December 7, 2023 • 25 mins
In this episode, Vance and Zoe converse about making the giving moment in church more meaningful and effective. It explores fresh ways to talk about tithing, steering clear of clichéd Bible verses, and how to avoid making it feel like a 'panhandling' situation, while also offering practical tips for church planters on building trust with their congregation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
We're not trying to make the giving moment of Pan
(00:04):
handling, where it's likedesperate like please give to
us. Oh, we need to pay off debt.
Oh my goodness, please like tokeep the lights on. Nobody gives
to desperation, right? Peoplegive to invitation. People get
to vision. People get to firstprinciple. Yeah, that's what
you're trying to do.
A pastor term tech leader and amillennial churchgoer explores
the intersection of technology,culture and faith, equipping you
(00:27):
with innovative strategies tosupport you as you live out your
calling leader churches withconfidence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast. Vance. So
the giving moment in churches isa very important moment. I
think. So for services, yes. Butin my own experience, I'm sure
in yours as well. You've seen alot of those moments fall flat
(00:52):
or too long.
This is not the sermon yet,people. This is not supposed to
be 10 minutes, this isdefinitely not supposed to be 20
minutes, maybe two.
And people don't realize thepower that's in it. Because when
you're saying something everysingle week, it can feel
mundane, right? And so I want totalk today about how we can make
(01:13):
giving moments in the middle ofa message most effective.
I love that maximize a moment.
Yes, I think it's reallyimportant. I think it's really
important to understand thepurpose of the giving moment.
Yeah, we actually learned thegravity of this moment, several
years ago when we did a littleexperiment. Okay, we read the
blessed life by Robert Morris,shout out to Gateway Church,
phenomenal church, veryfinancial church, okay, the
(01:34):
blessed life is that book, thatbook that if you didn't believe
in the time, before, youprobably will, after reading
that book, you'll want to live agenerous life and, and it's a
phenomenal book, obviouslyPastor Robert Morris, a legend
amongst legend in that book, hewould go on to share the
philosophy of Gateway Church andhow they facilitate generosity.
(01:55):
And we feel so convicted,because at Gateway Church and
Texas, they don't actually do amoment where they pass buckets,
or were they actually promptgiving in service. Oh, wow. You
know, because they want to giveno reason for people to maybe be
offended or something to thatnature, right. And we felt so
(02:17):
convicted. Instead, what they dois they do giving kiosks, at the
back of the church in in thelobby, where if you gotta get a
church, you know, especially ifyou read the book, The Power of
the tie, then you can go aheadand do that on your way out or
on your way in. And so, youknow, what? Scrap the giving
moment, take it out of the runsheet, five more minutes for
(02:39):
worship. Let's go. And we're sopumped. I remember a clearly we
did this experiment, this summerof I want to say 2016. Okay. And
that August, specifically, weran this experiment. And we
usually do a month over monthkind of comparison report are
giving for that August for thatexperiment. Beloved, it
(03:03):
plummeted like it almost like,you know, like the at the
doctor's office with a pulse.
Yeah. And there's a it wasalmost, it was almost dead. And
we're like, bring the givenmoment, but Oh, my five minutes
seven, well, whatever it needs,like, we're talking about giving
every service. Yeah, for therest of our church. Wow. You
(03:26):
know, and so, you know, I'm notsaying that that strategy at
Gateway Church doesn't work,maybe it's a different context.
Maybe in Texas, they just type,maybe Texas, people are tired,
it's in their bloodautomatically. But people in the
Silicon Valley, they need areminder. They need a refresher.
They need some theology aroundthe time, the giving. And you
(03:48):
know, this is what we learned isthat it was very simple.
Actually, it didn't need to beseven minutes, it didn't be 10
minutes. It's a couple ofminutes that we have in service
where we prompt giving where weremind people to honor God with
their time. And it actuallyserves as a sacred moment within
the service for us to worshiptogether and are giving. And a
lot of times it's actually notbased on the quality or even the
(04:13):
content of the sermon net, thatthe host is giving the campus
pastor is giving the executivepastor is giving the CFO is
giving. No it's actually moreabout how clear the message and
the direction is. And so youdon't actually have to be so
intimidated by giving this crazyelaborate teaching on the top.
(04:38):
Here's the facts. You're notgoing to convince somebody to
tie the two minutes. I'm sorry,you're probably not even going
to convince somebody to tie than10 minutes to give 10% of your
income. And you haven't beendoing that before is a massive
step. Sure. People need to bediscipled. In that step people
come into the revelation of theThai through small groups
(04:58):
through next steps. Throughwalking with other disciples,
through walking with otherpeople of the way that had been
practicing this lifestyle thathad been practicing this
tradition is powerful principlein the book, it's not going to
happen in two minutes, not goingto happen in 10 minutes. So what
is your job, your job is not toget that person far from Jesus,
to convince them to tie on thatSunday service, your job is to
(05:21):
orient the saints, to orient thepeople that already are
followers of the way to orientthe people that are members at
your church, and simplyencourage them on the time. And
the remind them the ways to giveis actually a lot more
logistical than people think.
Because a lot of times whatyou're speaking to is somebody
that already believes in thetime, but just need simple
instruction, because maybe theypractice a Tod once a month.
(05:44):
Max, maybe they practice ittwice a month, the 15th and the
30th. Maybe they're a realestate agent, maybe they
practice, practice the time,twice a year. And so people
drift, people leak peopleforget.
And so more than trying to dothis elaborate sermonette I
(06:06):
would actually really rehearseand practice how you're going to
talk about how to give the waysto give the ways they can be
unlimited in their generosityand practice. Things like the
top but we're gonna go into howI personally prep a given
message and how many people atour church prep a given message.
