Now that you understand the importance of doing a Christmas offering and how to pinpoint your causes, you need to start walking the path toward setting up the most effective offering possible. Here are the five most important steps to leading a successful Christmas offering:

Step 1: Decide when to kick off your Christmas offering.

As I mentioned, the Sunday before Thanksgiving is the ideal kick-off day, but you can adjust that to fit your needs. If Thanksgiving falls particularly late, as it does this year, or if your crowd is usually down that Sunday, you may want to kick the offering off a week earlier.  The key is to know your kick-off date well in advance so you can begin building toward it.

Step 2: Set a goal for your Christmas offering.

People love to reach for goals. As mentioned earlier, the amount of your goal will depend on your weekly giving and your ramp up time for the offering. In general, its best to set a Christmas offering goal that is a little lower than you think you can hit, but not so low that people will dismiss it.

If this is your first Christmas offering, choose a goal that will stretch your people but one that will also most likely be accomplished. Celebrating this year’s Christmas offering goal will set you up for a bigger goal next year.

Step 3: Promote your Christmas offering.

Now you are ready to start motivating people to participate in the offering. On the Sunday before you kick off the offering, work it into your sermon if at all possible. For example, if you are preaching about helping people in need because that is going to be one of your causes (there’s a tip), you can say something along the lines of, “Next week, we will be kicking off our special Christmas offering. One of the things that this offering is going to allow us to do is to partner with a local homeless shelter to provide meals for the needy throughout the month of January.”

Choose one of your heart-catching causes, work its importance into the sermon, and then use the opportunity to announce the offering and how it can help with exactly what you are discussing. Create a sense of urgency and challenge people to bring their first and best gift to the kick off the next week. In my experience, you may have as much as 50% of the offering come in on the first Sunday, if you build it up well the week before.

Over the next four or five weeks, continue to mention the offering every Sunday. You can create a second sense of urgency in mid-to-late December by saying things like, “Let’s hit this goal before the year ends!” Do all you can to make your message clear and the giving convenient.

Step 4: Provide a Christmas Offering envelope.

As part of your planning, you should create a giving envelope specifically for the Christmas offering.  On kick-off day, point your congregation’s attention to the special envelope that you will have placed in their bulletin. You can even put bullet points about the offering’s causes on the back of the envelope to underscore exactly what they are giving to. Remind everyone that their offering is over and above what they usually give, is tax-deductible and that 100% of it will go to the causes you’ve been discussing.

You might also encourage online giving to the Christmas offering or even in-kind gifts like stocks and bonds. A stock broker in your church should be able to set up in-kind gifts in a way that would be tax-advantageous for your people. In the name of clarity, I also suggest that you send a letter, or a small information packet, to your regular attenders and members a week to ten days before you kick off the offering. Use this opportunity to explain the heart of the offering and its causes in detail.

Go ahead and send them the special envelope and encourage them to bring their best gift on the first day. Then, on your kick-off day, have that same letter or information packet available to anyone in the church who would like to pick one up. When people have complete clarity over what you are asking of them and why, they are much more willing to trust God and give sacrificially.

Step 5: Model the sacrificial giving you hope to see from your people.

As you talk about the offering from stage, make sure you tell your people that you are planning to give. You don’t need to disclose how much, but put yourself in the position of being able to give an authentic testimony of your own sacrifice.

Tell them that you and your wife have been praying over how much to give, and how God continues to stretch you beyond what you think you can do.Tell them that your children (if they are old enough) are doing chores and special projects this fall to raise their own money to give to the offering. And make sure all of that it true.

You, as the Pastor, have to be fully engaged in what you are proposing. There is nothing more powerful than an authentic leader who says, “I’ve given. You give too.” On the same note, talk with your key staff and leaders about giving. Make sure they are on board with helping to lead the charge.

Giving to the Christmas offering really stretches you as a leader. Every year, I think that I am not going to be able to give as much as the year before. You understand how it is, I’m sure. The end of the year is tough for pastors. Each and every Christmas season, God gives me a number that He wants me to put in the offering and, without fail, it is always a bigger number than I was thinking. But, also without fail, He always provides. Each year, I am able to make the offering that He leads me to make and, inevitably, I grow in the process.

Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

P.S.   For the ultimate guide to planning & conducting your Christmas Offering (including how to promote and challenge your church), click the link below to secure your copy of the BRAND NEW“How to Plan and Conduct a Christmas Offering” resource.  Order by THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14 and receive over $935.00 in BONUS resources.  You’ll be mailed my BRAND NEW Hardback book (The Renegade Pastor, Retail: $19.95) plus get TWO FREE MONTHS in the Renegade Pastors Network!

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© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.