1. Hire a generous staff. Generosity starts at the top.

2. Talk application. How can generosity be a sermon response point?

3. Clarify your expectations for leaders. Leaders of a church should support the church financially.

4. Think In-and-Out, not Cheesecake factory. Don't overwhelm people with too many giving options. Keep it simple.

5. Define generosity. What does it mean to your community?

6. If you host one, consider who is communicating about your weekly offering. Are they generous?

7. Encourage hospitality(1 Peter4:9).

8. Celebrate stories of generosity when you gather as a church.

9. Develop trust with clear financial communication to your congregation.

10. Keep giving to the church spiritual. Remember, people are giving to God.

11. Be real with people when you struggle to be generous. Generosity is not always easy.

12. Have a clear rotation of content and speakers for your mid-service offering time. 13. Make it clear on your church campus where to give financially.

13. Accept stocks.

14. Celebrate every gift to the Lord through the church. Jesus celebrated the widow's mite (Mark 12:41-44).

15. Thank people for serving, praying for, or giving to the Lord, not simply your church. Every gift is holy to God (Leviticus 27:28).

16. Ask people why they give. This will give you incredible insight into what God is doing at your church.

17. Include a giving link on each church email newsletter. Why make people click around further to partner with you financially?

18. Avoid "give to get" schemes like t-shirt sales, bake sales, and restaurant partnerships. These are spending programs, not examples of generosity.

19. Encourage children to give. God cares about their gifts, too.

20. Tie financial giving to results. In your weekly sermon, demonstrate with stories how giving changes lives.

21. Have a plan as a church to minister to the least of these. When we minister to the least of these, we minister to Jesus (Matthew 25).

22. Steward church resources well with wise spending. People notice, and God rewards faithful stewardship (Matthew 25:23)

23. Give from your church. Each church has the opportunity to be generous through missions budgets and benevolence.

24. Surprise people with generosity. A meal, a gift to a volunteer, bereavement flowers, or a new birth gift basket will encourage people to pay the generosity forward.

25. Define worship broadly. Romans 12 says our whole lives are living sacrifices. Generosity in one area will encourage generosity in another area.

26. Make the giving link on your website really stand out. It might sound crazy, but research shows that it matters.

27. Encourage seed giving. When we have a need, we always have an opportunity to sow a seed into the lives of others

28. 28. If you have a small group or discipleship mentoring program, incorporate financial stewardship into the conversation.

29. Send excellent, quarterly giving statements. People have to read them, so make them matter.

30. Disciple your church in the types of giving - tithes, offerings, and radical generosity.

31. Decide what you believe about the Biblical teaching of tithing (Malachi 3:10).

32. Never raise money for a building or project. Always raise money for vision.

33. Consider different generational expectations regarding giving.

34. Thank your first-time givers.

35. When your first-time givers give a second time, thank them again.

36. 36. Know the benefits of planned giving and its importance in the long-run.

37. Offer a course on financial stewardship. Your first attempts won't be perfect. Try, fail, and make it better.

38. Make it easy to serve at your church and be generous with time and energy. Surveys show more people are open to volunteering than ever before.

39. Have an annual report. Make it cool and visual. Talk about impact.

40. Never be afraid to make the ask.

41. Teach on money, and do it in well-attended times. It's a felt need.

42. Remember, it's best to teach on money when the church isn't raising extra money. Teach people for their benefit, not simply for the church.

43. Use giving analytics. Make your data work for you so you know where you stand.

44. Use an annual budget, and tweak it 6 months into the year. Times are volatile.

45. Have strong financial controls. People notice our attitude about finances.

46. Celebrate milestones of the church's financial growth.

47. Celebrate personal financial milestones (home purchases, financial freedom, etc).

48. Pay off your church's debt. This is good modeling for your membership.

49. Don't show favoritism to those who can give more or those that seem to need benevolence (James 2:1-13).

50. Print custom-giving envelopes.

51. Disciple your church to be global Christians. By the rest of the world's standards, Americans are extremely rich and have every reason to be generous.