(06:26):
You want to keep it concise, andcompelling, right? This is not
the time to tell life stories.
This is not the time to get allcute. It's all about being
clear, and being compelling. Solet's do let's do a layup. How
about that? Let's do a littlelayup. listening to the audio.
XO did a horrible rendition of alayup she actually did a fade
(06:48):
away. She did a fade away likebank shot sorry,
I'm not a baller Vance.
Proverbs three nine says, Honorthe Lord with your wealth. And
with the best part of everythingyou produce, then He will fill
your barns with grain and yourvats will overflow shout out
with good wine, Proverbs three,nine and 10 NLT version if
(07:12):
you're looking for a givingmoment message, what a great
verse. Yeah, this is a greatverse definitely to adopt.
There's so much you can say inthis verse. There's so much you
can do to encourage the churchin this verse. I shared this
recently with our church duringa given moment. And I wanted to
highlight it's good if you'regoing to teach the time to build
a little tension. I mean, withany one of communication, right?
(07:32):
building tension is good. Don'twant people to like stand up.
You don't want people to kind ofsnooze off you want, you know,
to have inflection in yourvoice. You want to be able to
engage in audience. One way toengage an audience a good story
has good tension. Sure, right.
And the tension here that I findyou want to if you're going to
communicate anything from theBible, you want to try to find
the tension, just want totension and above there's a lot
of backwards economics in theBible. The last shall be first
(07:56):
was first shall be lastname. So exactly. That means I'm
going to be first there you goand have it.
Yes, but not in schoolattendance row deadlines. The
tension in Proverbs three, nine,and 10 is that oftentimes As
believers, we actually arewaiting for the overflow first,
(08:18):
before we honor the Lord withour wealth. Yeah, we read the
verse backwards. But proverbsthree, nine and 10 doesn't read
Proverbs 310 and nine. It readsin a sequence, it reads in an
order for a reason. No, no, nohonor the Lord first. Yeah,
Honor the Lord with your best.
Honor the Lord with the bestpart of everything you produce,
(08:41):
then then see, the byproduct ofhonoring the Lord is He will
fill your barns with grain andyour vats will overflow with
good wine. And so it's a simpleencouragement. I'm bringing a
biblical truth. I'm bringing abiblical principle. I'm drawing
attention. I'm bringing a littlebit of relief, because the
conclusion is really great.
(09:03):
Sure, I want to live a life ofoverflow. Yeah, I want to honor
the Lord. And if the Bible says,Then I will live a life of
overflow. I want to do that.
Okay, how do we do that church,there's so many ways to
participate in the type ofgiving your best to God. And the
ways here at vibe church that wedo it is through our website
through our app, you can go tovibe church.org/give. And
(09:24):
there's actually so many ways togive you're not even limited to
your checking account or savingsaccount. Here are five terms,
you can give me a stock, you cangive me a crypto, there's so
many people in this communitythat have decided to practice
this principle, and we've seenthat nobody regrets ever being
generous.
(09:46):
That's really powerful. And Ijust want to pay attention to
what he just said. Because thereis nothing Vance just said in
that second half. That made himsound like he needed to know
anything about any financialterms. He just said oh, you can
also give in the following way.
That's right. That's all itneeds to be. Yep. And so let's
dig into this a little bit more,because I'm picturing that
there's someone out there who'slistening to this. And it's
(10:07):
like, okay, Vance. Well, that'salready what I'm doing. In my
church. I tell my church, hey,here's the verse I pulled up
this week, which we know theyjust go through a Rolodex,
right, because there's only somany verses in the Bible. The
tide, right, so we hear the set,you know, exactly. Proverbs
1124 25. Yeah. And, you know, wehear these verses, and they're
(10:27):
like, but how can I make it funand compelling? And you're
saying, that's not the mostimportant part, right? But what
are you saying thisdifferentiating people who grab
a verse, say the verse then say,and now we're gonna give what's
different about what you'retrying to communicate?
I, you know, said that I wasgonna get a verse that was a
(10:47):
layup. And there are those go toverses that specifically call
out money? Right. But there'salso verses that don't
specifically call out money.
Yeah. There's verses that don'tspecifically talk about ties
that don't specifically talkabout generosity, you should
take those verses to write andyou should build the tension. I
think we talked about this onanother podcast, but the
brilliant story that kind ofindirectly talks about money and
(11:10):
currency, but not specificallyabout generosity. And tithing is
a story where they try to trapJesus, they try to trap Jesus in
saying, Hey, should we paytaxes? Okay, so what is taxes
have to do with the time andactually if we put those two
concepts together, it's a littlebit cringy. Because people
sometimes misconstrue what thetithe is they think it's church
(11:32):
membership fee, or they thinkit's the church tax to be able
to be part of the community thatcan be further from the truth.
So why would I be bringing thispassage into a giving moment?
Because it creates tension.
Right? Yeah. And what you'retrying to do is you're trying to
relieve the tension with agreater principle. So in that
story, where they're trying totrap Jesus, and tell him, Hey,
(11:53):
Jesus, should we give our taxesbecause what they were trying to
say is, they're corrupt Jesus,this government's corrupt. I
thought you're meant to comehere to overthrow this
government. Jesus. So whatyou're gonna say now, because
then if he bucked the trend, andhe says, No, don't pay taxes,
then they got him again. Yeah,because they're trapping him to
(12:16):
do something illegal. And so hedoes something so brilliant. He
says, Hey, no, you should lookat what's on that coin. And they
say, okay, yeah, on this coin isCaesar that that's the image he
has like, yeah, okay, so theimage on that coin is what they
said Caesar Okay, give untoCaesar what is Caesar's. And
then in just Jesus fashion, hejust drops the mic. I love this
(12:36):
passage so much. And he goes,and give to God, what is God's
what does it have to do withtithes and offerings? Well, the
the thing that it has to do withtithes and offerings is that
Jesus always ups the standard.
