Saying Yes to the Easter Offering
I’m interrupting my series on the key lanes needed to build a culture of generosity by announcing we are five Sundays away from Easter! I have successfully used Easter as a means of increasing generosity with my playbook, Say Yes to Easter Giving: Making Plans for Your Best Easter Offering. This edition of the Coach is entitled Saying Yes to the Easter Offering. I’m praying this Coach will motivate you to say yes to your best Easter offering.
Let me start with the pushback I typically get when I talk about the Easter offering. Many are thinking, wouldn’t talking about money drive off a lot of those people attending or watching online? Here is my answer:
By telling your story of what God is doing at your church, touching lives for eternity, you can invite anyone to give financially to support your story. Americans are the most generous people on earth when motivated. It’s not that we talk about money that drives people away but how we talk about it.
My goal is to get people started on the stewardship journey with that first gift. I want to show them how their gift will make a difference, creating a willing desire to give within them. You are basically saying, here is what we are doing and why we are doing it and what it is doing. No pressure. No guilt. If we get that first gift, we can work on the next. How do you go about it?
“When they grasp the why of giving and see what giving can accomplish, they are all in.”
That is a comment from Pastor Jon Nelson, the Senior Pastor of Soma Community Church in Jefferson City MO. In an interview with Jon a few years back I asked him why telling your story was so important. His reply to one of my questions illustrates why telling your story is so important. Here is what Jon said was one of the biggest challenges for pastors:
“I find most pastors assume their audience is more biblically literate than they are. We need to assume they know nothing and start by answering the question, “Why do we give?” It is not enough to say the Bible says to give. We must tell them why it says that. I find this is especially important to younger generations. When they grasp the why of giving and see what giving can accomplish, they are all in.”
“We are commanded to give!” Amen! Yet, I find the biggest step to obeying that command is the first step. Trust me; I am not watering stewardship down. My goal is to move people towards radical giving. That starts with the first dollar given.
“Mark, it sounds like all you care about is money.” I have three replies to that. First, guilty as charged. I want your church, the church doing amazing ministry, to survive. That takes money.
Second, and more seriously, I want what money represents in us, our hearts. I know the value of a life lived as a steward. I want everyone to experience the joy of giving and its benefits.
Thirdly, avoiding the topic of stewardship is a disservice to your members as good stewards are always more financially secure than those that neglect this biblical practice. Where else should Christians learn stewardship if not in church?
And, after all, you will have an offering on Easter, either live or live streaming. So, why not make it one that makes a difference? Let’s use your Easter offering to increase stewardship at your church.
Hold a Resurrection Offering this Easter! In my playbook, Say Yes to Easter Giving, I share how to put together an offering plan with a goal to raise at least one additional week’s revenue, thus securing the second quarter of your ministry. I advise setting a focus for the offering on some aspect of missions or ministry, such as your Student Ministry. Then, we work to build a message through stories that show the why of giving. See the following Bonus Section.
We celebrate past victories and point to future needs to craft a story of life change across all our platforms. We thank them for their generosity that helped achieve those victories. We challenge them with a compelling need to continue supporting ministries like this. We “show” them missions and ministry in action and then say…
“Every time you give here, you support our work with students as well as all our other missions and ministries. Thanks!
Few churches think about using their Easter offering successfully. Down through the years, I have found some…
Common Easter Offering Mistakes Churches Make. Here is my shortlist…
- De-emphasizing the importance of taking up the offering. This doesn’t just happen at Easter but nearly every week for most churches in America. De-emphasizing the offering is a result of…
A. Not seeing the offering as a crucial part of worship. The offering IS worship, and when we downplay the offering, we cheapen worship.
B. Worrying that it will turn people off. It’s how we talk about money that turns people off, not that we talk about money. If you do it right, people will respond.
C. Business as usual approach. If you approach your Easter offering as you always have, don’t be surprised if it is not as successful as you would like. - Not planning out the offering. A lack of planning is the death of any good idea.
- Not making a case for the offering. This is true for each week’s offering but especially true on Easter.
Any church can have a successful Easter offering if you plan it out and have a compelling vision that motivates people to want to give.
I’ve done the work for you! I have just updated my Say Yes to Easter Giving. Get your copy at https://acts17generosity.com/store/.
Let’s help them grasp the why of giving this Easter!
Mark Brooks – The Stewardship Coach
mark@acts17generosity.com
OnlineGiving.org, the leading online giving processor in America, sponsors my writing. OG is owned and operated by committed Christians active in their local church. Find out more about their services at https://www.onlinegiving.org/. You can also read the blog post I wrote for them at https://www.onlinegiving.org/blog.