by unSeminary: Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast! Today we are joined by Jim Sheppard, CEO of Generis. Generis is in the business of helping churches and ministry organizations with giving development. They’ve been around for a little over 30 years and are most known for their giving campaigns as well as coaching churches in developing an ongoing culture of generosity.

Jim is with us today to talk about what he’s seeing as he speaks with a broad spectrum of churches across the country, and how churches can plan well financially for an unknown future.

Be intentional about the offering. // Around March 15, 2020 the coronavirus shutdown caused nearly all churches across the country to suddenly shift to remote services, leaving many unprepared as to how to handle the offering. As a result that first weekend was terrible financially for many churches. They didn’t pay enough attention to the giving moment during their online-only services, instead assuming that people would just “get it”. Suddenly giving dropped by 80% for some churches and they realized that if this trend continued while they couldn’t physically meet, they’d be broke in a matter of weeks. During moments like these, it’s important for churches to be specific when talking about the offering, and don’t assume that people who don’t give electronically will suddenly start doing so. Make a plan ahead of time so people have options and understand what they are.Increase your online giving. // Since the initial lockdown, many churches have seen a surge in giving. Not only has their giving returned to normal, it may be even better than where it was last year at this time. The churches that have made online giving easy have faired the best in this season. There are many robust options for third party online giving that are currently available to nonprofits. Make it a point to encourage more people at your church to give digitally to avoid the types of interruptions that can come during this type of season.Get an accurate picture of your giving. // Jim’s concern for churches right now is that people might be getting a little too comfortable with the giving rhythms that they’re seeing. When the government liquidity gets pulled out of the market, what new dynamics will we need to pay attention to? Some of your core donors may have stepped up in this season and given what they’ve committed to earlier than planned, but it may not change the overall picture at the end of the year. Take the one time surge of giving out of your numbers so you can discern how well giving is really going at your church.Build your reserves. // Take this season to be building your reserves. If your giving seems to be going well and your expenses are down while you’re not regathering, then take that money and put it aside as much as you can. You should have a minimum of three months worth of reserves. Think in terms of what thirteen weeks of reserves looks like for you. Setting aside reserves will help your church not to panic when you encounter times like the current one. Furthermore, make sure that you have a policy for spending reserves in addition to accumulating reserves. You don’t want to strip all of your cash out, but if you need some extra, it’s there for you.Increase revenue. // If your church isn’t in a place where you have extra to put aside for reserves, it’s time for the pastor to begin to cast vision around why this is important in order for the church to continue its mission. Cast vision to your higher capacity givers and your faithful core givers in particular because this message, while not glamorous, will really resonate with them.Plan for the worst. // Be prepared with an action plan before you might ever see a dip in giving. Determine what specific numbers will kick things into action and model out what this will look like through the end of the year. How will you cover your expenses? How will you continue to flourish and thrive? Plan now for a worst case scenario so that you aren’t behaving in a reactive way if it ever happens. Having a plan A, B and C enables you to be proactive no matter what scenario you encounter.

To learn more about Generis and how they can help your church, visit their website at generis.com or ” target=”_blank”>email Jim. You can also download their ebook Beyond: Forward Focus, Planning the Critical Next Seasons for Your Ministry.

Thank You for Tuning In!

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries

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Source: Navigating Your Church’s Next Financial Phase with Jim Sheppard

The post Navigating Your Church’s Next Financial Phase with Jim Sheppard appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Rich Birch: Church leaders in prevailing churches think of themselves more like scientists testing theories than bakers applying a prescribed recipe. Rather than looking for the “perfect” strategy for your church, it’s better to consider your practices as a series of experiments and then watch the results. While it’s important to learn from other churches and incorporate “best practices” from organizations, your church is a unique culture, and therefore you need to employ a “uniquely you” strategy to connect with the community you are trying to reach!

3 Reasons Summer is the Perfect Time to Try Something New at Your Church

Easing Attendance // Most churches see a slight pull back in attendance during this season. This means that the logistics side isn’t as taxed as other times in the year, making it easier to try something new.
Program Reduction // Similarly, churches often cut back on their programs during the summer, which means that the leadership and staff have more energy and time to try something new.
Fall is Coming // Most churches see the time between Labor Day and Christmas Eve as a critical season in the life of the church. Leveraging the period before that season to improve your ministry is a great use of your time.

