We hope you find this new resource helpful as you prepare for the time of giving and taking communion in your Hope Avenue. These are meaningful formational practices that we can plan with care and intentionality.
How to Use This Resource
An outline is provided for you to use as a guide, followed by a sample script. Both the offering moment and communion can be presented as a short reflection before the congregation participates. Here’s how to use it effectively:
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- Scripture Reflection: Include the relevant scripture to root the offering and communion in biblical teaching.
- Key Point and Invitation: Briefly highlight the theme’s key point and offer an invitation that connects the theme to the practice.
- Prayer: Include a short prayer that aligns with the theme. Invite God to bless the gifts and the givers. Ask God to bless the bread and the wine and the partakers.
- Logistics: Explain the process; this helps everyone know how they can participate. For giving, indicate whether baskets will be passed, if there are designated offering boxes, or if digital options like text-to-give or web giving are available. Clearly explain how the communion elements will be shared and that participation is voluntary.
- Encouragement: For the giving moment, invite congregants to reflect on their role in supporting the church’s mission, reminding them that their gifts impact both local and global ministry. For communion, encourage congregants to express gratitude for Jesus’ love poured out for us and the unity present in the body of Christ.
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For more information, see Church Hack: Offering and Church Hack: Communion.
Offering
June Theme: Generosity
Scripture Focus: Galatians 5:22–23
Key Point: Generosity is a key aspect of living a life that is transformed by the gospel.
Invitation: Allow Godly virtues to govern how you steward the blessings of time, talent, and treasure.
Sample Script (time: 1.25 minutes, not including giving instructions)
Generosity is a key aspect of living a life that is transformed by the gospel. The fruit of the Spirit is what Jesus, through the Spirit, is producing in his children. In Galatians 5:22–23, we read:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
For any Christian believer who is sowing his/her time, talent, or treasure into a Spirit-led life will by the new nature be a generous person. Where there is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, generosity will be tied in closely.
Time, talent, and treasure are the physical blessings we receive from God, and the spiritual fruit that he grows in us is to shape us into the image of Jesus. Undoubtedly, the Godly virtues will govern how we steward the blessings of time, talent and treasure. Generosity is the overflow of a life in Christ.
Communion
June Theme: Called to Follow the Rescuing God
Scripture Focus: Galatians 3:26–28
Key Point: God has called us to join him in bringing the news of rescue and freedom to others.
Invitation: As we take the bread, let us remember our freedom in Christ. As we take the cup, let us celebrate the unity we have in him. Let us give thanks for the rescuing God who calls us to follow him.
Sample Script (time: 3 minutes, not including giving instructions)
During the month of June, we finish the Easter Season, celebrate the beginning of the New Testament church and the arrival of the Holy Spirit in power, and we begin the season of Ordinary Time. That’s a lot to go through in one month, but it is a time to remind us we are called to follow and participate with a rescuing God. He has made us free, and in reality, he has already rescued the world, but they live in captivity and don’t taste that freedom because they don’t yet believe they’ve been rescued.
He has called us to join him in bringing the news of rescue to others – and he reminds us that he is in us through the Holy Spirit. So, it is the Holy Spirit fulfilling that calling in us. The Spirit invites us to share in the joy Father, Son, and Spirit experience when a beloved responds to that call, when the rescue is made real, when one starts to see their true identity. In Galatians 3:26–28, we read:
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And why has God rescued us? Galatians 5:1: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Paul referred himself as a slave of Christ. Imagine being slave to all good things — being owned by things like grace, love, forgiveness, acceptance, adoption.
As we partake of the bread, we are reminded that we are invited to participate in a freedom that encompasses everything — everywhere. The freedom to know Father, Son, and Spirit. The freedom to join the heavenly hosts in praising God. The freedom to love all people, everywhere, and the freedom to share the hope we have in Christ.
When we partake of the cup, we are thanking God that his cup tore down all the barriers that man uses to separate — race, gender, social status — and reminds us of our new identity — children of God through faith.
