The Mogiv Minute

By: Russ Cantu

Picture this: you get off work late. Everyone is exhausted, nothing is defrosted, and no one wants to cook. You pile everyone into the van and head to your favorite fast food joint. You pile out of the car, get in line, order your food, and find a table. There you wait at the table for your food – ten, fifteen, twenty minutes go by. By now, everyone is grumbling around the table. The kids are bouncing off the walls; coloring books are not working, and one of them is starting to cry.

You go up to the counter, and ask to speak with a manager. When he arrives, the manager turns around, finds your order, and hands it to you on a tray. The food is cold. You hang your head and the family plows through the food, grateful to finally be eating. You pack up the van and head back to the house, declaring out loud, “We will never, ever, ever, eat there again.”

Time is precious. We only have so much of it in a given day, week, lifetime. That’s why little hiccups like these can so dramatically impact our minds and emotions. This is especially true on church websites where attention spans are measured in nano-seconds. (more…)

By: Ted Vaughn

As a trusted partner to many churches, I often hear the following, “our church serves EVERYONE; our doors are open to ALL; our ministries serve CRADLE TO GRAVE.” I love the heart and passion behind these words…and I do not doubt for one second the pure motive and intention. Unfortunately, limited resources often call into the question the viability of this ministry paradigm. After all, how can any one organization possibly reach, with effectiveness, EVERYONE?

Many of my clients are struggling through this question today. They want their church to be seen as a trusted brand where anyone and everyone in the community can find a home. They also realize that, by definition, their local church exists PRIMARILY for it’s NON-MEMBERS; those not reached yet. And even that audience (non-members) is of a size and scope too large for any single church to entirely reach. Which begs the fundamental question I help churches think through: “Who, outside of your existing membership, has God best positioned you to reach?” Because you cannot – you will not – reach all of them. No brand can reach everybody….not even Apple (this is hard to admit). (more…)

Can I tell you a quick story? It’s a story about giving. More specifically, it’s about a giver. Even more specifically, it’s about me.

It was late 2010, and – for what seemed like the 50th week in a row – my pockets were empty as I watched the offering plate come down my row. If it was a good week, maybe I’d have $10.00 I could toss in. More likely, though, I just let the plate pass by while making silent promises to do better next week. But then next week came, and…well…you can probably guess how that turned out.

It’s not that I didn’t want to give. It’s just that I – like so many of my peers – was still figuring out how to manage bills, student loans, savings, and a social life. All too often, it was my giving that got shortchanged. On top of that, I never carried cash, and I hadn’t seen my checkbook since college! So my giving habits ended up being determined by “whatever I have leftover.” This was hardly the life of faithful stewardship I had imagined for myself. (more…)

The Internet has been many things over the past two decades. At first it was a novelty. Then it was a super highway, a boom, a bubble, a bust, and a new frontier. Along the way, it became wireless, social, lightning fast, and mobile. And now, as we start another year, it has become a few other things as well. Indispensable. Ubiquitous. Inescapable. As essential to our daily lives as automobiles and electricity.

And yet despite all of this, many churches continue to treat the Internet as if it is a fad or inessential luxury. This is especially true when it comes to engaging with online and mobile giving tools.

Despite the fact that less than 7% of transactions in the United States are conducted via cash and check, over 75% of American churches still do not offer any form of online giving. That’s right. Three out of every four churches in America are staking their financial health on the hope that their members will give consistently using payment methods they only use 7% of the time. In 2015!

If this describes your church – if you and your team have relegated digital giving to a “we’ll get to it one of these days” type of conversation – then I have a challenge for you. I challenge you to make 2015 “one of those days.” Make 2015 the year you take online and mobile stewardship seriously. (more…)

Next to the employees at your local mall, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone working harder this month than a pastor or church administrator.

There are Christmas concerts and nativity pageants to be coordinated, extra services and outreach opportunities to be planned, not to mention all of the traveling, shopping, and family get-togethers that pack an already crowded schedule!

With so much going on, it’s understandable that “non-essential” things like digital giving end up taking a back seat for a few weeks. But they shouldn’t!

With dozens of family-members and friends visiting your church for the first time this month, and with givers scrambling to get their year-end donations in before the 31st, it is no exaggeration to say that the gifts you receive in December can make or break your budget. (Fun Fact: Nearly 18.00% of all charitable giving and over 22% of online giving takes place in the month of December alone!) (more…)