Reaching deeper to reach further

Through information gathered through GBC's financial services, one of the suggestions for increasing offerings is to mail out pink envelopes to people's homes. They tend to give more.

Think pink and pray.

Those are just two of the suggestions for churches who want to increase their giving.

"As offerings increase, so does the work of Christ increase throughout the world. This should be our motivation, not self-interest, for wanting our church's giving to increase," said Keith Hamilton, specialist with GBC Church Financial Services.

According to information gathered by GBC's church financial services, here are 14 suggestions for increasing offerings in your church.

• Prayer. An intentional prayer ministry will do more to increase offerings than any other emphasis of the church.
• Vision statement. According to the most recent surveys, churches that have a written vision statement grow faster than churches without a vision statement. "But just having a statement isn't what makes the difference. You have to be a church that believes in the vision," Hamilton said.
• Positive atmosphere. Church leaders need to create a positive atmosphere in the church. One way is to eliminate negative promotions like listing weekly budget requirements in the church bulletin or newsletter.
  "Even in the healthiest churches, the weekly budget requirements will not be met at least twice a month," Hamilton said. "By listing the requirements each week a church gives the impression they are not healthy. People are not motivated by negative budget requirements. People give to make a difference."
• Ministry action budget. A church budget based on ministry and not numbers will cause members to be excited about what God is doing in their midst.
• Offering envelopes. Believe it or not, giving church members a box of offering envelopes does increase giving. The best method, however, is to mail out a month's supply of envelopes each month. And, according to studies, people give more in pink envelopes than any other color.
  "Mailing pink envelopes out monthly can increase giving," Hamilton said.
• Business meetings. For most churches, changing from monthly to quarterly business meetings would increase giving in the church. Financial statements can be provided monthly, but the church needs to empower committees to make decisions between business meetings. Also, during business meetings, only matters involving church-wide issues need to be discussed with the love and grace of Christ.
• Missions-minded. A church focused on missions has little time for infighting and disagreements. People give to a church that focuses on others and on making a difference in the world.
• Offering at the end of the worship service. Worship service giving can increase 10 to 20 percent if the offering is collected at the end of the worship service instead of at the middle of the service.
• Offerings received in Sunday school. When individuals are accountable and loved by a small group ministry like Sunday school, they will give more to the church.
• Stewardship testimonies. If people hear from those who they respect and know about how God has worked in their lives concerning Biblical stewardship, then they are more likely to practice Biblical stewardship in their own lives.
• Empowered spending. Ministry leaders and church staff should be empowered to be able to spend the allocated money within their budgets without approval from a finance committee or church treasurer. Empowered spending eliminates one or two people controlling the finances of the church.

• Blessing your staff. A church that blesses its staff financially will be blessed. If the pastor does not have to worry about family financial concerns, then he will be able to focus more on ministry.
Try to out-give God. Church leaders should try to out-give God. Of course, this is impossible, but people want to be a part of a church focused on God and His ways.
• Revival services. A revival of God's people always leads to increased offerings.
• Teach biblical financial principles. Teach biblical Christian stewardship concepts and principles as an on-going ministry of the church. Believers need this spiritual instruction. Do not apologize for it.

The Church Financial Services team at GBC provides an integrated biblical ministry of legal, insurance, retirement, investment and tax matters to local churches. Seminars and other resources are available from this team.

A quarterly publication, called Tax-Fax, summarizes current Internal Revenue Services tax changes. To receive this free email resource, send an email request to dnorris@gabaptist.org. For information about other resources, call (770) 936.5295 or 1 (800) RING-GBC.

Church Financial Services work is funded through your gifts to the Cooperative Program.

You and your church may send Cooperative Program gifts to:

Dr. J. Robert White
Executive Director
Georgia Baptist Convention
2930 Flowers Road, South
Atlanta, GA 30341-5562

Joe Westbury

Mary Kate Smith, 4, of Hartwell First Baptist Church, drops her love gift into the offering plate as a missionary from Brazil answers questions in the background. GAs attending the birthday celebration learned about the importance of supporting others through the Cooperative Program.