Tithing.com

News & Events About Tithing

News is always changing and updating when it comes to tithing or stewardship topics within the church. Tithing can be controversial in many circles so we are helping you stay on top of the most recent headings and current events surrounding topics such as tithing, giving, stewardship, and church finances.

Pastor Complains about Tipping Waiter and Only Tithing to God

by 2 Comments

Update 1/31/12 7:37pm: Pastor gets waiter fired after he calls up the manager and complains about the posted receipt. The ‘pastor’ has been identified as ‘Alois Bell’ from (take a deep breath) ‘Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries Church’. According to the Gawker website, she stated, “My heart is really broken . . . I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.” Accoding to yahoo, Alois Bell told the “manager at the St. Louis-area Applebee’s that the ensuing firestorm had ‘ruined’ her reputation”

After being fired, I think it’s interesting what the server said, “I’ve been stiffed on tips before, but this is the first time I’ve seen the Big Man used as reasoning.”

Welcome to the world of pulpit pimps. They use the ‘Big Man’ every day to banter people about tithing. They threaten everyone with the curse in Malachi 3 if they don’t comply. They abuse the power of the ‘big man’ every day to coerce and banter widows, single parents, and servers.

There’s so much out on the internet, so who can verify this? Anyway, A popular post on reddit shows a waiter who posted a receipt. As you can see, alledgedly a pastor complained to waiter about giving 18% for a tip and only giving God a 10% tithe. If i was the waiter, i’d say, i’d gladly take 10% off your gross income if you wanna tip God 18% of this bill.

tip receipt

$11 Million Christian Ponzi Scheme

by 3 Comments

An ABC News story written by Steve Osunsami states that Ephren Taylor is being accused of $11 million Christian ponzi scheme by the SEC. Not surprisingly, he has had influence upon New Birth Missionary Baptist Church with Eddie Long, as well as Lakewood Church run by Joel Osteen. Once again the health-wealth, prosperity gospel is showing its true colors. Ephran Taylor scandal targeted mostly black mega churches in at least 40 different states.

One of the comedic notes on this story written by ABC News is that the “SEC also alleged that he doled out cash to make a splashy music video starring his wife, Meshelle, draped in white fur and diamonds. The name of the song? “Billionaire.”” If you have the slightest imagination you should get a chuckle out of envisioning the gangsta and his wife singing out their bling-bling with money floating out of the sky.

Another kicker from the ABC News story is that, “Lakewood Church told ABC News they opened their doors to Taylor to speak on the subject of “Biblical financial principals,””

To top it off, one of the investors that were schemed out of their money warned Lakewood Church leadership about Ephren Taylor, and after doing so the leadership blames the victim. These wolves in sheep’s clothing are letting other wolves sneak into the fold, which is crazy that impostors can’t even recognize their own kind!!!

Top Posts of 2011

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a tally of the most popular posts of 2011

Ephren Taylor
The Annual $34 Billion Church Scandal

Found this astounding but horrific article on a blog called “Christian Headlines Blog” that opens up the research on how religious organizations provide a safe haven for 34 billion in fraud and theft ANNUALLY! Here’s a few excerpts. It will blow your mind!!

Tithing is for Sissies

Before you tithers get your panties in a wad and go all hormonal on me, get some tissues out to wipe your tears away. Here’s a few reasons that should convince you pansies to trade in your skirts and begin giving sacrificially through freewill, Spirit led giving.

A Look at the Prosperity Gospel in the Pentecostal Church

Data, collected by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that the Pentecostal Church is one of the least financially blessed groups of religious believers worldwide.

Church Gives Automated Call to Remind You to Tithe

As i was going through my routine of reading blogs on tithing, i came across the New BBC Open Forum. Here the writer shares a story of receiving an automated phone call to remind him to tithe this upcoming sunday.

KNPR State Of Nevada
Tithing Debate on Revelation TV

For those who did not get to see the tithing debate with Russ Kelly in action on Revelation TV, here are the videos.

Church Pastors Keeping More for themselves

by Leave a Comment

The State Journal Register released a news article outlining research and giving statistics released  in October 2011 by Empty Tomb Inc. Here are some short points taken from SJR about the research below

“Parishioners gave about 2.38 percent of their income to their church . . . Only 0.34 percent of parishioner income went to what Empty Tomb calls “benevolences,” such as charities and seminary training beyond the four walls of the church. Those are new lows, at least going back to the first report in 1968.”