Are you looking for a few new or different practices to possibly test this summer to see the results in your church? Here are four testable items that you could experiment with over the summer and then make changes to improve your ministry in the fall.

Try Something New with Your Announcements

There are five precious minutes in your service that are solely intended to move people to action. The announcement time is a high leverage opportunity to encourage your people to move from where they are to where you want them to be. It really is the quintessential leadership moment during the service. However, it’s usually under-planned and under-utilized in most churches. You’re missing out on the opportunity to make sustained progress in your church simply because you’re not leveraging those critical moments in your service.

Rather than relegating the announcement portion of the service to just one person, a growing trend in thriving churches is to use a team of two co-hosts. This summer, what if you experimented with co-hosts during all your weekend services?

5 Benefits of Co-Hosts for Your Announcements

Requires Practice // The only guaranteed way to get better at this part of your service is to practice. When two people make the announcements, it requires them to talk through the elements and practice together, which in turn improves the announcements. This part of the service is about moving people to action and getting them connected. It deserves to be well thought-out and executed effectively!
Increases Diversity // As a church grows, it needs to appeal to a broader community. One way to do this is to have a variety of people on stage at your church. If it’s all “guys” on the stage, you may be unintentionally sending the message to ladies that they are less welcome in your church. If everyone on stage is over 65, you communicate to the next generation that there isn’t room for them. Co-hosting increases the diversity of people on stage. Take this opportunity to appeal to a broad group of people.
Builds Influence // The people who are on stage gain influence in your church. People see them and begin to trust them. Although we don’t want the stage to be a shortcut around the “hand-over-hand” work of building a church, it is a valuable tool for increasing the profile of leaders on your team. Regular hosting helps people to know, like, and trust leaders.
Trains Leaders // Constantly training others and releasing ministry to them is central to our role as church leaders. Often, roles like this require “public face time” that we’re hesitant to give away because we’re not sure how to train people. Resist this temptation! Bring another leader on stage to co-host with you and have them start by doing just one part of the announcements. Putting them in front of people will be an adjustment. As hosts get more comfortable, and as you become more confident in their abilities to move people to action, give them more elements of the announcements. As their proficiency grows, you can hand off the responsibility of raising up other co-hosts to them.
Departure Insurance // The people who are with you today won’t necessarily be with you in the future. All leaders are temporary to some extent as people move on for one reason or another. If you have the same host in front of your community all the time, it makes these inevitable transitions more difficult. Sharing the stage exposes people to a range of leaders and can help you down the road when you need to move people to a different seat on the bus. Obviously, you don’t want to put leaders who are a high “flight risk” in front of your people, but having co-hosts helps expand the group of leaders people are used to seeing on weekends.

Looking for more help trying this experiment at your church? Download this PDF on co-hosting announcements that includes tips from a team that’s done it!

Experiment with Different First-time Guest Gifts

An early step in most churches’ processes for helping new guests get connected is to offer them a free gift in exchange for their contact information. The purpose of these gifts is simply to encourage your guests to “raise their hand” and indicate that they are new. Knowing exactly what gift to offer your guests can be a bit of a mystery, and sometimes it seems much more like an art than a science.

When our church switched from one gift to another we saw a 500% increase in the number of first-time guests that submitted their contact information! Clearly, it’s important to get this gift right! However, due to the expense of these items you want to make sure you’ve experimented with a few different gifts to see which one garners the best response.

3 Factors to Consider for First-time Guest Gifts

Perceived Value // At the core of this transaction is the perceived value of the gift that guests will receive in exchange for their contact information. What you’re looking for is high perceived value but lower actual cost. Design and presentation are often factors in this equation.
Brand // There is a delicate balance in how this item relates to your brand. Real estate agents are notorious for handing out all kinds of swag to people around town. But ask yourself, when was the last time you wore that t-shirt from them? If the items you give to your guests are overly branded to your church, it won’t feel like a gift but an advertisement.
Cost // As a rule of thumb, the number of guests who attend your church in a year should be equal to your average weekend attendance. So, if your church averages about 500 people every weekend, then you should be averaging about 10 first-time guests every weekend. This is important because whatever item you end up choosing to give as a gift, you’ll need lots of them over the course of a year. For this reason, testing the response to the gift is important because you’ll most likely end up investing quite a bit in it.

