“Creating a Culture of Generosity (Vol. 2)”

HELPING LEADERS BECOME

B E T T E R S T E WA R D S .

Creating a Culture of Generosity

Presented by: eChurchGiving & Pushpay

Creating a Culture of Generosity

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Presente d by: eChurch Giving & Pushpa y

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Table of Contents MAKING MOBILE GIVING WORK FOR MULTI-SITE CHURCHES

THE TOP REASONS YOUR CHURCH NEEDS TO BE ON MOBILE THIS EASTER 4

Multi-site churches face unique challenges — and require unique giving solutions.

By Beka Johnson

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It’s a time of traditions: spiral-sliced ham, perfectly good eggs covered in thick layers of paint, and going to church with grandma.

But for those in ministry, it’s Super Bowl Sunday — an opportunity to reach members of your community who wouldn’t come to church otherwise.

Written by the echurch content team

VISIBILITY INTO GIVING

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At an Indiana multi-site church, mobile giving ensures funds are easily and accurately allocated to the right campus or campaign.

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How do you land on the right solution? And once you’ve found it, how will you get your church to actually use it?

ExperienceChurch.tv® in Puyallup, WA, isn’t afraid of technology.

Mobile giving, then, was a natural fit.

By Jayson D. Bradley

THE DREADED “SUMMER SLUMP”

IT’S TIME FOR CHURCHES TO JOIN THE MOBILE BOOM

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Churches often budget their finances according to a feast / famine calendar, enabling them to make it through the lean months by storing up resources during the busier times of the year.

By Jayson D. Bradley

USING GIVING DATA FOR MINISTRY

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You know you need a digital solution for giving at your church. But with all the options out there, online giving is becoming old-hat.

By RaeAnn Slaybaugh

TECHNOLOGY DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SCARY

BEYOND ONLINE GIVING: WHAT EXECUTIVE PASTORS NEED TO KNOW

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The writing’s on the wall, and churches need to pay close attention. Mobile devices are here to stay —and they’re changing the world. It’s time for your ministry to take them seriously.

By Jayson D. Bradley

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Sure, there’s a small minority of highly organized folks who sit down and write out their check(s) and either bring them to church to drop in the plate or mail them to the church. But for the majority of your church, if they’re giving at all, it’s when they’re being prompted by ushers and offering music.

So, what happens when people aren’t really using checks (or the postal service, for that matter) anymore? What if they aren’t in church that week? What if they didn’t bring cash with them to the service? When are those individuals giving?

Written by the echurch content team

HOW TO USE YOUR APP TO PREPARE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

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Only two teams in the history of Major League Baseball have won at least 116 games: the 2001 Seattle Mariners and the 1906 Chicago Cubs. Both teams dominated the regular seasons, quickly dispatching with opponents through good pitching, timely hitting, and stellar defense.

But neither team won the World Series.

Effective baseball teams and effective churches have something in common: they excel when the stakes are highest.

For churches, that’s the holiday season.

TIME TO SEIZE YOUR MOBILE MOMENT

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By Tobin Perry

Joe is the kind of guy your church wants to reach.

He’s young — with a growing family. He’s a type-A leader, People like him, trust him, and follow him. Lead him to Christ, and he’ll bring his friends to your church for the next couple of decades.

Joe lives in a mobile world.

By Tobin Perry

HOW MOBILE GIVING CUTS TIME, HEARTACHE OUT OF YOUR STAFF’S WEEK

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A few years back, Thom Rainer — now president of LifeWay Christian Resources — gave 12 deacons at a church he pastored a survey with a list of different pastoral duties and a spot for them to mark down what they thought the minimum time a pastor should spend on those tasks every week. When he tabulated all the results, it added up to 114 hours. That’s 19 hours a day for six days a week — enough to kill anyone.

Your pastor can’t do everything on his plate. But let’s be clear: Your staff can’t either.

Written by the echurch content team churchexecutive.com

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Making mobile giving work for multi-site churches

By Beka Johnson

Multi-site churches face unique challenges — and require unique giving solutions.

Case in point: Momentum Christian Church, a nineyear-old church plant with locations in McDonough and Stockridge, GA. “Our two campuses are about 10 miles apart, but in some ways they’re worlds apart,” says Executive Pastor David Powers.

David Powers, Executive Pastor, Momentum Christian Church 4

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Momentum launched its second (Stockbridge) location in December 2012 when it ran out of room to expand in McDonough. Both sites are situated off the same major freeway, and Powers says the cultures and demographics of each location are unique. However, the challenges they face are shared.

For one thing, the multi-site church model can be difficult from a funding perspective. First, there was a financial emphasis on getting a building set up and ready to do church in another community. The second challenge is more ongoing: “We have two buildings and therefore a much larger staff than we’d normally have in a church with 800 in attendance — 500 at one site and 300 at the other,” Powers says.

Additionally, with a multi-site church model, he and his team must ensure both campuses feel unified (though attendance figures differ) and keep the messaging consistent — not just the teaching message and vision, but also the way the church presents giving and generosity.

At Momentum’s two locations, offering plates have been replaced with tables set up around the room. During communion, everyone gets up and moves around the worship space to give — that is, if they’re giving by cash or check. As Powers has observed, that’s a lot less common these days.

Still, Momentum is a debt-averse church; the idea of giving by debit and credit card wasn’t exactly embraced. “There was a kind of stigma attached to swiping a card,” Powers recalls.

This aversion, coupled with a bit of admitted hesitation on Powers’ part, kept the church from offering electronic giving sooner. It took him some time — and a pivotal conversation with his daughter, who was in 6th grade at the time — to warm to the idea.

“She was talking about how one of her teachers wasn’t allowed to teach check-writing and check-balancing as a part of the life skills curriculum anymore,” Powers remembers. “It was one of those ‘God-smacks-you-inthe-forehead’ kinds of moments.”