The diatribe you hear about tithing and all the bantering you hear about health, wealth, and prosperity all comes from those who give 2.38% of their income?! All i can think about is how is it that my character is the target of scrutiny for opposing the tithe. I’m not the hypocrite.

“previous research identifies no clear pattern that shows donations dropped during past recessions. In other words, the recession is only partly to blame, if at all.”

Excuses…excuses…excuses. It looks like the obvious scapegoat just got shot dead. Sorry pastors, you can’t use the “bad economy” line anymore.

This year’s report represents the fourth consecutive annual decline in benevolences. Put another way, American churches are spending more on themselves and less on beyond-the-church charities.

Dare we say that selfishness and greed be preached from the pulpits any longer? I say we hew down every pulpit and rebuild it into a pew, and in turn, transform the pews into pulpits.

Ronsvalle even goes so far as to suggest “if a church is turning inward and valuing the happiness of its members” over service to others, “it is moving on a spectrum toward pagan values.” The bottom line: U.S. churches seem to be more concerned with their own needs and their own desires over the needs of others.

Can we blame those sitting in the pews? Partly – yes, because their ignorance is stubbornly patronizing the pagan values being practiced from leadership. But what about the leadership that rants and raves about their right to keep the general mass ignorant? Can administration simply say that it’s our duty to give and not to ask, or God forbid, influence what is done our contributions? Granted, on a micro level, every individual is responsible for their personal decision in regards to giving; but in the communal aspect of giving, the mass population is threatened into tithing with fear of being punished by a curse.

The Salvation Army has seen its contributions increase by 5 percent in the U.S. over the last fiscal year

You know what? The Salvation Army practices what they preach and there aint no surprise there.

Mission Awareness

by 5 Comments

Since many people wonder why i spend much of my time discussing and studying the bible about tithing and stewardship i want to share some inside information that will help you understand how important this issue is globally.

I first began this website in 2006 with the intent of just simply publishing my beliefs and studies on the subject of tithing. I wanted to help spread the truth about tithing and how it was falsely being taught in the Church. I just wanted to share my thoughts with a few people and had no intention of making it popular throughout the world.

How big has this website grown?

In my first month tracking the website statistics, it was August 2007 and i had a total of 3,800 “unique visitors”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with statistical jargon, you have three main types of statistic tracking categories that help you determine the impact of your site – ‘unique visitors’, ‘visits’, and ‘hits’. Unique visitors is your bottom line. This shows how many individual entities had visited your site. Visits and Hits will always be higher numbers and are not really used to determine your impact. Great we got that out of the way, so let’s move on.

A year later in August 2008, the number of unique visitors had doubled from from 3,808 to 8,042. At this point, i really began to wonder how many people on the internet are really searching for answers and questions on tithing? But by August 2009, it nearly doubled again to 14,352. At this point, this website was within the first couple spots on Google in the U.S. for “Tithe” or “Tithing” keywords. My first assumption was that this website has probably maxed out on potential. Now that it was listed near the top of Google, i didn’t think it could grow much bigger. Nonetheless, i kept writing more blog articles and networking more.

Of course, once again in August 2010, the website grew tremendously. The website was at 24,325 visitors for that month. Now, in March 2011, the website reached 33,896 unique visitors for that whole month! That is over one-thousand a day that are searching for articles on tithing or stewardship and are coming to this website.

Some more Interesting Statistics

  • Per country, our most visitors come in this order – U.S., Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Philippines, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Spain, Netherlands, China, Australia, France, Indonesia, Thailand, . . .  and more. . .
  • -1587 visitors came to our website by searching for “Tithe” in a search engine. . .
    -1580 visitors came to this website by searching for “Tithing” in a search engine as well. . .
    -430 additional visitors came to this website by searching the term “Tithes” in a search engine as well.
  • Google’s  keyword tool shows that all three keywords above are being searched in the U.S. over 100,000/month. Which means that regardless of how well this website ranks right now, there is still 96% of the population in the U.S. finding other websites on tithing.
  • This website is also found through 10,375 other keyphrases in search engines.
  • There are 840,606 hits/month on this website.
  • 85% of the people that visit the website are new visitors that have never visited this site before.
  • 3,285 visits are made with a mobile device.

