Pray the Money In!

Several years ago, I wrote the following blog post on praying in money. While the thrust was for the weekly offering, the principles I laid out will also work for praying for a capital campaign.

Do you regularly pray for a full offering plate each Sunday? Isn’t it amazing how little we pray for some of the most crucial things? We know we need a fully funded budget, but do we really earnestly pray for the offering plates to be full? I fear that most don’t.

Here are some simple steps for praying for your church’s giving. Try these for the next few weeks and see if your giving does not increase.

First, give up the worry and anxiety you are having about making a budget by placing the results of every offering into God’s hands. God will provide a way for His Church. Our mantra should be to work hard and pray harder! Begin by thanking Him for what comes in, knowing He will not fail you!

Pray that all your God-given dreams will be fully funded through the generosity of your members. I always say we don’t fund God’s work by playing the lottery. God’s work gets funded by His people responding to the vision of what we are doing. Pray that your members “get” the importance of your ministry and thus willingly and cheerfully give to support it.

Pray that God will bless every gift. Years ago, when I worked for John Maxwell, he had a nationwide round table of key pastors. Tommy Barnett told us how he would lay hands on the offering envelopes every Monday and pray for God’s blessings for those who gave. What amazed many pastors was that Tommy told people he would do that from the platform before the offering! Not every church culture will allow that, and some things one pastor can do are not what we all should do. However, it should be our consistent prayer that God bless those who give.

Pray for all your businesspeople, that their businesses will thrive. I believe in trickle-down economics. When your business owners see an increase in revenue, they can be more generous. What would happen if your businesspeople knew you were praying for increased revenues? It could just change the way they view their business.

Pray for all those who give a gift for the first time. I believe in first-time giver strategies. What if one part of that strategy was praying for each first-time gift that God would bless them as a result of their gift and thus show them the wonders of generosity? My goal for first-time givers is to get them to give again. What better way than to pray with that in mind?

Pray for those on fixed incomes or low budgets that their gift would be multiplied. Every gift matters! Some cannot give as others, but all can and should give. Pray that those with the least to give will experience the blessings of God and thus be encouraged to continue to give.

A Prayer Challenge – Start today praying for this week’s offering. Then, encourage your staff and lay leadership to take up the challenge. Finally, encourage the whole congregation to make meeting budget a prayer challenge. Along the way, record the blessings and miracles that God provides.

Let’s start where we need to start and pray the money in!