Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first and best part of all your income – – Proverbs 3:9

I have pastored several churches over 40 years, and I have thoroughly enjoyed ministering to a host of different people. I have lead churches from New York to Florida, each with different styles of Worship. I have always endeavored to make worship meaningful and relevant.

But if a church has been in existence for a number of years, there is a danger of worship being routine: Opening hymns – pastoral prayer – Offering – sermon- invitation. Nothing wrong with any of those things but I think how we do them should offer variety from time-to-time.

Take the offering for instance. Often after the pastor prays, he might ask the ushers to come forward to “take” the offering. I have wondered if the average person sitting in the pew really sees the offering as a vital part of worship. After all, when the offering is “taken”, the ushers usually go to the back of the church and disappear. An unchurched visitor, who knows little about church, may wonder where they ‘took’ the money!

I have always thought we could do the offering more meaningful by (1) Instead of saying we are “taking” an offering, we could say we are “receiving” an offering. (2) Instead of the ushers receiving the offering by coming to the front and going to the back and existing the auditorium, why not start from the back and come forward? When they get to the front, they come before the pastor, and he (or an usher) prays a prayer of dedication and offers it to God. They could even lift (optional) the offering heavenward to give the congregation a visual of what is actually taking place. Then they place the offering on the communion table or altar.

I think this approach would be more meaningful and Biblical.