He ultimately concluded that a bigger issue was at play: The church wasn’t giving everyone an opportunity to participate in the offering.

“There’s a huge segment of the population that doesn’t have a checkbook and never will. Though they might carry a little bit of cash, what they usually do is swipe their debit or credit card,” he acknowledges. “So, for us, it became about removing barriers.”

About three years ago, Momentum began to offer mobile and online giving via Pushpay, a 10-second mobile giving solution. churchexecutive.com

Rolling out the program Momentum’s adoption of electronic giving began by gathering a group of several dozen staff members and elders of all ages. Powers asked that everyone with a smartphone hold it up.

“I was really shocked!” he says. “I bet eighty percent of the people in the room had one — even 75- and 85-year-old folks.”

Actually, Powers says, these more senior members of the congregation are now among the most avid users of mobile giving. “It’s surprising, because they were some of the ones who pushed back hardest at first.”

This type of methodical roll-out — beginning with staff and elders, then to leadership teams, and finally to the church-at-large — comes highly recommended by Powers. “It creates a cascading effect so you’re building momentum [for the tool] and getting some people on your side.”

And, how! Today, about 30 percent of Momentum’s giving is done via Pushpay … and not just on Sunday. For example, Momentum doesn’t offer worship services on the last weekend of the year. Even so, according to Powers — who gets a notification every time a gift is given — gifts come in regularly during that time.

Week-to-week, the case is the same. “At our church, giving has become a thing that happens with the rhythm of a person’s life,” he says. “I think that’s really cool. It’s not simply a Sunday morning thing.

“Also, throughout the summer, a lot of people’s giving is set up as recurring,” Powers adds. “So, we don’t see a significant drop just because it’s vacation season.”

Though a blessing, these results aren’t uncommon. Research shows 45 percent of gifts given through Pushpay happen on days other than Sunday.

The immediacy factor Aside from the obvious ministry benefits of mobile giving, Powers says he also appreciates that the funds are automatically deposited into the church’s account, and that the tool offers a virtually seamless interface with Momentum’s church management system (ChMS). This means less staff time is spent processing and recording gifts, and that giving statements — facilitated by the ChMS — are available to church members by logging in to their own profiles. “That’s helpful not only at the beginning of the year, when people are preparing for taxes, but at any point in the year,” he points out. “Midyear and throughout the year, we notice a lot of people logging in to find out where they are with their giving and adjusting as they see fit.”

The ability to conduct special benevolences — recently, for example, to benefit a family in need — is also a plus. “When we did that, we were just flooded with giving.”

For these and a lot of other reasons, Powers is no longer hesitant when he thinks about mobile giving. In fact, he’s a big proponent.

“Some folks feel that if you’re not putting a pen to a check and writing it out, that somehow you’ve lost intentionality,” he says. “But at some point, people made a choice to no longer take their goats to the priest. They don’t drop gold coins in a bucket anymore. Our currency changes and we’ve got to adjust with it.

“In reality, a smartphone is something everyone has now,” he adds. “We finally understood electronic giving was something we needed to do. It’s just the way so many people are used to transacting business these days.”

Beka Johnson is the Inbound Marketing Coordinator at eChurch [ http://echurchgiving.com ], the principal supplier of Pushpay [ https://pushpay.com ] to churches. With a background in Christian education, fundraising, marketing, tech startups and theological studies, Johnson is thrilled to now spend her days helping churches increase generosity. churchexecutive.com

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Emmanuel Senior Pastor Danny Anderson

Visibility into giving

Kelsey Thompson, HR / Finance Controller, Emmanuel Church

At an Indiana multi-site church, mobile giving ensures funds are easily and accurately allocated to the right campus or campaign Indiana’s Emmanuel Church has campuses in Greenwood, Indianapolis and Franklin. The first multi-site location was launched in September 2013; the second (Franklin) followed a few years later in December 2015. The latter meets in a middle school, setting up and tearing down each week.

Both multi-site locations are just 20 minutes from the first campus.

Even so — prior to implementing mobile giving — when gifts came in, it was difficult for church leaders to know which campus they were coming from, and which campus the gift was intended to support.

This lack of visibility and tracking is one of the reasons why Emmanuel Church implemented the Pushpay mobile giving tool two years ago.

“It allows our people to choose their campus in a very simple manner,” explains Kelsey Thompson, HR / finance controller for the church. This functionality is especially helpful as Emmanuel Church conducts a building initiative to fund a permanent campus for the Franklin site.

Church staff, meanwhile, enjoys not having to create three different reports for the three different campuses. “Using the same platform for all giving has streamlined the process for us,” Thompson says.

From a generosity standpoint, mobile giving has also proven instrumental. Since its implementation, Thompson says the church has 6

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seen electronic gifts increase to 50 percent of the weekly offering. “This is partly because giving is now streamlined and the interfaces look exactly the same, no matter what tool you’re using to give — online, by kiosk or with your phone.”

And, Thompson adds, Millennials love it. “It took some adjusting for the older population,” she admits. “But, since we’ve showed them how simple it is, they’ve all jumped on board.”

Of course, people don’t give because it’s easy; they give because they support the vision. As such, shared stories of life change and impact — locally and around the world — have been instrumental to driving generosity at Emmanuel. By design, mobile giving lets the church family quickly partner with church leadership to accomplish these efforts.

For example, the church launched an end-of-year giving campaign to provide clean water to communities in Nicaragua. “Pushpay quickly changed our platform to accommodate where these funds would be allocated and has worked with our team to simplify the process,” Thompson points out. “This way, when people feel the urge to give, it only takes them seconds to help make an impact in our world.”

— Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh churchexecutive.com

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Technology doesn’t have to be

SCARY ExperienceChurch.tv® in Puyallup, WA, isn’t afraid of technology. Early adopters of live streaming (hence, the .tv), digital child check-in and more, Senior Pastor Dennis Cummins and his team embrace tools and technologies that simplify processes and free up resources for ministry.

Mobile giving, then, was a natural fit.

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The need for a better, easier way to give presented itself to church leaders in a number of impossible-to-ignore ways. The long-standing option of giving by credit card — by writing the card information on an offering envelope — had obvious issues. And, though the church had adopted an online giving option, people often accessed it with their smartphones. It took them to a URL — and that’s where things got tedious.

“They had to enlarge [the screen], pinch and squeeze, put in their address — it required all kinds of information,” he explains. “By the time they were done, it was just too difficult.”

That’s not the case anymore: After rolling out a mobile giving option from Seattle-based Pushpay, the church has seen an astounding 1,000-percent increase in mobile giving.

Cummins and his team recognized the truth: texting and mobile giving is part of the culture.

“People will respond to a text before they’ll respond to an email, a voicemail or even a phone call,” he points out. Now, in terms of giving, they just perform a few simple steps and they’re in.” churchexecutive.com

A SMOOTH TRANSITION While the results are definitely a big deal, Cummins says that getting mobile giving going wasn’t.

“It’s not like we integrated Pushpay and did a big mobile giving campaign; we didn’t change anything,” he recalls. “We just let the system do its job.”

By its design, Cummins adds, mobile giving engages first-time givers and makes recurring gifts easier to set up.

On the ministry side, mobile giving lets the worship team get back to the message quicker. “We talk less about the giving process and more about the giving reasons” Cummins explains. “It lets us focus on the main things.”

In April 2015, one of those things was crisis response following a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal that killed more than 8,000 people and injured more than 21,000. The church is involved in fighting sex trafficking in the country; in fact, a team had just returned when disaster struck.

“Immediately, we were able to set up Pushpay to support our crisis response efforts, but also to support our anti-sex trafficking efforts,” he says. “It engaged people who weren’t even part of our church. The simplicity of being able to engage them to give at that level was tremendous.”

A BETTER MOUSETRAP Prior to Pushpay, church staff was reconciling deposits to several different giving channels — a point-of-sale system in the bookstore; a merchant giving account; PayPal; the then-current database giving system; and cash and checks. From a bookkeeping standpoint, it was time-consuming and frustrating. Not to mention, endless possibilities for mistakes and errors.

“We found ourselves asking, What came in? What was it for? Who gave it?” Cummins recalls.

While an integrated giving platform seemed like the solution, there were quite a few options. In the end, simplicity won the day.

“Now the staff has one administrative dashboard to go to, and that’s it,” he explains. “When I took that capability to them initially, they were, like, ‘Yes! Let’s do it! Quick!’”

Today, church staff can see a quick week-to-week snapshot of giving activity. This is especially helpful for the finance director, who produces a weekly report. “It’s so quick to just pull that up and pop it into the Excel spreadsheet,” Cummins says.

Recently, the church added a credit card swiper to its giving options.

This data is immediately input into the dashboard.

It has also implemented API, or application programming interface, with its church management system, UCare. “With the integration of Pushpay into [this system], it has only taken a few months and we’re light years ahead of where we were.”

CHAMPIONING SIMPLICITY While Cummins says a lot of pastors he works with in the Pacific Northwest still accept gifts in more traditional ways, he’s surprised at how many haven’t yet embraced mobile giving in their churches. As he talks with them, he tries to convey the benefits.

“Whatever giving options they’re considering, they have to think about how quick and easy the process will be,” he says. “I guess that’s what I champion — that there could be something better out there for them, but it’s not actually ‘better’ if it’s not simple.”

And at Cummins’ church, the mobile giving approach isn’t just simple; it’s proven.

“I look at the numbers, and it just blows me away,” he says. “It creates consistent cash flow, which is so critical in churches.”

— Reporting by RaeAnn Slaybaugh

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By Jayson D. Bradley

Most of us — including pastors — like to imagine that the summer exists as a time of relaxation ... a time away from our harried schedules.

Deep down, though, we know this isn’t true.

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W

e’re actually just cramming recreational hobbies and barbecues into already bursting calendars. Parents with school-aged children are pulling their hair out to ensure that the kids have something to do during the day. They spend quite a bit of time taxiing them to camps, sports commitments and summer activities.

On top of all that, summer is the most popular time of the year for families to take trips and vacations.

Unfortunately, when families look for breathing room in their schedules, church is often the first thing they cut. Church leaders know this and respond accordingly. This back-and-forth dance is noticed and seems to encourage even more people to stay home. Enter: the summer slump.

One of the most discouraging aspects of the summer slump is that lower church attendance also tends to drive others — who perhaps aren’t on vacation — to stay home, as well. Many churches are veritable ghost towns during summer months.

Getting your church set up with with a tool for recurring giving — and then training them to use it — is a game-changer. When people set up automated giving, they become more involved and interested in the life of the church.

The best part is, they don’t have to think about giving. A recurring payment system is a potent weapon in the fight against summer slumps.

Once members are signed up for their giving to recur naturally, you’re that much closer to being out of the woods.

The best way to encourage recurring giving is with your own mobile app from a provider like eChurch [ echurchgiving.com ], the premier provider of Pushpay giving technology and custom apps to the church space [ pushpay.com ].

A mobile app has many benefits. First, it offers a secure way to give. Second, it allows your members to give from wherever they’re vacationing (including foreign countries). Third, it helps you stay

Then, as soon as school starts up again, there’s a big push to get everyone focused and back on track. With that, the fiscal year seems to start in September.

Because church offerings are typically given as part of the church service, giving drops dramatically when people stop attending. The summer slump takes a huge financial toll on a church. Knowing this, churches often budget their finances according to a feast / famine calendar, enabling them to make it through the lean months by storing up resources during the busier times of the year.

engaged with them while they’re gone. Having your sermons, calendar, and congregational communications all bundled within the same app that people are using to give, is a genius way to get your church over the summer slump.

While recurring giving is ideal, one-time gifts are great, too. A good app makes single donations possible with a few taps. It’s the perfect solution anytime someone is interacting with your church.

There’s no question that churches experience a summer slump…

The big question is whether or not there’s anything your church can do about it — and there is. You don’t have to accept the inevitability of the summer slump.

One key way to avoid this seasonal dip in giving is to set your church up with recurring giving. I’m sure that — instead of giving weekly — many of the people in your church give larger checks once or twice a month. Maybe they even mail them in. But once they’re away on vacation, it’s easy for that kind of giving to fall through the cracks. churchexecutive.com

It’s not so complicated. (Really.)

You might think that an app is an accessory for megachurches, and you could never afford or maintain one. But, I assure you that’s not the case!

An app is easy to manage, and completely affordable. Actually — with the increase in giving that you’re likely to see — the app can pay for itself.

As you can see, the summer slump is not inevitable. You can help fortify your congregation against the low-attendance and paltry giving that normally accompanies the summer months.

Jayson D. Bradley is a writer and pastor in Bellingham, WA. He’s a regular contributor to Relevant Magazine, and his blog — JaysonDBradley.com — has been voted one of the 25 Christian blogs you should be reading.

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Using giving data for ministry If you were asked when your church gives, how would you answer?

If you’re still relying on passing the plate to make your church’s budget, you know exactly when they give. They give during the Sunday morning, 10-minute offering window.

Sure, there’s a small minority of highly organized folks who sit down and write out their check(s) and either bring them to church to drop in the plate or mail them to the church. But for the majority of your church, if they’re giving at all, it’s when they’re being prompted by ushers and offering music.

So, what happens when people aren’t really using checks (or the postal service, for that matter) anymore? What if they aren’t in church that week?

What if they didn’t bring cash with them to the service? When are those individuals giving?

Looking beyond Sunday giving Churches are using technology to see beyond the Sunday morning service. Digital giving solutions enable people to give at times and in ways that are more intuitive to their lifestyle. And isn’t that a good thing?

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Because we want people to be able to give when the moment strikes them, whether it’s during a small-group discussion on generosity or while watching a Netflix documentary on hunger.

Equipping your church with the tools that expand their ability to respond to convictions and prompts to give at the moments they happen is the best thing for them — and for you. When you put the ability to give into their hands through mobile giving, it can make a huge difference.

When do people give?

Take look at this giving diagram (see below) from echurch. It pulls together all the giving that happens during the week using the Pushpay app, and it paints quite an interesting picture. Giving doesn’t just happen inside the Sunday window; it happens throughout the week during business hours, with 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.–3 p.m. seeing the heaviest giving traffic.

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Stop for a second and really let this sink in: If you look at the rest of the week combined — most people, if given a choice, won’t give on a Sunday. For whatever reason, it makes more sense for them to give during the week. What if you’re wrong to keep accepting the idea that most giving happens on Sunday morning? What if people are just as willing to give when you’re not reminding them? What if you’re actually hurting your budget by making Sunday the center of your giving?

When people are taught and encouraged to be generous and then given the tools to make it happen, you’ll start to see a real change. You’ll see people give when they couldn’t be at church because of vacations, illness or other responsibilities. You’ll see people continuing to give, even though they had to move to different cities. You’ll discover people giving because they’ve discovered your ministry online.

Pastor Steve Murray from Real Life Church in Covington, WA, uses Pushpay as the church’s giving platform. He has this to say about giving: “Sunday morning is no longer the main place that people give. With Pushpay, people can give wherever they’re at; so, we’re seeing people give while they’re on vacation, people giving on a Sunday when they’re not at church, or people simply giving on their phone before the buckets even get around to them. Our young people are starting to give more and from different places, and it’s really exciting to see.”

Here’s where technology can come into play and really help you see the facts and figures. We’re living in a time when technology has evolved at an amazing rate; the latest version of a computer or smartphone is outdated in a matter of months, not years. In the church, however, we are often behind when it comes to technology. Whether it’s fear of change or an overwhelming number of options to choose from, decisions about technology seem to paralyze church leaders into indecision. Yet, technology can be an extremely beneficial element to your ministry — particularly when it comes to generosity.

Did you know that the percentage of people using their smartphones to shop on Amazon cracked the 70-percent mark in December 2015?

Facebook sees similar mobile use. In fact, in April 2016, Facebook reported in its earnings report that 79 percent of its advertising revenue came through mobile ads. There are even articles being published on the importance of mobile giving for churches — such as “3 Reasons Why Your Church Needs to Consider Mobile Giving for Offering & Tithes” — citing some very important metrics. At the end of the day, when it comes to trends like this, the numbers don’t lie.

The point of sharing these metrics is that the world today regularly interacts via smartphone, and that number is only growing as smartphones become more and more integrated into our daily lives. If your church isn’t taking advantage of this trend, you’re not only missing out on connecting

“Giving doesn’t just happen inside the Sunday window; it happens throughout the week during business hours, with 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.–3 p.m. seeing the heaviest giving traffic.”

Percentage of people who give Few church metrics come with so much baggage as those centered around giving. We simply don’t know how far to delve into the generosity (or lack thereof) of our congregations. Often, this uncertainty is borne of a very honest — and well-intentioned — desire not to prejudice ourselves for or against people based upon how much they give.