He says, Yes, pay your taxes.
They printed those coins. Yeah,they printed those bills. They
printed that money. Is that whatyou're putting your trust in?
(12:59):
Give it back? Yeah, if they'rerendering taxes, if they're
demanding taxes, if they'rerequiring taxes, honor the
government, honor the authority,pay your taxes, but check this
out, give to God, what is God's?
So if the image on the coin isCaesar, and I told you to give
back to Caesar, what isCaesar's, what is the image on
you? The Imago? Dei, you are animage bearer of God. So yeah, if
(13:23):
you're gonna give to God, Whodoes God give your whole self to
God? And so what does that haveto do with the tithes and
offerings? Because the UPS thestandard, it's not just about,
oh, how much I need to get whatis it? Is it 10%? No, no,
actually, here's the standard.
Give everything. Yes, you haveeverything. So let's Yeah, when
we come around the time oftithes and offerings, when we
(13:46):
say a lot of people in thiscommunity are giving 10%. What
we're saying is we're we'redeciding what our baseline is
going to be. Yeah. But whatwe're really aiming to do is
become more and more like Jesusto become more and more like
Christ, to figure out a way thatwe can actually give as much as
(14:07):
possible to further the kingdomof God. Whether it's, yeah,
maybe you're tired, butdefinitely also your talent.
Yeah. And hopefully, your time.
And so what, what we're doingand to your question, is, we're
not trying to make the givingmoment, a pan handling moment.
Yes, where it's like desperate,like, Please give to us. Oh, we
(14:29):
need to pay off debt. Oh, mygosh, like, we're in trouble. We
need to pay the rent. Oh, mygoodness. Please like to keep
the lights on. Nobody gives todesperation, right? People give
to invitation. People give tofaith. People give to vision
people give to first principle.
Yeah, that's what you're tryingto do. I
think that's a that's a greatdistinction. And so, you know,
(14:52):
as we're talking about this, Ijust want to get really granular
because I know that this is veryhelpful for people when they're
struggling with this. So whatare some things that you have
seen pastors, obviously we'renot going to call out any
institution or anybody. But whatare some things that have been
done wrong in this given momentthat makes it fall flat?
(15:12):
Yeah, number one too long. Iwould say that most of the time,
if you're doing a giving moment,especially if somebody is coming
into this space that's newer tothis space, especially if maybe
their hearts not aligned to whatthe purpose is. It's their
moment. Like, they didn't getinvited to preach this year, but
(15:33):
they got a given moment. Sothey're gonna maximize it. No,
no, it's not your chance tomaximize it by giving a 10
minute sermonette on money.
Yeah, that's not the point.
Right? Like reserve the, here'sthe thing with hosting, and with
platform time from people thatmay be facilitating things like
giving or announcements andthings like that. You want to
(15:55):
point things back to God, notyourself. Yeah. You want to
actually set it up for whoeverthe preacher is, for that day, a
lot of times, it might be yourlead pastor. And so if you're
doing things in a way thatdoesn't set it up, but detracts
from what's about to come, youdidn't do your job, right. And
so, to sit in that seat, a lotof times it's the person that
(16:15):
sits sits in the second seat,it's the person that is maybe
the second in command, maybeit's the person that is the
support team, the executiveteam, around the lead pastor,
the lead pastors, your job iskind of like in volleyball, to
do the most amazing setup youcan to set it up for the spike.
(16:36):
Yeah. Because the goal of theservice is not to necessarily
get a giving report back andhey, look, look what I did,
you know, givings up thisrecord, record record week,
becauseI give a two minute message. No,
yeah. Like, that's not even thespike, though. Even if that was
the case, that's not the spike,the spike is a salvation altar
call. That's a spike. Yes. Andso you're trying to get
(16:58):
everything towards that. And soif you take that mentality with
this giving moment actuallydoes, you can connect the dots,
right? Because people that goatrespond to the altar is possible
to do that, because of thebuilding that you're in, because
of the parking lot that youhave, because of the volunteers
that you have, because it paidstaff that it takes to do all
the logistics during the week.
(17:22):
And so what you're doing isyou're facilitating generosity
towards the main part ofworship, the main comission, the
great commission that we have.
And so too long, I think anothermaybe faux pa that I've seen is
that it's too fancy. Okay. So,you know, you're trying to maybe
(17:45):
do a funny story plus, like analliteration plus, like, the
super deep punch line. And it'slike, man, so how do I give?
And then, you know,you run out of time, because,
you know, most modern churcheshave a clock. Yeah, you want at
a time. And you want to respectthe time, and you did everything
(18:08):
in your content part that youhave no time for the directions
part. Yeah. And so you missedout on the logistical part,
which is actually the main part,you know, what, they're actually
half listening to you? Andthey're half like fumbling on
their phone, like, like tryingwhat was the website again, and
they're trying to like,actually, they're actually
trying to look past you to zoomin their camera for the QR code.
(18:29):
So so that and then the thirdthing was like, read the room.
Yes. Right. Read the room. Yeah.
