"I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly"
John 10:10
Generosity is at the heart of our faith, we believe in a generous God and our own generosity is a testament and hallmark of our faith in action. The ministry and mission of The Church of England is largely funded through the incredible generosity of those who give to it.
Building a Generous Church is a MINT IDEA!
A key focus of the Church of England’s National Giving Strategy is to help create the best environment for giving and generosity in our churches.
Watch the Build a Generous Church video below and read more about how this underpins their work by following this link
Enabling Giving
If you want to learn how to increase giving to your church, there are four areas we need to focus on, and they helpfully form the acronym MINT:
- Have the right mechanisms for giving, such as direct debit, contactless, online, legacies, gift aid and so on.
- Show the impact of people’s giving, how it enables the church’s ministry and mission.
- Explain the need for people to give, so they see how important it is that they give.
- Build trust, so that people have confidence that the church will spend their gifts wisely and well.
If you have these things in place, you have created the best environment for people to give. You can find more on all these areas here, including advice, guidance, training and case studies.
Understandably, many people focus on the ‘mechanisms’ section, as this shows how to provide the different ways people wish to give. However, please don’t neglect the other areas, they are every bit as important and you need to give them equal attention. There is a multiplier effect with these four areas, the more you develop one area, the greater the impact of the work you do in the other areas. Don’t forget too that this is all a team endeavour, it is important that we all take a responsibility for enabling giving and we all work together to enable giving.
Encouraging Generosity
A generous culture is also essential for a church to develop a sustainable ministry. That generosity can be expressed in many different ways. It is not only about financial giving, but this is part of living generously. To cultivate a generous culture, there are four areas we need to focus on:
- Inspire people through generous leadership and celebrating generosity within the life of the church.
- Disciple members, through resources, teaching and learning, so people can grow in an understanding of God’s generosity towards them, and how they can live generous lives.
- Embed generosity in the life of the church, in its plans, services and ministry and weave it into everything the church does.
- Activate generosity, by providing opportunities for people to grow in generosity and apply what they have discovered.
Understanding how to grow a culture is critically important. This is not about delivering a series of initiatives, but about changing our way of being and behaving. It requires patience, commitment and determination and above all prayer. Leadership is crucial, but this is something that we all need to be committed to so that we become the generous community we are called to be.
Review Your Giving
We recommend that every church PCC conducts a giving review every single year. A giving review is not a financial review, it looks at giving as an act of discipleship and asks what we are doing as a generous church. What this review looks like depends entirely on you and your personal preference. We can join your PCC meeting to conduct a review or your PCC can discuss and complete the Giving Review Checklist on their own:
- A Giving Review checklist will help you think about generosity in your church, or see this similar Generous Church Check-up template from the Church of England.
- The Generous Church Review is a resource for your PCC to meet and reflect on your shared experience of generosity in the life of your church. By working through the cards in the toolkit, you will look in depth at what generosity is, consider what you are already doing well, and where you could improve and grow.
- Generosity Week is an excellent set of resources for you to run an 8 day giving programme any time of the year.
Webinars and Training
The Stewardship Team regularly deliver training on a variety of topics to do with giving & generosity. See our Stewardship Training page for more details.