But, it’s a mistake not to measure giving. In 21st-century North America, generosity gives us a bird’s-eye view into the human heart like no other church metric. Johnny Hunt, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, GA, explains it like this: “You’re never more like Jesus than when you give.” If Jesus is the spiritual-maturity barometer of a discipled Christian, then generosity has to be a critical part of the equation.

That’s why you want a giving metric that measures the breadth of giving across your church membership. If your congregation as a whole isn’t giving — or if giving is relegated to a relative few — you can guess you have people who need additional discipleship in the area of generosity.

“It’s incredibly valuable to know that we have 40 committed families, and we have 30 committed givers. That tells us we probably have 25 percent of our church [that] has not been discipled in that area or doesn’t have the means [to give],” said Bradon Cox, managing editor of Pastors.com and founding pastor of Grace Hills Church in northwest Arkansas.

Depending upon how your church tracks giving, this shouldn’t be tough to figure, either. Whoever manages your accounting can simply isolate all your members’ giving records and count up the number of people who have given in the past month. Divide that number by your church’s total number of givers. churchexecutive.com

more with your community, but you’re also missing out on the valuable metrics that come with it. These metrics can help measure the percentage of members who give, determine how effective and useful your current technology is, and help you make educated decisions about how well your technology serves your ministry.

Unbelievable metrics can be accessed when using a mobile solution like echurch custom mobile apps that are powered by Pushpay’s mobile giving platform. If you’re using this technology, giving metrics — such as the percentage of members who give — are a snap to do. You’ll have this number (and more) at your fingertips. You’ll even be able to zero in on specific segments of your membership’s giving patterns.

Want to know what percentage of your young families are giving?

No problem.

Want to know how many of your church’s new members over the past year have become givers? Done.

Want to know the percentage of members in leadership positions who gave last month? It’s easy.

Whatever the situation, access to data is invaluable — and the ability to have eyes on this information can do amazing things for any ministry.

Mobile giving is the most advanced tool to accomplish this. Additionally, it has the ability to unlock generosity from your community while giving you tools to plan for the future.

Written by the echurch content team. echurch is the principal supplier of Pushpay to churches.

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Time to seize your mobile moment

By Tobin Perry

Joe is the kind of guy your church wants to reach.

He’s young — with a growing family. He’s a type-A leader, who is making a difference in your neighborhood. People like him, trust him, and follow him. Lead him to Christ, and he’ll bring his friends to your church for the next couple of decades.

Joe lives in a mobile world.

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“These ‘mobile moments’ — where people are looking on their smartphones to fulfill a need — aren’t just applicable in the business world. They’re applicable to the church, as well. Most people will have many spiritual ‘mobile moments’ every week.”

H

e uses his smartphone every day at work to access spreadsheets, check his calendar, and book his airline flights.

During his breaks, he uses that same smartphone to order flowers for his wife and check out the injury report for his hometown football team.

Recent data shows that Joe spends 86 percent of his mobile time on apps — rather than mobile websites.

The business world is spending billions every year to build smartphone apps that reach into Joe’s billfold. They know that 80 percent of consumers prefer to shop using their smartphones (according to Scott Bales’ book, Mobile Ready). They know that more than half of highly mobile people, like Joe, are frustrated when something they want isn’t available on their smartphone (writes the authors of The Mobile Mind Shift).

Joe doesn’t just engage any mobile apps, though; he deletes more than half as many as he downloads.

The truth is, your church may have an app — but chances are, it’s not one that garners Joe’s attention.

So, what kind of church app can engage someone like Joe? It has to be helpful. While aesthetics matter in the mobile world, the ability of an app to meet a real need in Joe’s life trumps everything else.

The authors of The Mobile Mind Shift note that we’ve gone through a massive mobile mind shift as a culture in recent years. When we feel a need for something, we expect we can pull out our mobile devices and fulfill the need almost immediately.

These “mobile moments” — where people are looking on their smartphones to fulfill a need — aren’t just applicable in the business world. They’re applicable to the church, as well. Most people will have many spiritual “mobile moments” every week. God will impress on their hearts to dig into the Bible, listen to a sermon, express generosity, or join a small group. churchexecutive.com

A church wins the mobile moments — and ultimately becomes useful to the Joes of this world — when it provides the needed help when those moments occur.

It has to be easy to use. Mobile moments are just that: moments. They go as fast as they come. To make the most of the moments you’re given with the Joes of the world, don’t make them have to struggle to fulfill their need. Every second counts. Take too long — or fill their moment with bugs and crashes — and the moment will pass. The moment God has given you to drive Joe into a deeper relationship and commitment to Him will evaporate, maybe never to return again.

The good news about mobile engagement today is that you don’t have to drive it on your own. Great potential partners like echurch, the premier provider of Pushpay giving technology and custom apps, can help you engage Joe at a significant level.

God has a history of using the newest technologies to encourage the greatest spreads of the gospel. In the first century, Paul used the freshly built Roman road system of his day to take the good news throughout the empire. Luther and Calvin used Johannes Gutenberg’s new printing press to spread the good news during the Reformation. Billy Graham used 20thcentury mass communication to get people to his crusades.

Our time is now with mobile technology. The greatest advances in the gospel throughout the ages have always been on the backs of great technological innovation.

The mobile revolution is arguably the greatest communication transformation since the invention of the printing press.

Will your church seize the moment?

Tobin Perry has written about ministry and church topics for Saddleback Church, Baptist Press, the North American Mission Board and more for almost 20 years. He and his family live in Evansville, Ind. C R E A T I N G A C U LT U R E O F G E N E R O S I T Y • V O L U M E 2 • CHURCH EXECUTIVE

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How mobile giving cuts time, heartache out of your staff’s week The members of your church’s administrative staff have big jobs — impossibly big jobs. Few church staffers have enough time to do all that’s on their plates. There’s not enough hours in the week, not enough energy in their tanks.