You know, have a form ofengagement, do a little call and
response. Like, I start a lot ofthe moments that I have an
opportunity to, to encouragepeople in their giving. I say, I
encourage the church. I say,Come on, boxers, how many people
(18:51):
love to give? And there'susually like a little chair,
right? And if the chair is tooquiet, oh, really be like, no,
no, come on. This is agenerator, how many people love
to get and I'm encouraging them.
I'm not reprimanding them. I'mnot saying Oh, you're not going
to talk to me, huh? Oh, youknow, it's no, no, it's it's,
it's it's building withpositivity. Yeah. It's building
(19:13):
with edification. It's buildingwith XOR to Hayward generation,
this church for a decade asgiven sacrificially. This is why
we're in this building rightnow. Because there are hundreds
and hundreds of family unitsthat have decided we're going to
be a generous family. We'regoing to practice at the time.
Yeah, we're gonna get above andbeyond and become vision
builders kingdom. But this iswhat Vive is. And I just want to
(19:33):
encourage you right now, if youwant to join that crew that
coveted crew, decide today.
Yeah, decide today that you wantto be a giver. There's so many
ways to get and then you getinto the logistics. Right? And
so I would say just too long,too fancy. And not reading the
room.
Yeah. No, I think that's great.
And I'm thinking about churchplanters specifically with this
(19:56):
next question, because it'sgood. I know Know that in
previous episodes, we've talkedabout how to build trust in the
church, and a lot of it has todo with do what you say you're
going to do. Yes. And you buildtrust by proving that you have
done that and will continue todo that. Yeah. So for a church
planter, who literally isplanting, it doesn't have
anything currently to provewe're going to do it. We're,
(20:17):
we've said we're gonna do, howcan they build trust within the
church, and for the givers inthe room
endorsement, continue. So early,early, early days, if you have a
board of oversights or advisorsthat are pastors of other
churches that are a little bitfurther have a little bit more
(20:39):
credibility? Yeah, getting themto video in something in
periodic times big celebrationmoments where they can endorse
your leadership, I think it'sreally important to provide some
credibility and gravitas to whatyou're building. Yeah, that's an
important point because a lot oftimes some some people's
hesitation with activating thetithe or giving or, you know,
giving sacrificially is I don'tknow if there's going to be
(21:01):
around in a couple years, right.
And so you need people tovalidate it and provide
credibility around it, buildyour team quickly. So that you
are not the only one. Giving thegiving moment, right, you're not
the only one speaking to it. Youwant to create depth and layers
to your team as soon aspossible. So that here's the
thing. We say this advisorshonor up on her down on our all
(21:22):
around a culture of honor is soimportant because your
perception dictates yourreception. There's actually this
interesting story. This worldclass violinist, Joshua Bell,
look him up. He would be invitedto play at the largest stages,
the Boston Symphony Hall, theywould sell tickets for this guy
(21:45):
for $300 a pop, he decided to doan experiment. He went to the
subways in New York, and he wasplaying his violin the same set
that he played a few days ago atthe Boston Symphony Hall. And
guess how much he made that day?
In his little like violin case.
$32 Wow. $32 Because yourperception dictates your
(22:10):
reception. Just imagine ifsomebody would have recognized
him. Just imagine if somebodywould have started the chain
reaction. Just imagine ifsomebody would have acted out of
honor. Yeah. And said, Hey, doyou guys know this is? This is
Joshua Bell. He was just at theBoston Symphony Hall. $300 a
(22:31):
ticket. He's giving a freeconcert right here, put it on
Instagram rules, put it on TikTok, put it on Snapchat, people
start hearing about it, he wouldhave had crowds and crowds and
crowds. Why nothing changed. Thesetlist didn't change. He didn't
change, the perception changed.
(22:52):
That's What honor does. Wow.
Jesus goes to his hometown. Hesaid, I could not be honored in
my hometown. Why? Because theytreated him familiar. Yeah. And
so what you need to do is youneed to create layers in depth
to your team, you need to havean advisor speak. And so you're
not just hyping your own self upand saying, Hey, look, I'm this
great leader. No, no, let otherpeople say that. And let other
(23:14):
people cultivate a culture ofhonor, because it's actually not
for you or for the pastor. It'sactually for the people. The
pastor doesn't need honor. Yeah.
But people need an opportunityto honor. Right, yeah. And
another way that we honor isthrough our tithes and
offerings. Yeah,I really like that. And one
thing I would like to add, assomeone who has been in the
(23:35):
rooms with church planners, asthey're getting their churches
off the ground is that versethat you spoke about earlier?
That's a great verse to point toin your giving message when you
don't have anything to pointtowards yet. Right? Because it's
saying give first, yeah, so foryou see anything good give out
of that faith. And so I thinkthat using that lens, even as
you're looking through scriptureof where our stories of people
(23:59):
who did something and actedbefore they saw what the results
would be, that's gonna be superpowerful for you of that as
well. All right, well, this isreally helpful to me, I feel
like I can give a giving messageseven that now you should
amplify, amplify, shout out,shout out. Alright, so that's it
for this episode. Guys, knowthat you have everything you
(24:23):
need right in front of you, andthat you don't need to be the
world's most clever person onstage, giving this moment. It's
all about God and just presentthat opportunity and give them
all of the information they needto make it actionable in their
lives. Ilove that and congratulations
because you are an insider.
Yeah, exclusive content just foryou. Well done. Bye bye.
(24:48):
Thanks so much for listening tothe give it up podcast if you
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We'll see you next time.
We're not trying to make the giving moment of Pan
(00:04):
handling, where it's likedesperate like please give to
us. Oh, we need to pay off debt.
