I look forward to each January as a time to reflect on the past year and look for ways to grow in the new year. While New Year’s resolutions often get a bad rap, the idea of reflection and refocus is useful when looking to improve physical, financial, or spiritual health.

If you are looking to improve your spiritual or financial health by increasing your generosity in 2019, here are a few suggestions for getting started.

1) Rejoice in what God has given you.

Take time to look around you, what are you thankful for? What blessings are you surrounded by daily that are easily overlooked? Rejoicing in your present will lead you to bless others in your future.

2) Regularly give.

The best way to build a new habit is to do it regularly. This is true with exercise, prayer, eating healthy, and also with giving. Christ Community’s new tool, the Gyve app, allows you to set up recurring gifts on a schedule that fits your life. You can set up monthly, weekly, bi-weekly, or bi-monthly gifts. It is easy for giving to get lost in all the busyness of life, so setting up a recurring gift makes generosity a priority.

3) Round up.

Much like at the store when you are asked to ‘round up’ your total and donate to a charity, the Gyve app also includes an interesting feature called Round Up. This feature, when linked to a bank account, debit card, or credit card, allows you to ‘round up’ all your purchases to the next dollar, and you can designate giving your “change” to Christ Community.

I have been using this feature for several months and have found that it makes me more aware of my church as I go about my daily life. When I was grocery shopping last week, I found myself smiling at the checkout when I thought about my extra 64 cents being sent to Christ Community. It will be exciting to see how this little rounding up makes a difference over the year.

The extra funds collected through Round Up will be put toward reducing the church’s debt related to our building projects. We will provide a quarterly update on the impact of our combined round-up giving as a congregation.

For those who participated in giving last year, your 2018 giving statements will be arriving in the mail soon. I challenge you to use those as a way to reflect on the past year and refocus on finding ways, big and small, to grow in the next year.

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Get started:

• Check out MORE WAYS TO GIVE.
• To start using Gyve, text “gyve” to 313131.
• Gyve Registration Tutorial
• FAQ