A few years back, Thom Rainer — now president of LifeWay Christian Resources — gave 12 deacons at a church he pastored a survey with a list of different pastoral duties and a spot for them to mark down what they thought the minimum time a pastor should spend on those tasks every week. When he tabulated all the results, it added up to 114 hours. That’s 19 hours a day for six days a week — enough to kill anyone.

Your pastor can’t do everything on his plate. But let’s be clear: Your staff can’t either.

Here are six ways it does that. #1: All your giving in one place: While not everyone will give to your church digitally, you can expect the numbers of donations via mobile phone to steadily climb. Our virtual terminal [ http:// echurchgiving.com ] allows you to enter cash and check donations into the same ecosystem where your online gifts go. You can even enter a check by using a check scanner to scan it. #2: Weekly summary reports: Understanding your church’s givers can help you make the most of your relationship with them.

Our own platform delivers advanced giving insights to your email inbox every Monday.

You’ll find out when during the week your congregation gave, how many new givers came on board, the average gift, and more.

You’ll also get charts to go along with these stats. No need to run your own reports; the data you need will be sent to you. #3: Annual giving statements: Few tasks are more cumbersome, time-consuming — and critical — for your staff at the end of the year than preparing giving statements. Our platform simplifies the process by putting everything you need in one place.

One push of a button will generate IRS-compliant giving statements.

All the giving processed through Pushpay or in the virtual terminal will be included on the statements. #4: Create-your-own giving funds: Most churches have a variety of funds where giving goes each week — from mission funds, to building funds, to miscellaneous funds. Using our dashboard, church administrators can create and manage these funds on their own. This gives your church the flexibility of launching a new fund in minutes — just in time for your weekend services.

Frankly, that’s good news. If your team could do everything that comes its way, God’s help would be unnecessary. The Bible reminds us over and over again to rest in the reality that “The Lord is my Helper.” (Hebrews 13:6) God is willing and able to multiply our time and empower our ministry. It’s what He does. It’s what we need.

God provides His help for overworked church leaders in a number of ways. Sometimes, it’s miraculous. He gives us a key volunteer (or volunteers) at just the right time. He gives us an important insight out of nowhere about how to be more efficient or productive.

But sometimes, God provides through technology — and it’s just as miraculous.

Take, as an example, all the time your church staff spends dealing with giving — from reconciling bank statements, to analyzing your giving, to preparing end-of-year giving statements. It adds up to many, many staff hours every week — more than those you can hire can do.

But, it doesn’t have to be like that. A strong mobile giving solution can cut both hours and stress out of your staff’s week. It can feel like a miracle.

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#5: Smart features: To maximize generosity, when givers’ credit cards expire, they get notified to change their credit card info. When givers make the same gift several times in row, they are automatically introduced to recurring giving. Automatic built-in tracking means your staff can more easily discern changes in your church’s giving patterns. #6: Batch reconciliation: Your staff spends a lot of time each week ensuring that the donations / gifts that are made to your congregation are allocated correctly and directed to the correct source.

It’s often tedious work of alternating between multiple systems. Your staff can do it in minutes through our proprietary software. With Pushpay, your giving platforms can “talk with each other.” So, no matter how people give, the info will converse seamlessly.

Your staff’s time matters. Make the most of it.

Written by the echurch content team [ http://echurchgiving.com ]. echurch is the principal supplier of Pushpay [ https://pushpay.com ] to churches.

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The top reasons

your church needs to be

on mobile this Easter

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There’s a storm coming. A tsunami. Tornado. A hurricane.

A teeming horde.

I’m talking, of course, about the tidal wave of people headed for your church on April 16.

It’s a time of traditions: spiral-sliced ham, perfectly good eggs covered in thick layers of paint, and going to church with grandma. But for those in ministry, it’s Super Bowl Sunday — an opportunity to reach members of your community who wouldn’t come to church otherwise. That means more first-time visitors, more people “checking out” your church, and, for many churches, the best evangelism opportunity of the year.

But not every church is equally ready for those visitors. Even people who call a church home are attending weekend services less regularly. With a new generation changing what they think about church attendance, we need to rethink the way we reach our communities. Going all-in with mobile isn’t about changing the message of your church; it’s about meeting people where they are — namely, at the supercomputer in their pocket.

This Easter is going to be one of your biggest outreach opportunities this year, and the mobile device is the most powerful means you have available to you to make these connections stick. Here are five of the top reasons your church needs to be on mobile this Easter: #1: Your community is already mobile. Your community already uses their smartphones to communicate with friends, shop for groceries on Amazon, and catch ride shares with Uber. Research shows the average person spends 90 minutes a day on their smartphone. It’s not a matter of, Will the people in my church use an app? Rather, it’s a matter of, Will I have an app for the people in my church already using them?

Even the aging members of your congregation are getting smartphones — mobile defies demographics.

Anybody can throw away a pamphlet. They can toss your tracts into the backseat of their car on the way home. They can stick the mug with your church’s logo in the back of the cabinet. But nobody throws their phone in the trash.

What if you could get a first-time visitor to keep your sermons, connect card and contact info 3 feet away from them at all times?

What if you could send interactive messages to their phones?

That’s the power of mobile. #5: It’s how people want to give. Apple Pay, Google Wallet, the Amazon App — they all offer a simple, slick and quick payment experience.

Giving to your church is often the first “next step” someone takes in investing in your church, literally and spiritually. Mobile payments are the norm for your community Monday to Saturday; why force them 20 years in the past when it comes to giving to your church? Mobile giving is faster, safer, and represents your church better. It’s the best way to make giving a spiritual moment, not a technical one.

No matter the size or location of your congregation, mobile is a powerful opportunity to reach your community. Whether you’re a seasoned social media legend or just learning what an iPhone is, it’s time to start leveraging mobile.

