Like a good tasting recipe, leaving out an important ingredient can leave a bad taste in your mouth. So, here are five important ingredients to cook up a great tasting and nourishing generosity initiative.

Ingredient 1: Sermon message or series by the pastor or a guest speaker.

One of God's greatest gifts in the church is the pulpit. Just as a rudder steers a sailing ship, so the pulpit steers the congregation. When a preacher realizes that a generosity message can be based on the authority, breadth and depth of God's Word more than the needs of the church budget, there is great freedom and boldness in the message.

But preaching with passion and conviction on generosity must follow the minister's own commitment to living a generous life. Learning to give faithfully and generously, even on what is sometimes a meager salary, will embolden a pastor's faith in God and ability to creatively provide. It is from this heartfelt conviction from the truth of Scriptures and the tales of one's personal life, that a generosity message begins to take root and life within a congregation.

I have also experienced how a guest speaker can be used to effectively help deliver a generosity message that deeply penetrates people's lives and transforms their giving attitudes and habits. Having done guest preaching myself about generosity, I have heard people declare that I was able to say things and reach them in a way that their own pastor would have had a hard time doing.

Ingredient 2: Written communications and/or devotional reading materials mailed to the homes.

I believe that if biblical generosity teaching is to truly take root in the heart and to blossom out of people's pocketbooks, it must be processed and discussed at home in the context of reading what the Bible says about generosity. While preaching can steer the ship, Bible devotional readings at home are the engines (or the winds) that will move people's stewardSHIP to new destinations.

With this in mind, I put together a Bible devotional for my church (and for other churches to use) called, "40 Day Spiritual Journey to a More Generous Life." Whatever devotional material you use should include clear biblical teaching on generosity and be easy to read. If possible, the material should help people assess their giving to the Lord's work in light of their income sources, lifestyle choices, and financial assets.

The reason I say that generosity devotional and written materials are to be mailed to the homes is because many churches in an effort to "save money" will put materials on a back table and encourage people to take them home. But the reality is that a third of your people are gone on any given Sunday and half the people you tell to pick up materials in the back will either forget or will choose not to pick up anything to do with giving. So, the best approach is to make sure you mail your generosity materials to every household. In the quiet of their own home, people can read and reflect on what is written without the issue of a pastor's preaching style and personality, or the church budget, getting in the way of the spiritual transformation that must take place in people's hearts.

Ingredient 3: Giving testimonies shared with the congregation.

There is nothing like the power of a personal true story to get people's attention. Use live, up-front, two-to-four-minute giving testimonies of when and how God taught individuals to be faithful givers (givers of tithes and/or generous offerings) to God's work. Show a video interview clip in the service. Put people's quotes and stories in a pamphlet you mail out. Testimonies dramatically touch people's hearts in a way that nothing else can.

I remember in one church where a single mom got up in front of the congregation and told how she had a $24,000/year income, three young boys at home, was $24,000 in debt, but was led by the Lord to begin to faithfully give at least 10 percent of her income to the Lord's work even though it seemed insane to do so.

She talked of God's faithfulness and his creative provisions in her life and how God eventually helped her completely get out of debt. She told the story with such joy and passion that it moved everyone listening to her. The thought was, "if she can willingly and faithfully give at least 10 percent in her circumstances, I need to trust God and do this too!"

I have written a generosity pamphlet called, "Count Your Blessings" that tells the story of how my wife and I learned to joyfully and generously give to God's work.

Ingredient 4: Family, class, or small group discussions.

In order to help people process what they are reading, listening to, and learning about, it is very helpful if you can give people discussion questions that help them process the material. Thought-provoking, memory-jogging, soul-stirring, and life-changing questions can help transform people from miserly tight-fisted takers to joyful, hilarious givers!

As you review possible material to use in an all-church generosity initiative, make sure it has helpful questions in the materials, or write your own questions to help stir faith-filled discussions at home or church. It is in these smaller settings that so much can be shared and learned as people have heart-to-heart talks about such an important subject. In these smaller gatherings, a generous spirit cannot only be taught but be caught from others in the group.

Ingredient 5: Commitment/Consecration Sunday(s) with response cards.

If you are going to take people on a stewardSHIP journey, make sure you help them arrive in a safe harbor at their final destination. The final destination is a new mindset, a new desire, a new willingness, and a new plan to be more faithful and generous to the Lord's work. This often happens best when a church has a specific Sunday or Sundays when people turn in some type of response card that indicates their intended giving plans for the coming year.

Some churches also give people opportunities on the card to indicate ways they will give their time/talent to specific ministries in the coming year. For many years while he was a pastor, John Maxwell, now a leadership author and speaker, conducted a four-week preaching series every January on finances and generosity that culminated in people turning in cards that indicated: (1) I will start tithing this year. (2) I will continue to tithe this year. (3) I will increase my tithes and offerings to the church this year. For option 1, he gave people a 90-day offer. If they would begin tithing and within 90 days regretted this decision for any reason, they could contact the church office and the church would issue them a check for anything they gave by check during this 90-day period!

While it may seem gimmicky to many people, this church was so committed to helping their congregation become faithful givers that they were even willing to back it up by having this type of policy in place. The truth is, that while faithful tithers do help a church's finances, the church's leadership realized that people's lives and finances are helped by God when they are faithful tithers and offering givers.

Brian Kluth is a senior pastor and founder of www.MAXIMUMgenerosity.org. His Web site has received Google's No. 1 ranking on "biblical generosity" and provides a wealth of generosity materials and resources for pastors, church committees and congregations. Kluth also posts a FREE monthly generosity newsletter to pastors, church leaders and denominations and is the author of a devotional booklet, "A 40 Day Journey to a More Generous Life" that can be used for church small groups, Sunday schools, stewardship campaigns and building fund drives.