What if this summer you picked two potential first-time guest gifts and then tried one of them for a month and the other one for the second month? Closely track the feedback on the gifts. Which gift received the higher number of total guests picking it up? Also, listen carefully to the guests’ feedback on the gift at the guest kiosk or wherever the gifts are handed out. Record all the comments that are made throughout the month. After just two months of testing, you should have a better idea of what to give to your guests going forward!

3 Common Items Prevailing Churches Use for First-time Guest Gifts

T-Shirts // People love free t-shirts. It almost seems like it’s embedded in our culture! These relatively low-cost items do carry a high perceived value. The design can be done in such a way that it communicates about your church but doesn’t overwhelm the guest.
Coffee Mugs (& Travel Cups) // Coffee continues to be a culturally acceptable addiction. Many churches make up mugs or travel cups featuring their logo and find that these functional gifts are a hit with their guests.
Water Bottles // Staying hydrated is important! Many churches find that elegantly branded water bottles are a practical gift that their guests love!

Looking for more help with gifts for first-time guests? Check out: First Time Guest Gifts: 26 Lessons from 33 Churches

Test Changes to Your Offering Talks

Most churches take an offering at some point during their services. Churches looking to make an impact in their communities invite people to join their mission by giving back to God. How you deliver this part of your service is one of the pieces of the generosity puzzle. Do it poorly and the finances at your church will suffer. Do it well and you will see a rise in the giving at your church.

What if this summer you tested an assumption or two about how you do the offering talk? There might be a better way to do this element of your service. Maybe there is a way to do the offering talk that would encourage more generosity from your people. There could also be a way to do it that feels more in line with the mission and vision of your church. Here are a few different offering talk tweaks you could test this summer:

3 Offering Talk Tweaks to Test

Before or After the Message // Some churches have seen a change in giving depending on the placement of the offering during the service. Specifically, why not test its placement before or after the message? This data might be helpful for you down the road as you’re looking to make-up small financial shortfalls that can happen from time to time.
With or Without an Offering Talk // The best practice is to take the two minutes before the offering to slow down the service to thank people for giving and to connect their gifts to the vision of the church. But what if you could quantify the difference this is making in the life of your church? Take a month to craft pitch perfect offering talks and then do another month where you don’t emphasize the offering at all. What difference does it make both to the revenue and the feel of the service?
Digital Giving // What if you took a month to specifically show people how to give digitally? Maybe you have a new “text-to-give” service that you want to test out. Try pitching that option for a month and see what difference it makes; then don’t mention it for a month and see what happens.

Looking for more help with the offering talks at your church?

6 Common Problems with Offering Talks and How to Fix Them
8 Elements of Effective Offering Talks (Plus 8 Example Scripts!)
Offering Talk 201 // An Advanced Strategy for Encouraging Generosity at Your Church

Examine What Happens If You Change Your Meetings

Stop and think about how much of your time is spent meeting during an average week at your church. Now do some quick math to calculate that across your team. That’s a lot of time! Although it can seem like a “plumbing” issue of how the church does its work, in many ways the meeting culture of your church could be a make-or-break aspect of what is either pushing your ministry forward or holding it back.

You need to ensure that your team is being a good steward of that meeting time.

The meeting culture in your church is like a garden; sometimes you need to pull out the weeds in certain areas and sometimes you need to add a little fertilizer to others. There are meetings that you probably need to get rid of altogether or maybe there are other meetings you need to do more of. The summer season is good time to change up your routine in this area because your team is often in flux with vacations and other commitments.

Try These 3 Experiments with the Meetings at Your Church and See What Happens

Make Every Meeting Optional // Seriously, tell people they don’t have to come to any meeting and see what happens. Get your leaders on board for ensuring the work of the church still gets done but make it evident that people aren’t “required” to come to any meeting. You might be surprised what your leaders do to ensure that people show up.
Cut Every Regular Meeting in Half // What would happen if you only had 50% of the time to complete the regular meetings every week? Would the work still get done or would the wheels come flying off the church? We did this a few years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised that our productivity went up, not down!
Try Remote Meetings // What if your team wasn’t all located in the same town? Try some meetings using remote collaboration tools like Zoom or Slack. We often only envision the work of the church being done by people who are in the same building as us. However, considering the potential to take some of your functions to a remote team can open up all kinds of interesting possibilities for the future of your organization.