Let’s make this your best Easter yet.

The echurch content team works out of Redmond, Wash., to resource the Church in a changing age. Check out their free library at echurch.com, or continue the conversation at twitter.com/echurchgiving.

CLICK TO GIVE

#2: An app isn’t a “nice-to-have” anymore. The iPhone was released 10 years ago. Apps have gone from being revolutionary, to being the next big thing, to being, well, the thing. Even five years ago, a mobile app was something that was “nice to have,” but that you would have to educate people about in order for them to use it.

But the world has changed, and fast. People not only know how to use apps, they expect you to have one. It’s a natural, ordinary way to stay connected and engaged with your church. #3: Social media is mobile media. According to research by VentureBeat, more than half of Facebook’s users are mobile.

Platforms like Snapchat and Instagram are mobile-exclusive. We hear about the power of social media all the time, but the power of social media is the power of mobile — being able to connect anytime, anywhere. #4: It’s your best bet for follow-up. If people visiting your church for the first time this Easter could walk away from a service with one thing, it should be your mobile app on their phone. Why? Because it’s the best way you can follow up with them. churchexecutive.com

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What executive pastors need to know

By Jayson D. Bradley

You know you need a digital solution for giving at your church. But with all the options out there, online giving is becoming old-hat.

How do you land on the right solution? And once you’ve found it, how will you get your church to actually use it?

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W

e’ve helped many executive pastors navigate these waters. Here are three steps that you can take to get your church to decide on (and actually use) a digital giving solution.

Step 1: Prioritize your online giving options You need to really consider all your giving options and prioritize them based on their future potential and how they’re being used now.

For instance, consider the cash and checks you take during a church service. There’s a good chance that this makes up the lion’s share of your giving, so you don’t want to discontinue this practice right away. But when you consider that about 50 percent of people carry less than $20 in cash at any given time, and that 38 percent say they never use checks, it might not be wise to make the Sunday offering the center point of your giving.

Online giving is an important option because it allows people to give from your website. But since more people are using mobile devices to surf the web, your approach to digital giving can’t stop here.

(I mean, have you ever tried to fill out an online form from a cell phone?)

Text-to-give addressed a lot of these issues in recent years, but it really pales in comparison to mobile app-based giving. When you consider that people downloaded 25 billion iOS apps and 50 billion Android apps in 2015, you know that even grandparents are using their phones to get stuff done. The ability for someone to open an app like Pushpay and give in seconds or sign up for recurring giving makes mobile giving a trustworthy priority — one that a good executive pastor should champion.

Additionally, echurch’s Total Engagement Package creates your own church app where people can hear or watch sermons, keep up-to-date, and generally stay more engaged with the life of the church. Since it comes bundled with Pushpay, people feel like they’re giving to your church, and this makes it an even bigger win.

Step 2: Get your leadership on board One of the problems that executive pastors run into is getting their leadership behind them. It’s not enough to get leadership to sign off on a new online giving option; they have to get behind your rationale for prioritizing it. They need to understand why you’re prioritizing certain giving solutions and deprioritizing others.

Once you have them on board, you can start moving your church toward adopting the solution you’ve chosen. Your whole leadership team needs to be aligned not only on the new tool, but also on the way you will roll it out to your congregation.

This is important because adding a new giving solution without communicating how you’d prefer people to give is a mistake. Instead of making giving easier, it becomes more confusing for your church members. It also puts a strain on your treasurer, who will have to juggle money coming in from multiple sources.

churchexecutive.com

GET THE TOOL YOU NEED TO START

If you’re ready to learn more about mobile giving and how to get started, download a FREE copy of Mobile Giving Done Right @ http://echurch. com/resources.

It will help answer your questions about how to get started, and what common pitfalls to avoid.

Step 3: Get your church to adopt it Breaking your church out of its comfort zone isn’t easy. If congregants have been in the church for a while, they’re probably at a point where the offering is seen as an important Christian tradition. You can’t assume that they’re going to immediately rally around a digital giving solution without some effort.

You’ll want to talk about making the change as often as you can, using all the channels you have at your disposal. Talk about it from the pulpit, send emails, and discuss it in Bible studies and small groups. Make it a centerpiece for your membership class.

Start reprioritizing giving. As you talk about giving, you create more opportunities to champion your new giving solution — and to get your people to sign up for recurring giving (which should really be your ultimate goal). You can download a free copy of our ebook, Teaching Your Church to Give [ http://echurch.com/ resources ], which will give you a lot of tools to make your church more generous — and get its congregants to use your mobile giving solution.

Of course, the right team makes all the difference.

That’s why we set up Pushpay churches with a dedicated representative who works closely with you to get your church to use it. And it works: Pushpay generally has an adoption rate that’s 10 times higher than the average church using mobile giving!

Jayson D. Bradley is a writer and pastor in Bellingham, Wash.

He’s a regular contributor to Relevant Magazine, and his blog, JaysonDBradley.com, has been voted one of the 25 Christian blogs you should be reading.

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It’s time for churches to join the mobile boom

By Jayson D. Bradley

The writing’s on the wall, and churches need to pay close attention. Mobile devices are here to stay — and they’re changing the world.

It’s time for your ministry to take them seriously.

Most people in your church have a mobile device and use it constantly — and the ways they use it grow daily.

The state of mobile Recent statistics have shed an interesting light on smartphone use: • More than 75% of Americans own a smartphone. That percentage has more than doubled since 2011.

• The average time spent on a mobile device each day is about three hours and 15 minutes.

• More than half of all internet use is coming from mobile devices.

• Consider this: 87% of millennials say that their smartphones never leaves their sides, and 46% of all users say that they couldn’t live without their smartphone.

