Let’s Make Your Easter Offering Special

It’s time to start thinking about Easter, the Easter offering that is. We are starting a mini-series focusing on the Easter offering. In this first Journal of the series, we want to make our case for thinking, planning, and praying for Easter on April 17^th. Covid taught us that the offering is no longer confined to Sunday morning at 11 AM. Rather than seeing this as a setback, we want to show you how having an Easter giving strategy can help assure your summer mission.

To begin with, let’s answer a few questions about special offerings since that is essentially what our Easter strategy is. After answering questions, we want to share with you the keys to a special offering.

1. Why Hold Special Offerings? First and foremost, Special Offerings give you the ability to recast your vision every time you do them. And that is important because dollars follow vision. When casting, we advise using the three Cs of vision. If you make your appeal clear, concise and most of all compelling, you WILL raise the dollars you need. So, the key is to treat every offering as an opportunity to cast your vision, which is especially true for special offerings.
2. What Constitutes a Special Offering? We must concede that we take up a lot of offerings! At least that is the view of many of your attendees. When we talk about special offerings, we mean making your regular offering special. There are certain times of the year that gives us an ability to make the offering special, i.e., large attended/engaged days, July 4^th landing on Sunday, etc.
3. Which Days Can Be Used as Special Offerings? The answer is any day you chose! However, again, there are certain days and times of the year that make sense. For instance…

• Holidays – New Years, Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.
• Special Needs – Think crisis relief offerings, mission appeals, appeals to fund specific ministries – like summer camps, etc.
• Catch-up offerings – These are a last resort and should be used only if you are in a financial crisis. If you do your work every week then your need for a catch-up offering should diminish.

4. What are the keys to a Special Offering? Here are some keys to a successful special offering.

• Planning! You can’t decide on Saturday night to hold a special offering on Sunday and expect great results. The more you plan out the special offering, the better chance you have for success. That is why we have started this series six weeks ahead of Easter!
• Vision! The more appealing the appeal, the better the results. Take the time to craft a compelling vision and you will see greater success. Check out the Bonus Section!
• Execution! It is not enough to have a plan! You MUST work that plan through all existing platforms and tell your story.

5. How would you make the Easter offering a Special Offering? Since Covid, the how of taking up the offering has changed but not the why. Churches that are seeing giving increase spend some time during their services focusing upon giving. We believe you can use this time to create a Special Offering moment. Let’s show what a gift to your church accomplishes. What if at the offering moment you highlighted some missions or ministry tasks that you need funds for. Since it is Easter and our thoughts are on children, why not focus the offering time on what you do for children? What if you put the focus on your Student Ministry? By highlighting ministry areas that shape our society in a positive way, you will be more apt to garner first-time donations.

If the “ask” is about helping you make your budget numbers, show why that is important. Focus upon what you do with the money that people give you. Budget education should not happen only when you are trying to get the year’s budget approved!

So, if your Easter offering is simply for your budget, focus upon what budget giving does. Break out the specific pieces and highlight their importance. It is as simple as saying, “Do you realize that your gifts allow us to minister to dozens of children, helping shape them to meet the challenges of the secular world we are called to live in?” The more effective you tell that story, the more people will willingly give to support your vision and work.

Sure, Easter is six weeks away and your tendency is to put this on the back burner. We want to encourage you to spend some time thinking, praying, and planning how to take this year’s Easter offering to a new height.