Download this FREE PDF to help your team think about the meeting culture at your church: 5 Healthy Meeting Habits in High Performance Church Teams

Source: 4 Experiments to Run this Summer to Help Your Church This Fall – unSeminary

The post 4 Experiments to Run this Summer to Help Your Church This Fall appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Rich Birch: Around 65% of people are visual learners. [ref] That means that the majority of people attending your church take in information more effectively when it is in the form of images rather than text. This reality has huge implications for your church that many leaders aren’t considering today. So much of what we do in churches isn’t adapted for the visual learners in our crowd, and as a result much of what we are communicating isn’t as accessible or memorable for those who are visual learners.

If you aren’t actively thinking about how you can “show, don’t tell” what your church is trying to communicate, you are simply missing the majority of people in your church.

Consider these facts about the power of imagery in relation to the style of communication at your church [ref]:

The brain can see images that last for just 13 milliseconds.
Our eyes can register 36,000 visual messages per hour.
We can get the sense of a visual scene in less than 1/10 of a second.
90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual.
Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.
40 percent of nerve fibers are linked to the retina.

I’m convinced that too much of what we do in church doesn’t take this core fact about the way many people prefer to communicate into consideration. Our churches frequently use too many blank slides with text on the screens. We stand in one spot to talk at people and assume that they are taking in what we’re saying. We ask people to stare at words on a page but don’t think about the importance of ensuring comprehension of the context of those words. Here are three ways your church can step up your visual appeal starting right now. You’ll see an almost immediate increase in engagement!

Your messages will be more memorable with a great prop.

Next time you prepare a message ask yourself this simple question: “What prop could I bring on stage with me during this message to make it more memorable?” A well employed prop can help drive home the core ideas in a way that words simply can’t. Props can also engage the creative part of a person’s mind and take the meaning to a deeper level.

Take a moment and think about the 46 parables of Jesus. At the center of his communication style was the use of powerful imagery and it’s not hard to imagine him pointing to or holding objects to express the deep meaning he was attempting to convey. Here are just a few examples that come to mind:

New wine in old wineskins (Luke 5:37-38)
Rich man foolishly builds bigger barns (Luke 12:16-21)
Sower and four types of soil (Matthew 13:3-8, 18-23)
Mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32)
The sheep, gate, and shepherd (John 10:1-5, 7-18)
Signs of the future from a fig tree (Matthew 24:32-35)

3 Tips for Using Props in Your Message

Practice // Holding something in your hand in a way that people can see it can be a little tricky to do. Doing that while you’re still attempting to make a point is a whole other level. You’ll need to run through this a few times to get used to it. (Believe me!)
Core Point, Not Frill Idea // Ensure the prop you use relates to the core idea of your message, not as window dressing or “entertainment”. If it’s not an essential part of the message, it will seem like a “frill” to your audience.
One Prop Per Message // Don’t confuse people with multiple props, particularly when you first start using these tools. You risk watering down the effectiveness of an image by having too many of them.

Make your offering talks more sticky with visuals.

Prevailing churches use the minutes in the service before the offering is received to connect people’s giving to the vision of the church. They leverage those moments to help people understand that their gifts to the church make a difference. Don’t rush this portion of your service; rather, slow it down and punctuate it! Don’t miss the opportunity to leverage these moments to help your church move towards being fully funded. Make your offering talks even more sticky by adding compelling visuals to really drive home the message and motivate people towards a more generous lifestyle!

3 Ways to Add Visuals to Your Offering Talks

Always Use a Slide // Don’t ever (EVER!) have an offering talk that doesn’t feature a slide of some kind at the same time. Talking about how giving helps fund the youth ministry? Display a picture of a recent youth event. Explaining that a portion of the offering goes to fund missions work in Guatemala? Show a picture of the country! The offering is a very tangible part of the service, so make it even more approachable with an image!
Props // Using a prop during the offering will amplify curiosity and engagement. This is particularly helpful when you’re highlighting the funding for a specific aspect of a given ministry. Talking about funding a summer camping trip the young adults group is going on? Bring a backpack on stage with items that they might pack. Doing a year end campaign around adding some elements to your kids’ ministry? Bring some of the items that you are looking to add on stage with you.
A Guest or Two // Although another person is not really a “visual” in the strictest sense of the term, having a guest join you for the offering talk is a great way to add some visual variety. Are you funding an upgrade to your parking lot? Bring a member of the parking team on stage (in their safety vest of course!) to answer a few questions about how the upgrades will benefit your guests! Want to connect the dots for people on how their funding affects the “normal” stuff of the church building? Bring up someone who was “new” to the church in the last year and interview them about what they remember from their first visit. Then you can point out all the aspects of the building that they commented on!

