Ask Bill: How To Announce An Offering
Someone recently asked me – How should I announce offerings during a service?
The answer is this: Keep three things in your head when you go to do the offering moment.
First, you want to announce offering with confidence and respect. This is perhaps a time for you to have an analysis of your own thoughts about money. Are you a generous giver? Can you speak about money boldly and confidently? Jesus talked about money all the time. But then can you also talk about it with respect? Respect for your congregants because most likely they’re not where you are. There’s a group of them who think differently about money and perhaps sharing their money. So, approach the offering moment confidently with respect for the person you’re talking to.
The second thing I would say is you want to help people self-identify whether or not this is their home church. If this is their home church, this is the time for them to give back to the ministry that goes on here. And you need to give them some little signals in their head to help them answer, am I part of this church? One of those signals would be…”Hey, you know what, if you’ve been with us three straight Sundays, then this is your home church.” Or, a better one – “If you’re walking down the street and somebody says to you, where do you go to church? And without thinking you say, [Insert Your Church’s Name Here], then that means this is your home church. And this is a time for those of us who call this place ‘home’ to give back.”
The last thing to do, if you have time, is include a short story of where the offerings go and specifically how they make a difference locally in people’s lives. Because the younger generation, younger than say 35 years old, is looking to make a difference locally. And so if you could give them an example of how their offerings will do that, that’s even better.