Oh my goodness, please like tokeep the lights on. Nobody gives
to desperation, right? Peoplegive to invitation. People get
to vision. People get to firstprinciple. Yeah, that's what
you're trying to do.
A pastor term tech leader and amillennial churchgoer explores
the intersection of technology,culture and faith, equipping you
(00:27):
with innovative strategies tosupport you as you live out your
calling leader churches withconfidence to step into the
future together. This is thegive it up podcast. Vance. So
the giving moment in churches isa very important moment. I
think. So for services, yes. Butin my own experience, I'm sure
in yours as well. You've seen alot of those moments fall flat
(00:52):
or too long.
This is not the sermon yet,people. This is not supposed to
be 10 minutes, this isdefinitely not supposed to be 20
minutes, maybe two.
And people don't realize thepower that's in it. Because when
you're saying something everysingle week, it can feel
mundane, right? And so I want totalk today about how we can make
(01:13):
giving moments in the middle ofa message most effective.
I love that maximize a moment.
Yes, I think it's reallyimportant. I think it's really
important to understand thepurpose of the giving moment.
Yeah, we actually learned thegravity of this moment, several
years ago when we did a littleexperiment. Okay, we read the
blessed life by Robert Morris,shout out to Gateway Church,
phenomenal church, veryfinancial church, okay, the
(01:34):
blessed life is that book, thatbook that if you didn't believe
in the time, before, youprobably will, after reading
that book, you'll want to live agenerous life and, and it's a
phenomenal book, obviouslyPastor Robert Morris, a legend
amongst legend in that book, hewould go on to share the
philosophy of Gateway Church andhow they facilitate generosity.
(01:55):
And we feel so convicted,because at Gateway Church and
Texas, they don't actually do amoment where they pass buckets,
or were they actually promptgiving in service. Oh, wow. You
know, because they want to giveno reason for people to maybe be
offended or something to thatnature, right. And we felt so
(02:17):
convicted. Instead, what they dois they do giving kiosks, at the
back of the church in in thelobby, where if you gotta get a
church, you know, especially ifyou read the book, The Power of
the tie, then you can go aheadand do that on your way out or
on your way in. And so, youknow, what? Scrap the giving
moment, take it out of the runsheet, five more minutes for
(02:39):
worship. Let's go. And we're sopumped. I remember a clearly we
did this experiment, this summerof I want to say 2016. Okay. And
that August, specifically, weran this experiment. And we
usually do a month over monthkind of comparison report are
giving for that August for thatexperiment. Beloved, it
(03:03):
plummeted like it almost like,you know, like the at the
doctor's office with a pulse.
Yeah. And there's a it wasalmost, it was almost dead. And
we're like, bring the givenmoment, but Oh, my five minutes
seven, well, whatever it needs,like, we're talking about giving
every service. Yeah, for therest of our church. Wow. You
(03:26):
know, and so, you know, I'm notsaying that that strategy at
Gateway Church doesn't work,maybe it's a different context.
Maybe in Texas, they just type,maybe Texas, people are tired,
it's in their bloodautomatically. But people in the
Silicon Valley, they need areminder. They need a refresher.
They need some theology aroundthe time, the giving. And you
(03:48):
know, this is what we learned isthat it was very simple.
Actually, it didn't need to beseven minutes, it didn't be 10
minutes. It's a couple ofminutes that we have in service
where we prompt giving where weremind people to honor God with
their time. And it actuallyserves as a sacred moment within
the service for us to worshiptogether and are giving. And a
lot of times it's actually notbased on the quality or even the
(04:13):
content of the sermon net, thatthe host is giving the campus
pastor is giving the executivepastor is giving the CFO is
giving. No it's actually moreabout how clear the message and
the direction is. And so youdon't actually have to be so
intimidated by giving this crazyelaborate teaching on the top.
(04:38):
Here's the facts. You're notgoing to convince somebody to
tie the two minutes. I'm sorry,you're probably not even going
to convince somebody to tie than10 minutes to give 10% of your
income. And you haven't beendoing that before is a massive
step. Sure. People need to bediscipled. In that step people
come into the revelation of theThai through small groups
(04:58):
through next steps. Throughwalking with other disciples,
through walking with otherpeople of the way that had been
practicing this lifestyle thathad been practicing this
tradition is powerful principlein the book, it's not going to
happen in two minutes, not goingto happen in 10 minutes. So what
is your job, your job is not toget that person far from Jesus,
to convince them to tie on thatSunday service, your job is to
(05:21):
orient the saints, to orient thepeople that already are
followers of the way to orientthe people that are members at
your church, and simplyencourage them on the time. And
the remind them the ways to giveis actually a lot more
logistical than people think.
Because a lot of times whatyou're speaking to is somebody
that already believes in thetime, but just need simple
instruction, because maybe theypractice a Tod once a month.
(05:44):
Max, maybe they practice ittwice a month, the 15th and the
30th. Maybe they're a realestate agent, maybe they
practice, practice the time,twice a year. And so people
drift, people leak peopleforget.
And so more than trying to dothis elaborate sermonette I
(06:06):
would actually really rehearseand practice how you're going to
talk about how to give the waysto give the ways they can be
unlimited in their generosityand practice. Things like the
top but we're gonna go into howI personally prep a given
message and how many people atour church prep a given message.
(06:26):
You want to keep it concise, andcompelling, right? This is not
the time to tell life stories.
This is not the time to get allcute. It's all about being
clear, and being compelling. Solet's do let's do a layup. How
about that? Let's do a littlelayup. listening to the audio.
