If I told you that if you do one thing and your giving WILL go up would you believe me? Would you read on? What if I told you that doing this one thing will cost you nothing but a bit of your time? What if I let another pastor tell you how doing only one thing increased their giving? Listen to this quote…
“Giving at our church can be summed up with one word: phenomenal! Giving is up 30%+ this year. We connect the dots every week, often using your ‘Elevator pitch’ from the Stewardship Coach. This has been life changing for our church as we no longer scrape around for money every week.” Brian Hughes Sr. Pastor PCC Church Powhattan, VA
The one thing Pastor Hughes did was change their approach to the offering! That’s it. If you will change your approach to the offering time I believe you will see giving increase. Let me break down how they made this one change work for them and how you can make it work for you.
Make the offering a priority. They made the offering a priority and stopped treating it as an afterthought. Everything else they did flowed out of the decision to change the way they took up the offering. Tell me how much time you spend on the offering and I will tell you if the offering is a priority for you or not.
Plan out EVERY offering. Next they did the one thing few churches do, they began planning out each offering. They went from the offering being perfunctory to being meaningful and worshipful. They started helping people realize what the offering DID and thus saw people willing give. I call that connecting the dots. Here is how Pastor Hughes describes it…
Connecting the dots every week makes all the difference. Every single week, we say, “When you give, this is what you make happen here…” and we point to some kind of tangible difference being made at PCC. You did that for us. Plus we quit apologizing.
Invite EVERYONE to participate in the offering worship. Notice above that Pastor Hughes stated that they quit apologizing. That is my phrase for what most churches say before the offering. Most say, “If you are a guest with us today don’t feel like you need to give. This time is for our members.” I call that the apology. Basically you are saying, “Please excuse this intrusion into your time of worship but we need to pause and ask our members to pony up.” Stop doing that! Your guest will see your members passing the plate without putting anything in it and figure out quickly that giving is optional. Instead of apologizing why not…
Show how a dollar given to your church is helping change the world and invite everyone to have a part in helping to change the world by generously giving today!
So, that is it. Do this one thing, improve your offering time, and your giving WILL go up. Want another testimony? Here is what another long time client who uses my Elevator Pitch offerings wrote me…
“While not every one of your Elevator Pitches has be specifically applicable to our context, every one of them has been an inspiration. I would guess that at least 50% of our introductions to the offering in worship have told SOME story of what God is doing with the contributions people are offering to God and the ministry. That is a 1000% change in our approach – which before your consulting has more often than not been a boring, canned and poorly thought presentation of the offering opportunity. We’re not where we need to be – but we have made HUGE strides, thanks to your encouragement.” Pastor Don Lincoln Westminster Presbyterian West Chester PA
Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach