Good Churches are Good Re-Gifters!

by Reba Collins

At every church you visit right now, you’ll get gifts from them – lots of gifts. 

These gifts are wrapped up in choir cantatas, neighborhood caroling, special mission projects, children’s pageants, live nativities, and special holiday feasts. Worship services are full of many heartfelt reminders of God’s hope, peace, joy, and love for us given at Christ’s birth. It’s the ultimate re-gift of the season!

Christmas offers church searchers more than a seasonal re-gifting experience, though. A Christmastime visit offers you a sneak peek into the year-around gift giving habits a church offers to the people in its neighboring community. Good church choices re-gift God’s ultimate gift continuously to the community they serve.

Here is one sure fire way to peek underneath the wrappings and trappings of the colorful, sweet-smelling, harmonic Christmas gifts you’re offered to discover if a church is a serial, or just a  seasonal re-gifter.    

Do They Re-gift Your Gift to Them?

Offering plates are most generously filled at Christmas Eve services. This is when good, healthy churches show their hearts for people outside of their walls. A few ways I’ve seen churches take those financial gifts and re-gift them effectively include:

1.       Totally dedicated Christmas Eve offerings that go to mission work outside the church walls.

2.       Clearly identified and named organizations that serve specific needs in ways that are beyond the church’s ministry scope.  

3.      Specifically named people and groups in the community that will be receiving assistance and/or services.

These kinds of churches take their re-gifting seriously and make it both appealing and convenient for us to become a part of their re-gifting through:

• Video testimonials and documentaries demonstrating how lives are being changed through the generosity of Christmas Eve participants and regular givers throughout the year.  
• Easy ways to give, making available QR codes, online links, onsite credit card kiosks, and pew envelopes.  

 How a church re-gifts its Christmas Eve offering indicates more clearly than anything else its ongoing commitment to people outside its church walls.  You can discover the year-around health and heart of a church community by unwrapping this one gift that you should expect to be re-gifted to others.   

Oh, and don’t forget to re-gift the love, peace, joy, and hope of Jesus Christ this season.