BONUS: Offering Talk 201 // An Advanced Strategy for Encouraging Generosity at Your Church // Check out this post for examples of some very visual offering talk set ups! These videos are a great way to introduce the offering at your church.

People need to “see” the vision of your church.

Why does your church exist? What is the big idea motivating what you do as a church? What is unique about your church that isn’t true of other organizations in your town? The story of what drives a church often includes visual elements, but ironically those ideas get flattened down to just concepts. The stories behind the “why” of churches are often times very compelling. I’ve heard stories that talk about the early days of a church when the leader sold tomatoes door to door to pay for the start-up, and while that leader was selling tomatoes they would ask what needs the church could meet in the community. Or how about a church that was started when a leader was struck by all the families that were unable to attend church because they were busy taking their kids to soccer every weekend? So many origin stories are rich in visual imagery that can be used and retold to push the vision of the church forward.

4 Churches Using Powerful Imagery to Spread Their Vision

Crossroads Church // Check out this industry leading “About Us” page from this church. It invites you to scroll through the vision of the church, and at every stop you are shown a compelling image that gives you a better sense of what makes the church unique. Each “vignette” is mostly imagery with a small amount of text to make the message clear and memorable.
Red Rocks Church // Drop by this church’s “Stories” page to see the mission in action! Many churches have video testimonies on their websites that feature amazing stories of life change, but what this church does goes beyond the typical “person sitting in a chair talking to the camera” type video. These stories of life change illustrate what’s important to the church and presents them in a powerful way!
Traders Point Christian Church // How does a church honor its past while still pointing towards the future? Check out this church’s “I’m New” video that explains the history of the church. Watch carefully as the history of the past is framed in the mission of the church for the future. This church does a masterful job telling its entire story while inviting people to be a part of it!
Liquid Church // Some people love infographics! The infographic on this “Our Story” page does a solid job capturing the years and years of this church’s history. The flow here helps to celebrate the past but does so in a manner that points to the forward movement of the church. It’s like every step of the past builds on each other to bring us to today!

Bonus: Use fewer words in your emails.

The irony of this post isn’t lost on me so I’ll try to bring it to a close with this idea: Stop sending your people emails that are paragraphs and paragraphs long. Break up your text with bullet points and lists like this long post. Look for an arresting image to send with a small body of text to grab their attend. People are not most likely reading those long emails you’re sending them!

Download PDF Article

Source: 3 Important Ways Your Church Should “Show, Don’t Tell” – unSeminary

The post 3 Important Ways Your Church Should “Show, Don’t Tell” appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Rich Birch: There are five precious minutes in your service that are solely intended to move people to action. The announcement time in your church service is a high leverage opportunity to encourage your people to move from where they are to where you want them to be. It really is the quintessential leadership moment during the service. However, it’s usually under-planned and under-leveraged in most churches. You’re missing out on the opportunity to make sustained progress in your church simply because you’re not leveraging those critical five minutes in your service.

Over time, bad habits creep in and loom large on this aspect of your services that neutralize the efficacy of announcements. These habits reduce this part of the service – from potentially maximizing an incredible opportunity of getting people plugged into your church’s mission to an incredible waste of time. If your church can eliminate these 5 unhealthy habits from its system, the impact of your announcements will soar exponentially!

You’re Talking About the Weather … way too much!

All communicators know what you need in order to build rapport with your audience. You’re looking for quick ways to make a strong connection with the crowd that’s in front of you. Chances are that everyone has experienced the same weather that you did on the way in, so you quickly make some random comment about the sunshine or the rain – or whatever else you’ve just experienced.

Stop it … it’s lazy. Unless there’s something truly remarkable about the weather, like a history creating storm, talking about the weather is just verbal diarrhea and besmirches the effectiveness of your announcements. It’s loose, excessive and doesn’t help anyone. People know what the weather is like, and what you are experiencing most days is pretty much what they’ve experienced the day before. It’s really not something your audience connects with you over. It’s like saying:

Wow! Isn’t there a lot of oxygen in this air today?
How many people are thankful that the sun came up today?
Hey friends, hasn’t all this gravity been weighing us down lately!