• Smartphone pervasiveness is a worldwide phenomenon. It’s currently projected that by 2020, there will be 6.1 billion smartphones in use globally, and they’ll finally outnumber fixed land lines.

Mobile technology touches everything It would be difficult to come up with an industry that hasn’t been affected by mobile technology. Sixty percent of millennials believe that within five years, we’ll be doing everything on our phones.

Just think about the things that people are currently using their phones to do: • 94% of users use their phones to look up local information • 80% of users have used their phones to look up reviews and compare prices while in a physical store • 75% of millennials use a mobile banking app for deposits, paying bills, and money transfers • 64% of users use their phones to look up health information • 54% of emails are opened on mobile devices • 29% of users get their news on their phones • By 2020, orders placed on smartphones are expected to exceed 10% of all fast food restaurant sales.

Churches: you can’t ignore mobile There’s still a hesitancy on the part of some churches to take smartphones seriously. This might be because catering to smartphone users feels faddish, or you might even believe that you’re enabling an indulgence.

It’s important to understand that this isn’t just a trend. It’s a cultural change that is only growing in significance. Most people in your church have a mobile device and use it constantly — and the ways they use it grow daily.

A church app is a good place to start Mobile users are spending 85% of their time using native applications.

They would prefer not to use their phone’s mobile browser if they don’t have to.

This means that if all your online content only exists on your website, it’s not getting the engagement you’re hoping for. If people need to look up your website to watch your sermons, make donations, schedule events, or read your blog, they probably won’t.

If you want to get people more involved and tuned in, it’s time to start considering your own church app. Church members are much more likely to watch sermons they missed, check prayer requests, and give generously when they can simply do so from your app.

The world has gone mobile. Your church should, too.

If you had an iPhone in 2007, you were the proud owner of both a luxury item and a status symbol. But a lot has changed in the last decade.

By 2011, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was telling tech companies to put their best people on mobile. Why? Because it was obvious that mobile computing was going to change the world — and he was right.

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Jayson D. Bradley is a writer and pastor in Bellingham, Wash. He’s a regular contributor to Relevant Magazine, and his blog, JaysonDBradley.com, has been voted one of the 25 Christian blogs you should be reading.

churchexecutive.com

How to use your app to prepare for the holidays

By Tobin Perry

Only two teams in the history of Major League Baseball have won at least 116 games: the 2001 Seattle Mariners and the 1906 Chicago Cubs. Both teams dominated the regular seasons, quickly dispatching with opponents through good pitching, timely hitting, and stellar defense.

But neither team won the World Series.

Effective baseball teams and effective churches have something in common: they excel when the stakes are highest.

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Your church likely needs loads of new volunteers during the holiday season.

You’ve got choirs to fill up, greeters to enlist, parking attendants to find, etc. Your mobile app should be a key part of your enlistment strategy.

For churches, that’s the holiday season. People are more interested in visiting your church during the holiday season than any other time of the year. You have to make that time count.

Mobile can help your church multiply its ministry effectiveness during this important upcoming holiday season. The people you want to reach already spend three hours of every day on their mobile devices. They’re on their phones even more during this season — balancing their calendars, purchasing gifts, and texting loved ones.

So, how can your church use mobile to be more effective during the holiday season?

These seven ideas will get you started: #1: Make it easy for new people to download your app. You’ll likely have more guests during the holidays than at any other time of the year. Nothing will drive these new guests into engaging deeper with your congregation better than an effective mobile app strategy. #2: You want to make it as easy as possible for new guests to get your app. That’s what makes a text-to-download feature so critical for you church. It allows guests to text a predetermined keyword to a specific number and receive a link to download the app. You could then put these very simple instructions on any of your holiday promotional items (invites, bulletins, etc.). #3: Provide a mobile invite for people to invite friends and family. No amount of marketing your church will do over the holidays will beat word-of-mouth.

A 2014 LifeWay Research study showed most people would be “very interested” in attending a worship service if invited by family, friends or neighbors. Your mobile app can be a great tool to help your people do this more effectively by allowing them to share information about your holiday services through your app. #4: Get new people connected to church events. If your church is typical, you probably have more events during the holidays than any other time of the year — from special worship services, to cantatas, to New Year’s Eve watch parties. churchexecutive.com

Plus, your attendees have full schedules themselves during this season.

It’s easy for your events to get lost in the mix.

An effective calendar that allows congregants to easily find events and register for them through your mobile app will help your church cut through the noise. #5: Turn-year-end givers into mobile users. People love to donate in the last few weeks of the year in order to maximize their tax savings. Network for Good’s 2015 Digital Giving Index said that 11% of the annual giving of the 45,000 nonprofits surveyed came in the last three days of the year. Use all these additional gifts to drive people to your mobile app by following up the gifts (through either email or text, depending upon how the person gave) with an invitation to download it. #6: Use notifications to enlist new volunteers. Your church likely needs loads of new volunteers during the holiday season. You’ve got choirs to fill up, greeters to enlist, parking attendants to find, etc.

Your mobile app should be a key part of your enlistment strategy. Use notifications to let church attendees know about the opportunities. Link those notifications to forms where volunteers can sign up to help from wherever they are. #7: Create a mobile advent devotional to prepare your people for Christmas. It’s easy for even committed Christians to commercialize the holiday season and obscure the reason we celebrate the birth of Jesus. A scripture reading and short devotional thought from your pastors (or even lay leaders) can help people focus on what matters most during the season. Put the devotional on your app, and set a consistent mobile notification schedule to remind users of their presence.

For more information about how to develop a mobile strategy this holiday season, visit echurch.com to schedule a demo.

Tobin Perry has written about ministry and church topics for Saddleback Church, Baptist Press, the North American Mission Board and more for almost 20 years. He and his family live in Evansville, Ind.

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