There are great companies out there that can help you get started (check out securegive.com).  If you’re worried that credit card givers will dig themselves deeper into debt, you can set up to accept debit cards only (no credit cards).  How many people do you know give their way into debt?

#2. Offer Automated Recurring Giving.  Automated Recurring Giving sounds just as crazy as kiosk, doesn’t it?  Automation allows people to get online and set up their tithe to draft from their bank accounts on a recurring basis—weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.  Your church needs to have this service available on its website!

I—like everyone else—used to write checks to pay my bills.  Because I’m not naturally structured and systematic, however, I would often forget certain bills or pay them late.  When I discovered that I could set up bill paying online—and actually set the draft date from my bank account for most bills—it was equal to the day I discovered the Butterfinger Blizzard from Dairy Queen!  Knowing that all my bills are being paid—and paid on time—that’s awesome!

I think paying my mortgage is important, and I think tithing is important.  So both of those payments are deducted from my bank account online.  They both happen on set dates each month.  And they both actually happen!

Some objections: “You’re making it too easy.”  “If there’s little effort, is it truly a sacrifice of the heart?”

When the earthquakes devastated Haiti in 2010, Red Cross expedited relief efforts by allowing people to text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 bucks.  The amount they raised?  $7 million dollars (read the full article here: http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/14/technology/haiti_text_donation/index.htm)

I texted.  Twice actually.  Was it too easy?  Did it not come from my heart?  Because I didn’t write a check and mail it to Red Cross, did that make my contribution less valuable to them, or less meaningful to me?  I don’t think so.  What it did was allow me to be a part of a $7 million dollar relief movement.

Kudos to Red Cross for the idea.  And kudos to you if you allow people to be a part of the movement of giving to their local church.  Every time they give, it does something in their hearts.  And whether it’s cash or a kiosk, a check or a recurring deduction, a passed bucket or an open iPhone, they will feel it.  And they will be playing a part.  And you will have more money to effectively reach, touch, rescue, encourage, and minister to people.

Waffle House did it.  You can, too!

Giving Rocket members get coaching on all this and more.  Try 30-days of membership for just $1.

I recently attended another church as a first-time guest.  When it came time for the offering, the minister got up, announced the offering, prayed a quick prayer, and the plates were passed.  I was sitting in the back row, and had no plans to give money, but the guy in the pew in front of me had other plans.  He had a wad of cash he wanted to give.  However, he had nothing to put it in so he could receive credit for it.  So, he made the dash to the pew rack behind him, grabbed a very small envelope, and then hurriedly tried to fill-out the envelope.  Before he could finish stuffing the cash into the envelope, the plates were already past him.  The ushers had to wait for him to finish.

This is a true story, and this should never happen in your church during the offering.  You should never receive an offering without doing these three things first:

• Give People Time to Prepare Their Offering

Those who bring their offerings on Sunday and still use checks or cash will probably need time to get it ready.  A simple way to give them time is to say: “In just a few moments we’re going to continue in worship by receiving an offering.  If you haven’t prepared your gift already, we want to encourage you to do so now.”

• Thank People Who Already Gave

I’m not talking about people who gave at an earlier service; I’m talking about people who gave by digital giving or automatic bill pay.  Thank those who are consistently generous by saying:  “As you’re preparing your gift, I want to thank those who’ve already given online via the website or mobile phone and those who’ve already given by automatic bill pay or debit.  Thank you so much for your faithfulness and generosity.”

In addition to creating more time and thanking those who’ve given digitally, you have informed the rest of the congregation that there are more options for giving than just cash or check.  Why is this important?  The higher the percentage of digital giving, the healthier your finances will be at your church.  Make digital your default!

There’s one more thing to do:

• Share With Them a Scripture, Story, or Stat

This is an opportunity to share with people the importance of giving.  It explains the “why” behind the “what”.  Every week you should share a Scripture that relates to giving or generosity, a story that inspires generosity, or a stat from your church or something else that moves people to give.

Giving Rocket provides weekly giving talks for members each week.  We do the creative work for them and provide a script they can use each week.  Try membership for 30 days for just $1 and get a month’s worth of Giving Talk scripts for your church.  Click here to get started.