Last year we set a big goal for our church and our year end giving. $30,000! This giving will be used to do some building upgrades, hire staff, add elements to children’s ministry and launch a new campus. So how much did we get. Well take a look at how we told our church!
A many thanks to our church, our staff and also a huge shout out to Casey Graham and Giving Rocket for the coaching that led to this!
Part of my morning ritual is a LONG hot shower. I shower every day – sometimes 2-3 times (if I work out, work in the yard, sweat too much etc…) I love just standing in the shower allowing the water to massage my head, body and in a way it’s a massage for my mind. I think, I pray, I dream. Sometimes I will get so lost in my thoughts I forget if I washed my hair or not and wash what little I have twice!
Today when I started the shower I was looking forward to just standing there, waking up, thinking, meditating – then the water started to cool. Maybe I didn’t adjust it right so I moved the handle toward H. I shampooed but as I rinsed it cooled off. I moved the lever again gauging how long the hot water would last. Why was it running out. Laundry. Someone was doing laundry. Or maybe someone else took a long shower leaving the water heater near empty. Now I was racing to soap and rinse before it got too cold. And I was no longer praying and meditating, I was angry. Someone messed up my shower time!
At last I moved the level to full H. Normally this would scald the skin. I had to rinse fast or exit with soap in places you dont want to leave soap. As the temp dropped to barely tolerable i finished the final rinse, slammed the lever down and grabbed my towel frustrated. The day started off badly.
Then God reminded me – I had more hot water in five minutes than many people have in five days! I remembered a time in Thailand showering in a bucket of dirty water I drew from a truck. It was so cold it took your breath as you splashed on a handful at a time hoping you had enough to rinse off the soap – which seems silly since the water was dirty. I’ve experienced similar shower situations in other countries.
The hot water I didn’t have for the shower was being used to clean my clothing in an automatic washing machine. One time in Africa I paid a woman to wash my clothes on the rocks along the bank of a river.
Then I realized, I was being ungrateful and unthankful because I was focusing on what I didn’t have in the moment, forgetting what God had blessed me with. I slept in a warm bed, I have a family that loves me, a wife that does my laundry, a car that I can wash when it’s warm, a lawn I can water in summer, a pool I can swim in when the weather gets warmer.
This is a danger we face every day in our lives, especially in our American culture. We become ungrateful because of what we think we don’t have, instead of grateful for what we do have. You may not make a lot of money but be thankful for the job. you may not drive a dream car or live in your dream house. Be thankful for the car you have and the roof over your head. You may not be able to afford dinner and a movie out on the town but be grateful for redbox and frozen pizza.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
Thank you Jesus for a cool shower to remind me how blessed I really am! What are you thankful for?
If you pastor or lead in a church pay attention closely.
If your church does not have a well defined digital giving strategy you are shortchanging the mission and potentially robbing people of the opportunity to be good stewards!
Face it, we live in the digital age. You can purchase anything online and probably do. You can pay all your bills online and probably do. You rarely see anyone use cash or write a check to make a purchase any more. Why would you expect people to consistently write checks to your church, or give generously with cash they no longer carry. People pay online and they use bank cards to make purchases and giving should be just as easy!
Let me clarify what I mean when I say digital giving. I’m not talking about a paypal “donate now” button stuck on your website (although that can be part of it) I am talking about a strategy that enables people to give consistently and conveniently using various digital component. At Crosspoint nearly 70% of our giving is through digital methods.  I think there are 3 areas you have to focus on (in order):
1) Recurring Online Giving using ACH (automated clearing house) transactions. This is where you want the bulk of your digital giving! The most important thing you need in digital giving is low transaction fees and consistent recurring gifts.
Low Fees via ACH: Credit/Debit card transactions can be close to 3% of the transaction. If someone gives $100 you pay $3 to get it. An ACH transaction is processed like a check and the fee is more like $.45 regardless of the amount. So if someone gives a generous $1000 donation, you pay less than 50 cents to handle it instead of $30!
Recurring Gifts: A good biblical stewardship plan includes giving your first along with your best. People should give a percentage when they get paid. With recurring giving people can set up their gifts to draft on payday. (monthly, 1st and 15th etc.) This is crucial because of what happens when people need to be gone on vacation, for work, or illness. Most givers intend to be consistent but if they miss a week or two, making up that gift is difficult for all but the most committed givers. A recurring plan solves this problem for them and levels out the income for the church. At Crosspoint we know how much our giving will be within a few hundred dollars every week!
With services that have recurring giving plans, you can also receive debit, credit and one time gifts. This is the first priority in your digital giving strategy.
2) A Giving Kiosk. A giving kiosk is sort of like a redbox vending machine. It’s a touch screen ATM like device that allows a user to swipe a debit/credit card. This device will allow people who do not carry cash or checks and like the convenience of using a bank card to give easily. Roughly 10% of Crosspoint giving comes via our kiosk in the lobby. This has been very helpful for people who were not consistent before and helps some people make their first time gifts easier. A kiosk does have an initial investment for the equipment. (a purchase or lease) There are also merchant account fees, vendor fees, and transaction fees. There is a cost to do business here but the benefit outweighs the cost. We paid for our kiosk within months and the additional gifts we receive more than make up for the costs. Would you rather have $97 of a $100 gift or no gift at all?
3) Mobile Giving. We only recently added mobile giving to our digital options. It already pays for itself and has new givers adopting it. The nice thing about mobile giving is you can use it as a cheap kiosk solution by installing iPads in your lobby with the mobile site configured. Some vendors may even be able to configure a way to swipe a card rather than entering the numbers.  Mobile giving offers the opportunity for those not connected with recurring giving to give conveniently when they want to on the go with a mobile app. They can give spontaneously during the week and if they have to be out, they can still give where ever they are. A good mobile giving site will offer recurring giving and may offer ACH giving – lowering transaction fees.
Other ways to supplement digital giving:Â
What we use: At Crosspoint we have two vendors.
Please take 17 minutes out of your day today to watch this and listen carefully to the words:
We have come a long way in the US since this speech. But we have a long way to go. Sadly the church lags way behind the dream where Dr. king said:
“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
While we have mostly overcome the racist actions of our government, seen racial equity in our schools and workplaces in Alabama,
I decided to change this paragraph as I realized that our state still has Robert E. Lee Day as an official holiday on the same day as MLK day. We are only one of 3 states in the US that recognize Robert E. Lee day – the leader of the confederate army. While I am proud of my southern heritage, and I am sure that General Lee was a great leader (in a fallen cause) I believe the overlapping holiday does more to promote racism and disunity than it does to promote what makes the south great. Also.. our churches still drip with the poison of racist attitudes and remain the most segregated hour in America Alabama. I for one would like to see that radically change. The civil rights movement was born here in Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in 1955. Sadly we rank behind the nation when it comes to racial issues I think. Thank you Dr. King and so many others who brought the issue to the forefront. Let us never rest until the dream is achieved.
In honor of Dr. King’s work and his life and to acknowledge the importance of keeping the dream alive, Crosspoint church offices are closed today (Monday 1/16)