XO did a horrible rendition of alayup she actually did a fade
(06:48):
away. She did a fade away likebank shot sorry,
I'm not a baller Vance.
Proverbs three nine says, Honorthe Lord with your wealth. And
with the best part of everythingyou produce, then He will fill
your barns with grain and yourvats will overflow shout out
with good wine, Proverbs three,nine and 10 NLT version if
(07:12):
you're looking for a givingmoment message, what a great
verse. Yeah, this is a greatverse definitely to adopt.
There's so much you can say inthis verse. There's so much you
can do to encourage the churchin this verse. I shared this
recently with our church duringa given moment. And I wanted to
highlight it's good if you'regoing to teach the time to build
a little tension. I mean, withany one of communication, right?
(07:32):
building tension is good. Don'twant people to like stand up.
You don't want people to kind ofsnooze off you want, you know,
to have inflection in yourvoice. You want to be able to
engage in audience. One way toengage an audience a good story
has good tension. Sure, right.
And the tension here that I findyou want to if you're going to
communicate anything from theBible, you want to try to find
the tension, just want totension and above there's a lot
of backwards economics in theBible. The last shall be first
(07:56):
was first shall be lastname. So exactly. That means I'm
going to be first there you goand have it.
Yes, but not in schoolattendance row deadlines. The
tension in Proverbs three, nine,and 10 is that oftentimes As
believers, we actually arewaiting for the overflow first,
(08:18):
before we honor the Lord withour wealth. Yeah, we read the
verse backwards. But proverbsthree, nine and 10 doesn't read
Proverbs 310 and nine. It readsin a sequence, it reads in an
order for a reason. No, no, nohonor the Lord first. Yeah,
Honor the Lord with your best.
Honor the Lord with the bestpart of everything you produce,
(08:41):
then then see, the byproduct ofhonoring the Lord is He will
fill your barns with grain andyour vats will overflow with
good wine. And so it's a simpleencouragement. I'm bringing a
biblical truth. I'm bringing abiblical principle. I'm drawing
attention. I'm bringing a littlebit of relief, because the
conclusion is really great.
(09:03):
Sure, I want to live a life ofoverflow. Yeah, I want to honor
the Lord. And if the Bible says,Then I will live a life of
overflow. I want to do that.
Okay, how do we do that church,there's so many ways to
participate in the type ofgiving your best to God. And the
ways here at vibe church that wedo it is through our website
through our app, you can go tovibe church.org/give. And
(09:24):
there's actually so many ways togive you're not even limited to
your checking account or savingsaccount. Here are five terms,
you can give me a stock, you cangive me a crypto, there's so
many people in this communitythat have decided to practice
this principle, and we've seenthat nobody regrets ever being
generous.
(09:46):
That's really powerful. And Ijust want to pay attention to
what he just said. Because thereis nothing Vance just said in
that second half. That made himsound like he needed to know
anything about any financialterms. He just said oh, you can
also give in the following way.
That's right. That's all itneeds to be. Yep. And so let's
dig into this a little bit more,because I'm picturing that
there's someone out there who'slistening to this. And it's
(10:07):
like, okay, Vance. Well, that'salready what I'm doing. In my
church. I tell my church, hey,here's the verse I pulled up
this week, which we know theyjust go through a Rolodex,
right, because there's only somany verses in the Bible. The
tide, right, so we hear the set,you know, exactly. Proverbs
1124 25. Yeah. And, you know, wehear these verses, and they're
(10:27):
like, but how can I make it funand compelling? And you're
saying, that's not the mostimportant part, right? But what
are you saying thisdifferentiating people who grab
a verse, say the verse then say,and now we're gonna give what's
different about what you'retrying to communicate?
I, you know, said that I wasgonna get a verse that was a
(10:47):
layup. And there are those go toverses that specifically call
out money? Right. But there'salso verses that don't
specifically call out money.
Yeah. There's verses that don'tspecifically talk about ties
that don't specifically talkabout generosity, you should
take those verses to write andyou should build the tension. I
think we talked about this onanother podcast, but the
brilliant story that kind ofindirectly talks about money and
(11:10):
currency, but not specificallyabout generosity. And tithing is
a story where they try to trapJesus, they try to trap Jesus in
saying, Hey, should we paytaxes? Okay, so what is taxes
have to do with the time andactually if we put those two
concepts together, it's a littlebit cringy. Because people
sometimes misconstrue what thetithe is they think it's church
(11:32):
membership fee, or they thinkit's the church tax to be able
to be part of the community thatcan be further from the truth.
So why would I be bringing thispassage into a giving moment?
Because it creates tension.
Right? Yeah. And what you'retrying to do is you're trying to
relieve the tension with agreater principle. So in that
story, where they're trying totrap Jesus, and tell him, Hey,
(11:53):
Jesus, should we give our taxesbecause what they were trying to
say is, they're corrupt Jesus,this government's corrupt. I
thought you're meant to comehere to overthrow this
government. Jesus. So whatyou're gonna say now, because
then if he bucked the trend, andhe says, No, don't pay taxes,
then they got him again. Yeah,because they're trapping him to
(12:16):
do something illegal. And so hedoes something so brilliant. He
says, Hey, no, you should lookat what's on that coin. And they
say, okay, yeah, on this coin isCaesar that that's the image he
has like, yeah, okay, so theimage on that coin is what they
said Caesar Okay, give untoCaesar what is Caesar's. And
then in just Jesus fashion, hejust drops the mic. I love this
(12:36):
passage so much. And he goes,and give to God, what is God's
what does it have to do withtithes and offerings? Well, the
the thing that it has to do withtithes and offerings is that
Jesus always ups the standard.