Domain Acquisition

Because of the impact of this website and the number of people searching for answers and questions on tithing, i had acquired about purchasing two key domain names – “Tithes.com” and “Tithing.com”. Miraculously, I was able to successfully purchase “tithing.com” privately through an individual, and also purchase “Tithes.com” through an auction website. These purchases were not cheap and totaled over $750 all together. Before you think i’m crazy for doing so, let me explain a few reasons why i purchased the domain names

  1. Keep high profile keyword domain names away from the competition. If you have a domain as the major keyword, your chances of being higher in the searches are greater than if you had a generic domain name. So why would i allow the possible opportunity to give this advantage to those who wish to promote tithing?
  2. It is my passion. I love this subject of tithing and stewardship in the Church. Don’t worry, i get weary of talking about the same thing all the time,so I have to take breaks. But since i am not one of those geniuses who can excel at any task, i must completely focus on one task and master it to its fullest.
  3. It is a lifetime ownership. Once a high profile domain name is in someone’s possession, the chance that you will be able to acquire that for yourself would be miraculous. Only 1 person in the world can own “Tithing.com” or “Tithes.com”. That is why i think it is no coincidence that i was able to acquire both domain names at the same time. In all honesty, it was by “divine chance” that i even saw that “tithes.com” was available, and also the previous owner of “tithing.com” had owned the domain for 10 years. So, i practically view this domain acquisition as a divine sign.

Right now, if you type in tithing.com or tithes.com in the address bar, they will both be forwarded to this website. I’m not sure if i will continue to forward these domains in the future, or if they will have their own website, so pray for guidance there. I need to find time to completely over-haul the home page, let alone find time to start two more websites on tithing.

Conclusion

With some facts about the amount interest others have about tithing and stewardship, i hope you have a better perspective as to why i spend so much time studying, writing, and debating. I hope it encourages you to help spread the truth about tithing since i stated that this website is only reaching 4% of those searching for tithing in the U.S.

– jared

Survey: Majority of Evangelical Leaders Say Tithing Not Required

by 3 Comments

From the Denver Post by Electa Draper

Most evangelical leaders encourage their church members to tithe, yet most don’t believe the Bible requires it of Christians, according to survey results released today.

Tithing, giving at least 10 percent of one’s income to church, was the subject of the monthly poll of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals, which includes leaders of churches, denominations, missions, universities and publishing houses. Source

Shocking . . . isn’t it? I’d say not. Here’s a few reasons why . . .

1. Renowned Authors have Publicly Professed This Already

I could give you numerous quotes from renowned authors such as Larry Burkett and R.T. Kendall that have stated that tithing is not required in a legalistic sense, but that it should be given of freewill out of grace. I wish i could explain how you can get your mind around that paradox, but the authors can’t explain what they are saying either.

2. Support for tithing is Short & Sweet

Deep in their heart, most tithe teachers cannot explain how tithing fits into the new covenant structure. For this reason, you don’t see many books in support of tithing out there. Even the ones that are available, the support for tithing only covers a chapter or two. With the amount of emphasis on tithing from the pulpits each week, you’d think there would be volumes of research and data reinforcing the tithe. But that’s just it – you only hear short, 45-minute sermons each week about tithing.

The short sermons you hear each week on tithing is effective enough to persuade an audience about the guilt for not tithing without having enough time for hermeneutics or exegesis. In all honesty (without exaggeration), I could fill in a whole days worth of speaking about the scriptural proof against tithing (not that i’ve done it). On the flip-side, it’s rare to find an individual to fill more than two chapters in a book, or one hour sermon for proof of tithing.

3. Very Few Tithe Supporters are Willing to Debate this

I can’t count the number of comments that i’ve made on other blogs that have been removed. If a pro-tither cannot approve one comment opposing their view, then good luck trying to get in any rational discussion with them anywhere.

There is a mentality of – “God said it, that settles it” . . . “You don’t need to pray about it” . . . “Just do it” . . . “Take it up with Da Book“.

Even if i can engage in a debate with a pro tither, the discussion quickly evolves into an assault on my character since it’s easier to attack my humanity than it is to attack scripture.

Conclusion

I believe there is some reservation in everyone’s heart that teaches tithing. When i had believed in the requirement of tithing, there was something in my heart that aroused questions, but i always put them in the back of my mind. I believe that many leaders know it doesn’t quite fit, but the Church is extremely dependent on its weekly fix. That’s why i call it the crack tithing addiction.

What do you think about this survey? Were you surprised? Why/Why not?