The goal of financially sustaining a ministry is to focus on tangible, actionable tasks that generate immediate income, effectively bypassing the trap of over-planning. By skipping complex financial models and elaborate marketing funnels, you can ensure the ministry you are called to build is both sustained and fully funded.
You've built your unique vision—your ministry, your service, your content—and you know it's time to take the next step: making an income from it. This is where the Procrastinator Planner often hits the biggest wall.
Why? Because monetisation tasks—setting prices, creating a payment page, launching a paid offering, or even just asking for money—feel high-stakes. They involve potential rejection and the terrifying possibility of failure.
So, instead of launching, we retreat into what feels safe: planning the profit. We spend hours perfecting the business model, researching every payment gateway, designing the perfect sales page, and sketching out a five-year funnel plan. We get that planning dopamine hit, but our bank account is empty.
If you're constantly planning how to monetise but never actually launching a paid offer, that procrastination is likely sending one of two critical signals:
The Perfection Signal: You are waiting for the offering (the book, the course, the consulting package) to be perfect before you ask anyone to pay for it. You believe an imperfect product equals an unworthy income.
The Alignment Signal: The specific method of monetisation (e.g., selling physical products when you prefer digital content, or charging hourly when you prefer passive income) does not align with your true personality or unique ministry vision. You're trying to use someone else's successful "get-rich" blueprint instead of finding your own sustainable, authentic earning path.
Monetisation is crucial for someone building a ministry who struggles with the planning vs. doing trap. But the core issue often isn't how to monetise, but starting the income-generating tasks.
If the idea of monetising your ministry feels daunting and leads to endless planning instead of launch, you need to apply the Inspired Action principle. Instead of planning a whole year of income strategies, look at the time you have right now—maybe it's a 45-minute window this afternoon. Ask yourself: "What is the single, smallest action I can take right now to create a path to income?" This might be researching one price point, outlining the first paragraph of a funding letter, or setting up the payment link on your website. This is an inspired monetisation action: it uses the limited time you possess to prompt you to find and execute a task that moves you from being a planner of income to a generator of income, even if it only starts with setting up one single revenue stream.
To break this cycle, you must shift your focus from planning for profit to creating immediate, visible exchange.
Stop planning the ultimate, polished product. Instead, identify your Ministry's Viable Offer (MVO)/ Ministry Viable Product (MVP). This is the smallest, easiest thing you can deliver right now that provides value and allows you to generate an income passively.
Action Prompt: Don't plan the 10-module course; plan a single paid 30-minute consultation or a £5 downloadable guide.
The Goal: The purpose of the MVO is not massive income; it's to complete the transaction cycle once. Getting that first checkmark next to a successful paid action proves you can do it.
The act of setting a price or launching the offer is usually the most painful part. Use a timer to overcome this resistance:
The 15-Minute Launch Rule: Give yourself just 15 minutes to write the sales copy for your MVO. Do not edit. Do not research competitors' prices. Just write it, set a price (even if it's "imperfect"), and put it live. The timer forces action before fear can set in.
Inspired Action Pricing: Instead of getting stuck in complex financial models, ask: "What price feels like an authentic exchange for the immediate value I'm providing?" This aligns your pricing with your inner conviction, not market noise.
Shift your focus from tracking hypothetical income to tracking completed sales actions.
The Daily Monetisation Check: Every week, ensure your to-do list includes at least one action that directly exposes you to income (e.g., "Post about your MVOs on social media," "Send one email to someone I can help," "Create a call to action").
Monetisation, especially in ministry, needs to feel authentic. Trust your unique path, launch imperfectly, and make the completion of the sales cycle your new source of planner satisfaction.
Stop planning the perfect product and start by defining your Ministry Viable Offering (MVO) today. Your MVO is the key to breaking free from the planning trap and moving into action.
Download your free MVO Guide below and finally create a sustainable system that will support your ministry right now.