Most churches trying to increase giving start in the same place. Better vision casting. A giving app. A campaign with a thermometer in the lobby. Testimony videos. Maybe a stewardship Sunday.
All of that helps a little. And most churches I’ve talked to have already done all of it and are still looking at flat numbers.
So let me offer a different starting point, because I think there’s a question underneath the giving question that almost nobody asks.
Not “how do we get our people to give more?”
But “can our people give more?”
Here’s the honest math.
Somebody in your church wants to give. They believe in it. They’ve heard the sermons, and they agree with every word. And then they sit down Sunday night, and between the car payment and the credit card minimum and the student loan and the fact that groceries cost what they cost now, there is no margin. There is nothing there to give.
That person doesn’t have a generosity problem. They have a capacity problem. And no amount of vision casting solves a capacity problem.
I hate to break it to you, but you can preach the best generosity series of your life to a congregation with no margin and watch the giving line barely move. Not because they didn’t hear you. Because they heard you, wanted to obey, and looked at their bank account and couldn’t.
This is why I’ve become convinced that the fastest path to increasing giving in a church has almost nothing to do with talking about giving. It has to do with helping your people get free.
Freed-up people give. It’s not complicated.
7 things that move the needle
Alright, practical stuff. Some of these are quick, some are slow. The slow ones matter more.
1. Preach a series, not a sermon
If you take one tactic from this list, take this one.
Barna’s research on this is old, but it has held up: churches where the pastor preaches a series on giving are meaningfully more likely to see giving increase than churches where the pastor preaches one-off sermons on giving scattered through the year.
One pastor writing about applying it reported his church’s weekly giving went up 32% the first year he switched from single sermons to a four-week series.
The reason makes sense. One sermon on giving lands as an ask. Four weeks on money lands as teaching. Different thing entirely.
2. Teach personal finance, not church finance
Most church money content is about the church’s money. The budget, the campaign, the need. But your people are not lying awake about your budget. They’re lying awake about theirs.
When you teach them how to handle their own money (budgeting, debt, saving, earning, and yes, giving), three things happen. You solve the problem they actually have. You build trust you cannot buy. And you create the margin that makes generosity possible.
Then generosity becomes the fruit rather than the pitch.
3. Build on-ramps instead of standards
The gap between “I give nothing” and “I tithe” feels uncrossable to a lot of people, so they don’t start. They just carry guilt about it for a decade.
So build a first step. If someone has never given, invite them to try 1%. Not as a permanent destination, just as a start. Something like: pick a number, any number, and give it consistently for ninety days and see what God does with your heart.
Almost nobody stays at 1%. But almost everybody can start there. And starting is the whole battle.
Two things to say out loud when you do this. There’s no shame attached to the number, and this is not a transaction with God. Which brings me to the guardrail.
4. Kill the give-to-get framing completely
I need to be direct here because this is where a lot of well-meaning generosity teaching goes off a cliff.
The moment giving gets presented as an investment strategy (give this and God will return that), you’ve traded discipleship for a vending machine. It produces a short-term bump and long-term cynicism, because eventually somebody gives sacrificially, nothing changes financially, and they conclude God didn’t hold up his end.
God is not a slot machine. Following Jesus for what he can do for your portfolio is a little like marrying someone for their money.
Teach generosity as the thing that breaks money’s grip on your heart. That’s the promise, and it’s a better one. It’s also the one that actually delivers.
5. Tell stories about the giver, not the budget
“We hit our goal” is a fine announcement. But it is not a story.
“This family paid off their debt, and for the first time in their marriage they were able to say yes to something God put in front of them” is a story. It shows a life-changing story, which is the thing people actually want for themselves.
Collect these relentlessly. Ask people. Most of them will never volunteer it because they assume nobody cares.
6. Celebrate first-time givers specifically
Somebody giving for the first time just took a real step of faith, and in most churches nothing happens. No acknowledgment, no note, nothing.
A short personal letter from a pastor to every first-time giver is one of the cheapest, highest-return practices available to you. Not a receipt. A note that says we saw that, and thank you.
7. Remove friction, but don’t expect it to save you
Yes, make giving easy. Text giving, recurring options, a clear button, no eight-step process.
But friction removal is table stakes, not strategy. If your giving is flat, a better app is not the fix. It might get you a few percent. The capacity work is what gets you the rest.
What this looks like in practice
This is where I’ll be upfront that we built something for exactly this, so read the next part with that in mind.
Linda and I created True Financial Freedom because we kept hearing the same thing from pastors: they wanted to disciple their people financially, they didn’t want to hand them a program that felt harsh or shame-based, and they didn’t have time to build a six-week curriculum from scratch.
It’s a six-session class covering saving, earning, giving, and enjoying money, built for a church small group or class setting. Everything is done for you, so a volunteer can facilitate it without being a finance person.
What surprised us was how consistently the giving piece showed up in the feedback, even though the class spends most of its time on the practical money stuff.
“After attending the class, we increased our annual giving percentage by 14%.” — Tyson and Meesah K.
“Because of this course, my wife and I bumped our tithe to 12%.” — Shawn A.
“Over the past couple of years, our income went up, we manage it better, and we’re giving more to our church.” — Max C.
“I’ve saved about $330 per month since starting the course.” — Paris H.
That last one is the whole thesis in one sentence. Paris found $330 a month. Some portion of that becomes generosity, and it happened without anyone asking her for money.
From the church side:
“TFF is the only program I have seen that truly deals with the issues Christians need addressed. Your humble spirits allowed this touchy and difficult subject to change lives.” — David Harrison, Harbor Point Church
“I could not imagine a scenario where it could have gone better. A fresh take with practical application for the 21st century.” — Ryan Adams, Director of Operations, Fairhaven Church
And the one that means the most to me, from a participant:
“First class where I left equipped, not burdened. Expecting change, not just hoping.” — Ryan D.
Equipped, not burdened. That’s the difference between financial discipleship and a guilt trip, and it’s the whole reason we built it the way we did.
Where to start this week
If your giving is flat and you want to do something about it, here’s the order I’d go in.
Start by teaching a series instead of a sermon, and put it on the calendar for a season when you’re not raising money for anything. (And if you need a great one, we actually include a 5-part sermon series in True Financial Freedom that you can use.)
Then give people a real next step at the end of it, which means having a class or a group study ready before the series starts, not after. Then build a 1% on-ramp for people who have never given, and write actual notes to the ones who take it.
Do that for a year, and you’ll have a congregation with more margin, more trust, and more reason to give. It’s slower than a campaign, but it also doesn’t wear off.
