How you answer the question, are your offerings boring, tells me everything about whether or not you will make budget this year. First, do you even think about the offering? When was the last time you spent any time thinking about or planning for the offering? Few pastors, worship leaders or staff ever give a thought about taking up the offering. Could the lack of planning and preparation be one reason why giving is declining?
Let’s make the offering interesting! I believe that offerings are an act of worship. I have never talked to any Christian leader who would disagree with me. However how we treat the offering says that we really don’t believe what we say about the offering. The typical offering gets little to no thought or planning. It is shoved to some corner of the service. If anything at all is said about the offering we typically tell guests that they don’t have to give. I hate that apology for a key aspect of worship, giving. What if we changed how we took up the offering? What if we made it, well, interesting?
I write weekly offering talks that I call Elevator Pitches. An elevator pitch is where in thirty seconds you tell someone what you do or what you are selling. In the Church we are not selling anything but we do have an amazing story to tell.
The thirty to sixty seconds before the offering is collected sets the tone for how the offering is viewed by those in attendance and ultimately what will be in the plates, basket or buckets.
So, let’s not waste that time. Let’s help people see how giving matters. Let’s show people the amazing life changing things that you are doing with the money they give to your church. I call it connecting the dots.
When you connect the dots between how money to your church changes lives people will give. When you tell your story your offering suddenly becomes more interesting. An interesting offering gives you a better chance of garnering a gift than a boring offering. An interesting offering makes it more worshipful. So let’s make our offerings interesting!
$1 will get you access for 14 days to my offering talk vault! I am trying to show people how to take up the offering. So for 14 days you can try my membership plan. You can access all the past offering talks and be on the list for my weekly personalized offering talk that goes out every Monday. To try my plan go to https://thestewardshipcoach.org/join-now/
I am on a mission to ban the boring offering. Let’s start with your church.
Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach