Is Your Church Giving Connected to Your Mission?

Generosity is biblical. But unfortunately, since we’re expected to give our resources back to God, tithing and giving money to the church can easily feel overwhelming and compulsory. 

But if your church wants to live out your calling and make an impact, you can’t take giving for granted. You and your church members need to see the connection between what you’re given and what you can accomplish. Especially if you want to inspire more people to give. It’s a lot harder for people to practice generosity through your church if they think you’re just using their money to keep the lights on. 

Here’s what you can do to strengthen the connection between giving to your church and supporting your church’s mission.

Showcase the fruit of your ministry

Oftentimes, the only people who really know what your ministries are accomplishing are the volunteers and staff who serve in them. Many of the people in your church may have only a cursory understanding of the ministries you support, facilitate, and provide. They may be vaguely familiar with names but have little grasp of what your ministries actually do.

If you want people to care about supporting these ministries, you need to showcase what God is doing through them.

Stories are one of the most powerful ways to highlight what God is doing through your ministry. And while it can take years for those stories to emerge, a single testimony of a changed life can have an immeasurable impact. Whether you do it through video, an interview, or another format, sharing testimonies from your volunteers or the people you serve helps the rest of your congregation see why supporting you matters.

You could also simply share results, or provide an overview of what a ministry does, how it impacts people, and how it relates to your mission.

You don’t have to dedicate a significant portion of your service to this, either. You could talk about your ministries on social media, on your blog, in a newsletter, or just in a brief announcement. The point is to give your church greater visibility into what God is doing through you, so they can feel more confident about supporting you financially.

Talk about where the money actually goes

Your church members can choose to give to a lot of reputable ministries and charities doing incredible work around the world. Even when there’s a specific cause, need, or community they care about, there are multiple options. One of the biggest factors that determine where people give is trust—can they trust that their donation will be used wisely and that they can make a difference?

You don’t need to launch into a budget presentation every time you take the offering, but being transparent about where people’s money goes makes giving to your church and your ministries more comfortable. The impact becomes more tangible.

This is also an opportunity to highlight upcoming projects and goals, which helps people feel like they’re accomplishing specific mission objectives when they give.

Set up unique campaigns for your ministries and goals

You already have a detailed budget outlining how much resources you need to allocate toward each ministry and goal on your plate. So why not allow your congregation to contribute toward the parts of your church they feel most called to support? This helps people feel confident that their resources will be used for the things they care about most, and it directly connects their gift to a specific part of your mission.

Remind people about the impact they’re having

When someone gives to your church, they should feel like they’re involved in the work you’re doing. You can help instill that feeling by keeping them in the loop about the ministries they’ve supported and the results those ministries are producing. Pushpay makes it easy to do this through impact cards—dynamic content that appears in your church app and highlights the ministries a given church member has donated to.

Your mission matters

Your church believes in your mission. But sometimes it’s hard for people to see the connection between what they give and what you do. If you want to engage your congregation and increase giving, it’s time to make that connection more clear.

Connecting giving with your church’s mission doesn’t just require great strategies around storytelling, but also simple content marketing best practices to get your message across. Download the free ebook, Content Marketing for Churches, today. You’ll disover the strategies your ministry can use to inform and inspire people in your community and nurture deeper levels of connection and commitment.