He says, Yes, pay your taxes.
They printed those coins. Yeah,they printed those bills. They
printed that money. Is that whatyou're putting your trust in?
(12:59):
Give it back? Yeah, if they'rerendering taxes, if they're
demanding taxes, if they'rerequiring taxes, honor the
government, honor the authority,pay your taxes, but check this
out, give to God, what is God's?
So if the image on the coin isCaesar, and I told you to give
back to Caesar, what isCaesar's, what is the image on
you? The Imago? Dei, you are animage bearer of God. So yeah, if
(13:23):
you're gonna give to God, Whodoes God give your whole self to
God? And so what does that haveto do with the tithes and
offerings? Because the UPS thestandard, it's not just about,
oh, how much I need to get whatis it? Is it 10%? No, no,
actually, here's the standard.
Give everything. Yes, you haveeverything. So let's Yeah, when
we come around the time oftithes and offerings, when we
(13:46):
say a lot of people in thiscommunity are giving 10%. What
we're saying is we're we'redeciding what our baseline is
going to be. Yeah. But whatwe're really aiming to do is
become more and more like Jesusto become more and more like
Christ, to figure out a way thatwe can actually give as much as
(14:07):
possible to further the kingdomof God. Whether it's, yeah,
maybe you're tired, butdefinitely also your talent.
Yeah. And hopefully, your time.
And so what, what we're doingand to your question, is, we're
not trying to make the givingmoment, a pan handling moment.
Yes, where it's like desperate,like, Please give to us. Oh, we
(14:29):
need to pay off debt. Oh, mygosh, like, we're in trouble. We
need to pay the rent. Oh, mygoodness. Please like to keep
the lights on. Nobody gives todesperation, right? People give
to invitation. People give tofaith. People give to vision
people give to first principle.
Yeah, that's what you're tryingto do. I
think that's a that's a greatdistinction. And so, you know,
(14:52):
as we're talking about this, Ijust want to get really granular
because I know that this is veryhelpful for people when they're
struggling with this. So whatare some things that you have
seen pastors, obviously we'renot going to call out any
institution or anybody. But whatare some things that have been
done wrong in this given momentthat makes it fall flat?
(15:12):
Yeah, number one too long. Iwould say that most of the time,
if you're doing a giving moment,especially if somebody is coming
into this space that's newer tothis space, especially if maybe
their hearts not aligned to whatthe purpose is. It's their
moment. Like, they didn't getinvited to preach this year, but
(15:33):
they got a given moment. Sothey're gonna maximize it. No,
no, it's not your chance tomaximize it by giving a 10
minute sermonette on money.
Yeah, that's not the point.
Right? Like reserve the, here'sthe thing with hosting, and with
platform time from people thatmay be facilitating things like
giving or announcements andthings like that. You want to
(15:55):
point things back to God, notyourself. Yeah. You want to
actually set it up for whoeverthe preacher is, for that day, a
lot of times, it might be yourlead pastor. And so if you're
doing things in a way thatdoesn't set it up, but detracts
from what's about to come, youdidn't do your job, right. And
so, to sit in that seat, a lotof times it's the person that
(16:15):
sits sits in the second seat,it's the person that is maybe
the second in command, maybeit's the person that is the
support team, the executiveteam, around the lead pastor,
the lead pastors, your job iskind of like in volleyball, to
do the most amazing setup youcan to set it up for the spike.
(16:36):
Yeah. Because the goal of theservice is not to necessarily
get a giving report back andhey, look, look what I did,
you know, givings up thisrecord, record record week,
becauseI give a two minute message. No,
yeah. Like, that's not even thespike, though. Even if that was
the case, that's not the spike,the spike is a salvation altar
call. That's a spike. Yes. Andso you're trying to get
(16:58):
everything towards that. And soif you take that mentality with
this giving moment actuallydoes, you can connect the dots,
right? Because people that goatrespond to the altar is possible
to do that, because of thebuilding that you're in, because
of the parking lot that youhave, because of the volunteers
that you have, because it paidstaff that it takes to do all
the logistics during the week.
(17:22):
And so what you're doing isyou're facilitating generosity
towards the main part ofworship, the main comission, the
great commission that we have.
And so too long, I think anothermaybe faux pa that I've seen is
that it's too fancy. Okay. So,you know, you're trying to maybe
(17:45):
do a funny story plus, like analliteration plus, like, the
super deep punch line. And it'slike, man, so how do I give?
And then, you know,you run out of time, because,
you know, most modern churcheshave a clock. Yeah, you want at
a time. And you want to respectthe time, and you did everything
(18:08):
in your content part that youhave no time for the directions
part. Yeah. And so you missedout on the logistical part,
which is actually the main part,you know, what, they're actually
half listening to you? Andthey're half like fumbling on
their phone, like, like tryingwhat was the website again, and
they're trying to like,actually, they're actually
trying to look past you to zoomin their camera for the QR code.
(18:29):
So so that and then the thirdthing was like, read the room.
Yes. Right. Read the room. Yeah.
You know, have a form ofengagement, do a little call and
response. Like, I start a lot ofthe moments that I have an
opportunity to, to encouragepeople in their giving. I say, I
encourage the church. I say,Come on, boxers, how many people
(18:51):
love to give? And there'susually like a little chair,
right? And if the chair is tooquiet, oh, really be like, no,
no, come on. This is agenerator, how many people love
to get and I'm encouraging them.
