How to promote the offering in your congregation

Plan Now

Set dates. Ask your session to set dates to receive the offering. Most congregations choose Palm Sunday (April 5) and/or Easter Sunday (April 12), but the session can choose any dates. The session should also set a goal, preferably an ambitious one.

Gather a strong committee. Ask members of your mission, worship, stewardship, and Christian education committees to work with you to plan a celebration that integrates all aspects of congregational life.

Locate your resources. Find the shipment of materials that came in December or early January. By the end of January, make sure that you received enough of everything you will use, and order more if necessary. If you don’t have all you need, note what extra materials you had to order so that next year when you receive the confirmation letter for your standing order, you’ll know how to correct it. Call PDS at (800) 524-2612 to order additional materials. Other resources are listed on the on the order form. Find resources from the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Self-Development of People and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.

Plan displays, worship, special events and Christian education. Check the following pages and the One Great Hour of Sharing Web site (see margin) for ideas. Consider whether any of these ideas might strengthen your promotional efforts this year. Be sure to assign responsibility for minutes for mission and for the follow-through on each of the other areas. Let those who are preparing minutes for mission know of those available in the Reproducible Resources booklet and on this Web site, and about the additional information and photos related to these stories available on the Web.

Plan how best to use the new DVD, Where Is Your Treasure?, and other elements of the Tool Kit CD. Every congregation should have received a CD/DVD containing this video and otehr resources. If you did not receive this in late January and would like a copy, contact Alan Krome at (888) 728-7228 x5168. If your congregation projects messages on a screen for greater visibility, consider using this cluster of electronic resources related to One Great Hour of Sharing that you received in our mailing in early February. One is simply a visual frame using OGHS artwork and graphics that leaves room for your messages and permits you to vary your presentation during Lent while raising awareness of the offering. Another offers a brief minute for mission that quickly interprets the history, mission, and distribution of the offering. Both can be used with or without music and narration, and a script is provided for those who want to accompany the minute for mission visuals with their own presentation.

Download resources. Additionally, a variety of downloadable art and text resources are available to give you easier access to those elements for use in your own communications with members.

Challenge Your Congregation

Choose a goal. Focusing on a goal has clearly made a significant difference for those congregations that have tried it. This year we’re challenging congregations to be especially ambitious — try setting a goal doubling what you have received in the past!

Share that goal with the congregation. Use your congregational mailings, displays, and announcements during worship to keep this challenge before the congregation.

Explain the reasons for the challenge. Need is increasing. Both within the United States and throughout the world, the gap between those who have enough and those who don’t continues to widen. Increased costs of living mean that this year’s dollar simply can’t do as much work as last year’s. The pinch many Americans feel is amplified many times over for those who already must spend most of their earnings on food.

Show the increasing need, as well as the impact an individual gift can have. Insert facts and graphics from the Reproducible Resources booklet in newsletters or other written congregational communications, or lift them up in minutes for mission. To make them more effective, relate the size of a gift with what it might purchase in members’ own lives — a tank of gas, a fast-food dinner for the family, an evening at the movies, a single night’s stay at a hotel when traveling and so forth.

Show your progress toward the goal. For ways to help your congregation focus on how much more you need to meet your goal, call your presbytery’s hunger action enabler or Mission Interpretation in Louisville.

On behalf of those currently in need, thank the congregation for reaching its goal. If the congregation has not yet met its goal, remind members that any support for One Great Hour of Sharing throughout the year will also help meet it.

Visibility

Create an eye-catching display in a prominent place. Start with the posters, fish banks and thank-you letters. You may have some differently colored fish banks from previous years. If the church has a particular connection with a specific One Great Hour of Sharing project, include photos in the display.

Place thank-you letters from recipients of past offerings in different places around the church. Check the Reproducible Resources booklet or copy Thank You Letters to paste into your own documents. Be sure members know they are being thanked for their gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing.

Discover the local impact of One Great Hour of Sharing on both your community and your congregation. Check the project listings that show what the three OGHS programs have done in your community. Highlight those ministries in your displays, newsletters, and minutes for mission.

Plan special congregational events. A potluck meal or a mission fair can highlight the ministries supported through One Great Hour of Sharing. This is a good time for an intergenerational exploration of the new map-and-stamp resource, Sharing Resources, Changing Lives. Use the free place mats for added impact.

Plan church school activities related to the offerings for all ages. Distribute the coin boxes and copies of the Sharing Calendar to all children in church school. The Children’s Activity Resource, Gracie’s Treasure, continues the story about Gracie, the OGHS fish, and includes questions to help children of different ages explore the story. Like the Gracie story, the youth resource Where Is Your Treasure? explores what it means to share. Although designed for youth, it can also be used with adults or intergenerationally.

Send a letter from the pastor to your congregation. Surveys confirm that sending such a letter along with an offering envelope does make a significant difference in giving. A January mailing will include a sample letter. Use art elements from the Reproducible Resources booklet for visual impact.

Worship

Try to integrate all of the following elements and activities into your service as part of the worship process, rather than treating them as add-ons, to emphasize the central role our witness in the world plays in our own discipleship.

Use the liturgical materials provided. Several of these are on pages 3–4 of the Reproducible Resources booklet. Others are available on this Web site and the Tool Kit CD. Feel free to adapt them.

Present minutes for mission each Sunday. Five are provided online and on pages 5–9 of the Reproducible Resources booklet, in coordination with the one reproducible and four preprinted bulletin inserts. Individuals giving the minutes for mission should feel free to use their own words and experiences.

Use a skit, children’s sermon, or dramatic monologue during worship. Skits and other materials are available online, on the Tool Kit CD or from Mission Interpretation. Call (888) 728-7228 x5168 or 5183.

Focus on the offering in the sermon. It’s important in interpreting this offering to place it in the context of our calling to witness to God’s love by ministering to God’s people.

Dedicate the congregation’s gifts. Each Sunday, dedicate the gifts to the service and glory of God and tell the members of the congregation how much they have given to those ministries. Consider a special dedication for children’s coin boxes.

Commitment

Discover new opportunities for involvement. Giving follows commitment. Individuals may wish to give their time and talents to help a One Great Hour of Sharing ministry in your community. Instead of giving up something for Lent, invite individuals and families to pick up a ministry for Lent — helping in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, delivering meals on wheels, or similar activities. Even if the ministry isn’t specifically funded by One Great Hour of Sharing, it will help people become aware of the needs of our sisters and brothers and some of the ways we can reach out to them.

To find out more about possibilities for involvement, contact Presbyterian Disaster Assistance at (888) 728-7228 x5797, the Presbyterian Hunger Program at x5832 or Self-Development of People at x5783.

Involve children and youth in the promotion. Consider asking the children to perform a skit. Instead of inserting the bulletin inserts in the bulletins, ask children and youth to hand them to people as they enter the sanctuary. Consider “commissioning” the coin boxes at the beginning of Lent and dedicating them during worship on one of the Sundays you receive the offering. Consult with your Christian educators on other ways to weave the children’s and youth activities into the worship experience.

Send in your congregation’s offering. Please send all gifts through your normal giving channels, including your presbytery’s receiving site. If this is impractical, please send the gifts to:

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Church Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643678
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3678

Indicate One Great Hour of Sharing on the memo line.

Complete and send in the survey in the Leader's guide. Please take a few minutes to complete the form. Include any ideas that worked for your congregation in promoting the offering so we can share them with others.