52. Teach through the Proverbs. This will help your church live a blessed life.

53. Respond to a crisis as a church with generosity. This is Biblical Christianity (Acts 11:29).

54. Invite guest speakers to speak on finances. This takes the pressure off the pastor.

55. Teach on God's purpose for our work (Colossians 3:23).

56. Cultivate an environment in which business leaders can be discipled.

57. Buy people meals when you have official church meetings. Seek to bless.

58. If you have the connections, ask local city officials about their biggest needs. Try to meet those needs as a congregation.

59. Give first-time guests a gift. Model God's generosity to them.

60. Talk about God's generosity. He has demonstrated it to us from Genesis through Revelation.

61. Confront the spirit of Mammon. Warn your congregation about the love of money.

62. Allocate a percentage of your church's budget each month to a specific need and watch as your ministry in that area grows. Celebrate it.

63. Have your comptroller or Executive Pastor be ruthless about financial waste in the church. Always ask, how could this expense be used to create more ministry?

64. Give away Bibles.

65. Partner with local, faith-based charities that are serving the homeless or other groups. This extends the reach of your giving beyond your congregation.

66. Have a gifts policy. Don't be caught off-guard with confusing or large gifts.

67. Have the ability to accept stocks and bonds.

68. If your church has membership, clearly define membership and communicate any financial expectations. Expect an annual "re-up."

69. Give your church opportunities to support world missions. Sadly, most financial giving in Christendom does not go to the areas of biggest need.

70. As obvious as it seems, pray over your church's finances

71. Some churches enjoy stating a weekly offering declaration as liturgy to disciple their church in tithing and giving.

72. Watch over giving communications. Over-asking your congregation, or asking for too many disparate financial needs, dilutes the power of generosity in your ministry.

73. Host community service projects to meet practical needs in your community.

74. Teach people that it is godly to give by faith, even when they have needs
    (1 Corinthians 8).

75. Host a poverty simulation. This can be a powerful experience for those that have never considered how difficult life can be for those with financial need.

76. Teach your congregation to pray for others, daily, by name. Prayer is a form of generosity.

77. Upgrade your online giving system. Enroll new givers and stop using antiquated software.

78. Film a generosity testimony so good it makes you cry. Play it during a service.

79. Show people their next step in being generous. If they are already tithing, what's next

80. Switch up your offering. Do it before the service, after, during,, as a response. Simply switching up the offering will cause people to reassess their giving.

81. Take up offerings for people in need in your small groups. This Acts 2 style of giving can be very powerful to impact lives.

82. Buy a single mom a car. Celebrate God's goodness in their lives and your ability to be their spiritual family.

83. As a pastor, share stories of how your faith for finances has been tested and how God provided.

84. Encourage tithing in all ages, even college students. Don't limit whom God can bless!

85. Decide as a church leadership how you can celebrate or thank your financial leaders.

86. Use a holiday offering to meet a special need.

87. Prepare for the summer giving slump by emphasizing recurring giving.

88. If your giving software uses an app, keep the app updated.

89. Use a weekend service to collect coats, backpacks, or other supplies for a back-to- school drive.

90. Partner with a local tutoring program.to be generous with the next generation.

91. Encourage volunteering by hosting a powerful and inspiring pre-service huddle for anyone serving that weekend.

92. Never apologize when asking someone to serve, give, or pray. Reinforce the idea that generosity is an opportunity.

93. Ask your pastor about writing a hand-written note to those that give exceptional gifts.

94. Develop a Deacon Ministry to meet practical needs in your congregation.

95. Create an online Facebook Group for your church to post and meet one another's needs.

96. Determine whether text-to-give might be a good fit for your congregation.

97. Read a generosity-focused book, like "The Blessed Life," together in your small groups.

98. Preach a financial series at least once a year to explore God's wisdom for money.

99. Have a slide in your service showing people how to give online.

100. Pray for a generous church!

And finally, #101
Take your congregation to the next level with a generosity coach!

"Everyone needs a coach" - Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google... Who's yours?