While the urge to talk about the weather comes from a good place, you instinctively go there because you somehow feel the need to break the ice with your audience. By all means, do attempt to build a bridge with your audience, but resist the temptation of stating the obvious. Here are a few more effective ways to make an emotional connection with your audience:

Eye Contact // Studies have proven time and again that the best way to effectively engage with an audience is when the speaker actually looks people in the eye. Slow down and actually notice people!
Stories // Our minds are hardwired to lean in and listen to a good story, so you might as well use that to your advantage. Draw your audience in by weaving your announcements through a narrative arc to come across as someone they can relate to. As you do that, your people can’t help but listen!
Humor // I know being funny is hard. It takes insight and perfect timing to deliver a joke well and not come off as a hack. Hone this skill over time and it will surely draw your people in.
Availability // Finally, this might seem obvious, but people tend to listen to people they know. This is why at weddings, you can listen to people you love break every known rule of communication and still enjoy the speeches. On the other hand, if you don’t know the best man you can’t wait for them to sit down! Whoever is delivering the content during your services needs to be “known, liked and trusted” by your people; this means they need to available to build a relationship with them. At the bare minimum, your hosts can’t be sitting in a green room somewhere before and after the service but be out there to mingle with your community!

You’re Talking About Too Many Things!

If the announcement time looks like a never-ending shopping list, you’re doing it wrong. The human mind is simply incapable of retaining more than one or two “next steps” that it should take so you are wasting your time going beyond that in your announcements. As you start making multiple demands on the memory of your audience, they start unplugging from the information. Attention is a precious commodity that you are managing as a communicator. Don’t push your people to focus their attention on too many items, or they won’t focus it on anything!

At the core of reducing the number of items that are a force-fit in the announcements is a robust approach to telling ministry departments that they can’t get stage time. In my experience, an effective way to do this is by ensuring that department leaders know the variety of other channels they can use to reach out to their people. This includes (but isn’t limited to) channels like:

Direct Mail // It’s old fashioned, but still works. People like stuff that isn’t bills!
Social Media // Facebook, Twitter & Instagram are great places to start!
Email Marketing // Yes, it still is the most effective way to drive “calls to action”.
Foyer Chaos // Doing something cool in the church foyer to attract people’s attention!
Phone or Text // Be it automated or done by people – it’s still a great way to grab people.

Most churches should be moving towards just one “announcement” every week that isn’t the offering talk or “new here” welcome. You’re already trying to get people to take some sort of takeaway from the main message during the service, so you don’t want to inundate people with too many other distractions. The act of narrowing down the focus of the announcements to just one item will drive more intentionality and purpose into your entire church communication process. Be bold and strive for that level of clarity!

Your People Don’t Care About Your Plans or Goals … REALLY!

So, the youth group is planning a trip to the local theme park next month. Yawn! New small groups are starting next week and there are sign up forms in the foyer. Boring. We’re starting a new series on the book of Jonah next Sunday. Snooze.

Humans are inherently self interested beings. We only really pay attention to things that we perceive are going to impact us. Every announcement needs to start from the perspective of “What’s In It For Me?” (WIIFM?) for your community. Each announcement needs to be framed as a potential benefit to the listeners. You need to move beyond the mundane details and cut to the chase by clearly demonstrating why your people should care. Here are some examples that might help you do just that:

The youth group is heading to the local theme park next month because we all know our best friendships are formed with people who we’ve shared life with. Parents, we want to help your kids make new meaningful friendships with other students and leaders from the church. Will you help encourage your students to join in?

New small groups are starting next week because we believe that the best place to grow in our relationship with God is in engaging proactively with other people. Small groups are an ideal environment to get your questions answered and build new friendships. Drop by the foyer after the service to talk with a member about what you’d be looking for in a group!

Next week, we kick off a brand new series of Sunday messages about escapism. We all have, at one point of another, run away from one thing or another. Maybe we’ve over drank, overeaten or worked a little longer than we needed to in order to escape from life. The story of Jonah from the Bible is so much more than the story of guy who got swallowed by a big fish … it’s the story of a guy who tried to escape and the God who kept pursuing him. Join us next week as we marvel at how this ancient story is even more relevant in our lives today.

