Reframing the traditional blip-in-the-bulletin offering to a worship highlight can change the emphasis and help churches bind their work with the offering, Rev. Tim Brown shared at Stewardship Kaleidoscope 2025 in New Orleans.

Brown is an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor who has served parishes in Chicago and Raleigh, NC. He currently helps curate Anam Cara Community, a digital-first offering for the church. He also serves in the Office of the Presiding Bishop as Director for Congregational Stewardship Support. Browned presented a workshop at Stewardship Kaleidoscope in New Orleans. The annual conference is presented by the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Traditional thinking about the church offering is that it’s a moral obligation, it is institution-centered, that institutions are to be trusted and that institutions stand alone, Brown said. Emerging thinking is different: We need to cultivate donors using the theology of grace, make the effort donor-centered, and remember that donors are collaborative partners and institutional trust must be earned.

“Jesus mentions economics 288 times in the Gospels – that’s one out of every 10 verses, which means that economics is a big part of discipleship,” Brown said. “You cannot be a Christian and not be generous.”

Historically, up until about the 11^th century, the offering was closely connected with the sacrament of the Eucharist, a gift of what was at hand. That changed in the Middle Ages and became associated with appeasing God as a kind of “balancing of the sin-ledger,” Brown said.

The Reformation sought to reclaim the idea of the offering as a response to God’s grace, not a response to God’s anger, he said. The offering is an essential part of the Christian life.

Think of ways to make the offering “real,” Brown said. What unique things does your church do to change lives? What would be missing in your town/city/neighborhood if your church community was gone tomorrow? What stories of life-change are alive in your church? How are those in your community uniquely generous and how can you tell these stories?

God has given graciously, and we respond with grace, Brown said. The Gospel calls us not to atone for ourselves, but to help our neighbor – the offering isn’t to pay off sins, but to help. The offering provides a way of participating in the life of the church, he said. It allows us to give of ourselves for our neighbor and to connect God’s mission with our work.

The Covid pandemic created a decade worth of change in a matter of a year, Brown said. “The pandemic pressed the gas on changes we were already seeing in the church. We realized that every one of our institutions failed us: The government failed us, our health institutions failed us, our banks failed us, our churches failed us.

“There’s a skepticism that comes with institutions now. It’s not about moral obligation; it’s about donor cultivation. We hate to think of the people in our pews as donors, but effectively we are all donors to our church,” he said.

Brown still likes the idea of passing the plate as a communal gesture. “We give anonymously through online giving to other charities all the time, but when do we all sit in a room together and talk about it? Never. Where are we taught to be generous in this world? Church.”

At the same time, he encourages alternative ways to give, including QR codes in the bulletin or laminated cards in the pews so people can connect by phone. Stories also are a forgotten treasure – sharing stories about a person’s overdue electric bill being paid because of money giving in the offering makes a connection.

“We have the opportunity to change lives by God,” Brown said. “We have the opportunity to have our lives shaped by generosity by God.”