I'm not reprimanding them. I'mnot saying Oh, you're not going
to talk to me, huh? Oh, youknow, it's no, no, it's it's,
it's it's building withpositivity. Yeah. It's building
(19:13):
with edification. It's buildingwith XOR to Hayward generation,
this church for a decade asgiven sacrificially. This is why
we're in this building rightnow. Because there are hundreds
and hundreds of family unitsthat have decided we're going to
be a generous family. We'regoing to practice at the time.
Yeah, we're gonna get above andbeyond and become vision
builders kingdom. But this iswhat Vive is. And I just want to
(19:33):
encourage you right now, if youwant to join that crew that
coveted crew, decide today.
Yeah, decide today that you wantto be a giver. There's so many
ways to get and then you getinto the logistics. Right? And
so I would say just too long,too fancy. And not reading the
room.
Yeah. No, I think that's great.
And I'm thinking about churchplanters specifically with this
(19:56):
next question, because it'sgood. I know Know that in
previous episodes, we've talkedabout how to build trust in the
church, and a lot of it has todo with do what you say you're
going to do. Yes. And you buildtrust by proving that you have
done that and will continue todo that. Yeah. So for a church
planter, who literally isplanting, it doesn't have
anything currently to provewe're going to do it. We're,
(20:17):
we've said we're gonna do, howcan they build trust within the
church, and for the givers inthe room
endorsement, continue. So early,early, early days, if you have a
board of oversights or advisorsthat are pastors of other
churches that are a little bitfurther have a little bit more
(20:39):
credibility? Yeah, getting themto video in something in
periodic times big celebrationmoments where they can endorse
your leadership, I think it'sreally important to provide some
credibility and gravitas to whatyou're building. Yeah, that's an
important point because a lot oftimes some some people's
hesitation with activating thetithe or giving or, you know,
giving sacrificially is I don'tknow if there's going to be
(21:01):
around in a couple years, right.
And so you need people tovalidate it and provide
credibility around it, buildyour team quickly. So that you
are not the only one. Giving thegiving moment, right, you're not
the only one speaking to it. Youwant to create depth and layers
to your team as soon aspossible. So that here's the
thing. We say this advisorshonor up on her down on our all
(21:22):
around a culture of honor is soimportant because your
perception dictates yourreception. There's actually this
interesting story. This worldclass violinist, Joshua Bell,
look him up. He would be invitedto play at the largest stages,
the Boston Symphony Hall, theywould sell tickets for this guy
(21:45):
for $300 a pop, he decided to doan experiment. He went to the
subways in New York, and he wasplaying his violin the same set
that he played a few days ago atthe Boston Symphony Hall. And
guess how much he made that day?
In his little like violin case.
$32 Wow. $32 Because yourperception dictates your
(22:10):
reception. Just imagine ifsomebody would have recognized
him. Just imagine if somebodywould have started the chain
reaction. Just imagine ifsomebody would have acted out of
honor. Yeah. And said, Hey, doyou guys know this is? This is
Joshua Bell. He was just at theBoston Symphony Hall. $300 a
(22:31):
ticket. He's giving a freeconcert right here, put it on
Instagram rules, put it on TikTok, put it on Snapchat, people
start hearing about it, he wouldhave had crowds and crowds and
crowds. Why nothing changed. Thesetlist didn't change. He didn't
change, the perception changed.
(22:52):
That's What honor does. Wow.
Jesus goes to his hometown. Hesaid, I could not be honored in
my hometown. Why? Because theytreated him familiar. Yeah. And
so what you need to do is youneed to create layers in depth
to your team, you need to havean advisor speak. And so you're
not just hyping your own self upand saying, Hey, look, I'm this
great leader. No, no, let otherpeople say that. And let other
(23:14):
people cultivate a culture ofhonor, because it's actually not
for you or for the pastor. It'sactually for the people. The
pastor doesn't need honor. Yeah.
But people need an opportunityto honor. Right, yeah. And
another way that we honor isthrough our tithes and
offerings. Yeah,I really like that. And one
thing I would like to add, assomeone who has been in the
(23:35):
rooms with church planners, asthey're getting their churches
off the ground is that versethat you spoke about earlier?
That's a great verse to point toin your giving message when you
don't have anything to pointtowards yet. Right? Because it's
saying give first, yeah, so foryou see anything good give out
of that faith. And so I thinkthat using that lens, even as
you're looking through scriptureof where our stories of people
(23:59):
who did something and actedbefore they saw what the results
would be, that's gonna be superpowerful for you of that as
well. All right, well, this isreally helpful to me, I feel
like I can give a giving messageseven that now you should
amplify, amplify, shout out,shout out. Alright, so that's it
for this episode. Guys, knowthat you have everything you
(24:23):
need right in front of you, andthat you don't need to be the
world's most clever person onstage, giving this moment. It's
all about God and just presentthat opportunity and give them
all of the information they needto make it actionable in their
lives. Ilove that and congratulations
because you are an insider.
Yeah, exclusive content just foryou. Well done. Bye bye.
(24:48):
Thanks so much for listening tothe give it up podcast if you
want to receive even moreinsights on church innovation,
culture and giving. Now you cansign up for free to be an
overflow insider where you'llreceive exclusive content
discounts direct access to VanceRoush to get your questions
answered, and also invite onlyaccess to our monthly
(25:08):
fundraising leadership forums,head to overflow.co backslash
insider, or just click the linkin our bio to sign up for free
today. In order to get thispodcast in the ears of even more
church leaders, could you pleasesubscribe and leave a review for
the show? This tells the podcastplayers what people are enjoying
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(25:31):
maximum value to even morechurch leaders. Thanks so much.
We'll see you next time.
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