Pastor, your church has more generosity in it than you think. Here’s how I unlock it.

Have you ever met a disciple of Jesus who wasn’t generous? Not a real one. So if we’re in the business of raising real disciples, generosity isn’t a fundraising tactic — it’s formation. And most churches have far more of it sitting in the room than the offering suggests. Here’s how we’ve unlocked it at Hope City, where our people have given and committed more than $26 million in our first four years.

Step 1 — Live it before you preach it

I’m convinced a lot of pastors never experience the generosity of their people because they themselves aren’t living generously. And here’s the X factor: God knows. He knows whether you’re faithful and generous with what he’s entrusted to you — and I don’t believe he unleashes a generous culture on a house whose leader isn’t living one. My wife and I settled this before Hope City existed. Settle it in your own house first; everything below is built on it.

Step 2 — Celebrate generosity every single week

From day one we’ve done two things in every service: made it easy to give, and connected the giving moment to life change. Not a transaction — a testimony. This month your generosity sent that mission team, baptized those students, helped plant that church. You don’t need a video team; you need intentionality and thirty seconds of vision.

Then build it into formation: we teach biblical generosity in our membership process, when people sign their covenant. Not beating people up about money — just refusing to be ashamed of something Jesus talked about constantly. And when our city took two hurricanes, our church gave, served, and mobilized — because the culture isn’t “give to us.” It’s “we are givers.” People can tell the difference from a mile away.

Step 3 — Open every giving lane, not just the plate

Cash and checks are one lane. Your most generous people often hold their wealth everywhere else: stock, crypto, land, vehicles, businesses, a rental house somebody inherited. We’ve had people give RVs, motorcycles, watches, land — set a sensible minimum, and stand up a creative giving team who can talk to someone at a lobby table about donating an asset and know how to turn it into ministry dollars.

This matters more every year: the generation coming up will inherit more wealth than any before it, and most of it won’t be sitting in a checking account. The church that can only receive cash is leaving discipleship — and millions — on the table. Text-to-give, online, stock transfer, donor-advised funds: every lane open, every week.

Step 4 — Raise the level of your preaching

This is the connection almost nobody makes: if you want to increase generosity, get better at preaching. Trust is the currency of giving, and people extend trust to a pulpit that is prepared, passionate, authentic, and transparent. If the preaching is careless, it quietly tells the room how seriously to take everything else — including the vision you’re asking them to fund.

I’ve been preaching 25 years and I still work at it every week — I run my manuscripts and my sermon videos through the preaching coach on Pastor Center’s Sermons module, and it catches things I’d repeat for another decade otherwise. A growing pulpit grows givers. I’ve watched it happen.

Step 5 — See the whole generosity system, free

Culture, weekly celebration, creative giving, and how it all feeds a capital campaign when the vision calls for one — I teach the complete system in the free Capital Campaign webinar, 53 minutes with full session notes.

Live it. Celebrate it. Open the lanes. Preach like it matters. Generosity isn’t something you extract from a church — it’s something you cultivate in one. And it’s already in the room.