Some pastors flinch and get queasy when direct appeals are made for money within a church worship service. Others sound like a weekly infomercial replete with enthusiastic testimonials. “By faith! John sacrificially gave $1,000 and received a check in the mail for $2,000 the very next week.” Both are unhealthy extremes. The truth is that money, like everything else in life, is inextricably bound up with our spirituality. The way an individual or a church spends money reveals a great deal about spiritual priorities and integrity. The same could be said, about the manner in which money is acquired. Below are four strategies that will help you to grow church revenues with integrity. Two are spiritual and, um frankly, the other two are spiritual as well.

1. Grow Full Spectrum Christians

This requires that we bring the full counsel of God’s Word to the teaching table during worship services. No subject that is relevant to the daily lives of people can be off limits. Otherwise important opinions and worldviews will be developed exclusively from extra-biblical sources. The Bible has a LOT to say about money and it must not be expounded upon with the same enthusiasm as every other biblical passage.

2. Showcase Legitimate Heroes in the Bible

I believe that the greatest giving story in the Bible is about a humble widow. You might entitle the message, “The Two Cent Gift” because she gave two small copper coins. Yet Jesus lavished praise upon her, not for the size of her offering but the size of her trust in God. Giving is ultimately tied to trust. Remarkably Jesus revealed that she had given, “all that she had to live on.” Lk. 21.4 Dwight L. Moody’s famous quote comes to mind. "The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully consecrated to Him." Stories like this inspire greatness in the hearts of listeners.

3. Maximize Giving Channels and Lower Barriers to Giving

Let’s get really spiritual now! I mean practical! I mean both! Churches are one of the few places left where people are often required to bring checkbooks to make a financial transaction. With debit cards who carries a checkbook anymore? An increasing number of churches today have backend virtual ecommerce terminals like ConnectionPower’s PowerGiving that allow a church to modify their giving envelopes to capture the credit/debit card information necessary for an online transaction. Then church staff members can post the offerings directly into the church’s bank account, no check needed. Otherwise, if donors do not have a checkbook with them you end up with stingy cash tips to God.

Another key to removing barriers to consistent giving is setting up an online merchant account where people can give online through the church website. One argument I sometimes hear is that many people in the church do not have computers or do not want to do that. True! But there are many families, from a younger generation that is less committed to organizations, which are very comfortable with online giving and consider it an important convenience.

Set up a system that allows online automated recurrent giving. Proverbs states, “…without a vision the people perish.” During summer vacations the old maxim, “out of sight out of mind” can have a huge negative impact on church revenues. They lose sight of the vision. When a family misses a couple of Sundays on vacation they often do not retroactively contribute. Revenues are lost. PowerGiving puts donors in complete control of a donor’s fiscal relationship with their church including online: giving, automated recurrent giving, pledging and reporting.

4. Reduce Online Merchant Fees

This is an important area to openly talk about in the modern church where online giving is a reality. It is a spiritual topic because it is about stewardship. Some people love to donate to their church with credit cards that offer them a kickback in the form of free air miles or goods and services. Who pays for those extra benefits to the donor? The church does with increased merchant fees. Nothing is free in the commercial world. AMEX also charges higher levels of merchant fees. There are three effective ways to reduce the amount your church pays for transaction fees from online donations.

a. Explain the rationale and ask donors to avoid using credit cards for online donations that offer kickbacks of points or free miles.

b. Educate your people on the benefits of giving online via echeck instead of credit or debit cards. This form of online transaction pulls the donation directly from their bank account via a merchant gateway and saves you the merchants fees associated with credit card companies. You still have to pay the gateway fees but they are much lower. PowerGiving gives donors the ability to self-initiate echeck giving and automated recurrent echeck giving through your church website. ConnectionPower has built an interface with a payment gateway company that charges 0% on echeck transactions to non-profits. It does not get better than that!

c. If donors want to use credit cards, educate them on ways they can donate that will maximize the impact of their gifts. Capital One Bank has a website where churches can set themselves up as a religious charity. When donors give through their "No Hassle Giving Site" (https://www.capitalone.com/give) with their Capital One card, no credit card merchant fees are deducted.

It is my prayer that these tough financial times will serve help church leaders to wax eloquent and grow great, generous souls. I also pray that church leaders will grow in their wisdom to effectively manage the fiscal resources of the church to which God has assigned them.