First Step

Occasionally make gifts of your time and money to the church.

  • Before you arrive at church on a Sunday, think about and decide on what amount you would like to give to the church’s ministry.

  • Look for the volunteer opportunities on Sunday morning and try one out. Offering to help usher or greet one morning. Ask if you can help clean up after worship.

NEXT Steps

Understand your contribution to the church not as a fee for services provided, or conditional on your approval of church decisions, but as an act of discipleship. Commit to regular financial giving to the church through an annual pledge amount. Commit to regular volunteer service at the church.

  • Instead of deciding week by week whether to make an offering on Sunday, or how much to give, think and pray about making an annual commitment. In many churches, including Fairview, this is called a pledge. Ask your church if they have a pledge card for you to fill out and return.

  • Find a regular volunteer role to do. Many opportunities to help with Sunday worship are not every week - you can usher once a month, serve as a liturgist every couple months, be part of the team that counts the offering, help to prepare communion on the first Sunday of the month. There are also opportunities to come in during the week to help at a time that works best for you. Your pastor is a great place to start to learn about serving in this way.

  • Most church have teams or committees that are responsible for a certain area of the church like worship, Christian education, church finances, congregational care, buildings and grounds, etc. These teams are always looking for members to join in monthly meetings to discuss and make plans.

Further Steps

Commit to a percentage of your income as a regular financial gift to the church. Consider whether the church can be included in your estate planning. Look for volunteer needs in the church that are underserved, and commit to helping in those areas.

  • When beginning to pledge, many people choose a certain amount of money, usually a round figure $10 a week, $200 a month, $5,000 a year, etc. Throughout our faith history, Christians have found it helpful to commit to a percentage of their income to give to the church. This helps to maintain a discipline of giving that remains proportionate to our income as it changes. You may have heard of people who “tithe.” This comes from a giving practice the people of Israel did in the Old Testament. It means to give 10% of your income to the church. It is not a commandment or requirement, but many people use it as a goal to aspire to.

  • We usually start volunteering in an area that interests us, but a great gift to any church is to ask the pastor or other church leaders if there is an area of the church that is short of volunteers. If you are willing to give time and energy anywhere in the church that is needed and you make that willingness known, your service can fill an immediate need!

  • Another way of giving to the church is by making plans for the future. You can learn more about planned giving and remembering the church in your estate plans by reading this information from the Presbyterian Foundation.

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