Start constructing your announcements around the benefit to your listeners and you’ll find your people leaning in and taking action at completely new levels altogether! Focus on how your people will benefit from whatever you’re talking about and they’ll show more interest than they did in the past.

You’re Rushing the Offering Talk.

At some point in your service, you talk about how people can give back to the church’s mission. If you’re like most churches, this happens right before you pass an offering plate or maybe a bucket. Even if your church has a box at the back of the room where people can make their offerings after the service you still (most likely) draw people’s attention to it. Chances are that you’re rushing the offering talk. You aren’t slowing down and drawing attention to this aspect of your church and it’s hurting your people’s ability to give. As a result, it’s having a detrimental impact on your church’s budget.

This offering talk is often rushed because people tend to become self conscious about the negative stereotypes associated with churches asking for money. The way to overcome those stereotypes isn’t by doing the offering talk poorly, but by doing it well. Slowing down will help your leaders make sure they are delivering it effectively and not sending the wrong message to your people.

Here are some key ingredients of the offering talks that can make a vital difference in the life of churches like yours. Work towards ensuring that these pieces are making regular appearances in this strategically important part of service:

Express thanks! // Take some time out to thank people for supporting the mission of your church. There are a lot of worthy Kingdom causes that people could give to and it’s an honor when they contribute to your ministry.
Get personal // People will give to an important cause … but they love to give to a personal story they believe in and want to be a part of. Connect how that offering makes a difference to the lives of individuals within your community.
Reduce pressure but don’t ask them not to give! // We want to be clear that we’re not after the money of first-time guests since this is a common criticism of churches. However, we never want to ask people not to give to the church. They’re giving to God’s mission after all, and we don’t want to stand in the way if they sense God is asking them to give.
Receive … don’t collect // The phrase “we’re going to collect today’s offering” is a pet peeve of mine. We’re not a collection agency! People are choosing to give to the church … receive that offering; plain and simple!
Report on projects // Some things in the life of your church take a while to come to fruition. Use the offering set-up to report on the progress of a special project and connect people’s giving to it.
Don’t make people guess how to give! // You cannot make this too simple. Show people exactly how they can give to the mission. Remind them that they have choices, that they can give through the offering plate, on the internet, in the mail and myriad other ways. Reduce friction and don’t make them guess.
Make the Ask. // I know a church leader who never actually asked people to give during his services. Just taking the time to ask people to give to his vision literally changed the financial picture of his church. They went from barely surviving to thriving in a matter of months. Make sure that you make the ask.

You’re Lacking Visual Support to Your Announcements.

65% of your church members are visual learners. [ref] However, most people who are doing the announcements at churches seem to ignore this reality. They simply stand on the stage and present a few facts about upcoming events at their church without doing anything tangible to visually engage their audience with the information they are presenting.

Here are a few ways to “simply” add more visuals to the announcements this coming weekend at your church:

Look at the Handout // Print out a 4×6 postcard of whatever you’re talking about and get it into the hands of people before the service. During the announcements, take time to draw your people’s attention to the piece.
Slides … Slides! // Support your announcement with 2 or 3 slides that succinctly illustrate the points you are making
Flipcharts // You’d be amazed how engaged visual learners are by just having someone draw a simple diagram on a flipchart. It worked for your high school football team for a reason … there’s no reason why it won’t work for your audience!
Objects // Bring an object or two that illustrates the action you’re asking people to take on stage and it’s more than likely to hook in the visual learners. (Pro Tip: Put the object under a tablecloth to tease your audience for added pop!)

Get creative with how to integrate visual elements with every announcement you make. You’ll notice that your messages will stick more over time!

It’s just announcements … I don’t want to do all that!

The announcements represent a huge opportunity in the life of your church. At their core, they signify the all-important “call to action” in services. They are that part of the service where you ask people to get out of their seats and take a leap of faith to engage with your church. It’s critically important that you spend time, effort and energy to help your people engage with your church.

Taking some time to narrow down the focus to just a single announcement is paramount to help you do this part of your service effectively. Moving your people to action is important enough to get your people to focus attention on taking the step that matters!

Want more help? Check out my FREE ebook all about announcements. [Click here to download Effective Announcements // Leverage 5 Minutes Every Sunday to Move People to Action!]

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Source: 5 Bad Habits Killing the Effectiveness of Your Church’s Announcements – unSeminary

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