Articles on Stewardship and Christian Finances

1. Church bills needs to be paid
   Why it’s illogical: My mortgage and bills pays for a warm place roof over my families head. Why should church bills take precedence to anyone’s personal bills when there’s no one living, eating, or sleeping in a sanctuary? Foreclosures have been a hot topic lately. If we are called to bail out the Church at times, where is the reciprocity in bailing out individuals who cannot pay their mortgage due to illness, or unemployment? If a church building were to be foreclosed, would anyone be without a roof over their head? Who would be without a bed? Obviously, no one. If anyone should be seeking donations for a payment on mortgages, it should be those who have a need to keep a roof over their children’s head, and a bed to sleep in.
2. Let’s invest in the next generation
   Why it’s illogical: It’s hard enough to provide a future for my children, let alone someone else’s. One of my goals is to build up a savings account for my children. This is a challenging discipline to perform. It’s hard enough to have a savings account of my own, let alone for my children also. 2 Corinthians 12:14 states, “for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children”. As a clear directive in the New Testament, this should be the goal of every parent.I’m aware that the Church is expressing interest in creating programs, buildings, and other resources that can be accessible for future generations, but in all honesty, i would bet the statistics prove your children will not be attending your church as adults anyway.  I would also venture to guess that statistics prove the average lifespan of a church only lasts one generation also.
3. We are doing the work of God
   Why it’s illogical: Is everyone else doing the work of the devil? In a church service I just attended recently, they were going over the yearly budget. The total budget was around 3 million, and within that budget included a tithe towards outside missions. Although i applaud that the budget for outside missions was beyond the world-wide average of 3%; it still is disturbing to me that we can consume 90% of donations for internal operations, and because we donate a meager 10%, we are doing God’s work.
4. We need better programs
   Why it’s illogical: I need to pay for better schooling for my children.
   Hands down, schooling is the most important decision to make for any parent. I had a conversation with a personal tutor one time who taught children of all diversities – smart, dumb, young & old, rich & poor. There is one thing that she said that will stick with me for a long time. It was that she would scrub toilets for the rest of her life, night and day, to make sure that her children attend a private school. This came from a tutor who handled many children that attended Grade “A” government schools.

Are There Logical Reasons to Give?

When I was a kid, we would drive by the McDonalds almost every day. Back in the day, they used to have signs that they could change. What most of them would says is something like, “over 1 billion burgers sold”. And the number would change every so often. I remember eagerly anticipating the sign to change from 9 billion to 10 billion, or whatever the number was. It was a feeling of celebration and amazement as I tried to picture a crowd of that many people or a room with that many burgers. For McDonald’s it was a way we could measure their success. Unfortunately for the Church, there’s no sign outside that says, “over 1 billion lives touched”.

Finding logical reasons to give sometimes can be tough because i relate it to a situation on whether a fat man should skip a meal. The Church is bloated. We have tons of money. Don’t think so? Well, read the giving statistics. The Church rakes over 100 billion a year. 370 Billion is given towards ‘Christian’ causes world wide each year.  According to some estimates, it would take 30 billion/year to solve world hunger and an additional 10 billion to provide clean drinking water. Suddenly 100 billion and 370 billion seem like a lot of money if that’s all we need to solve the extreme goal of world wide hunger and thirst.

I’m not trying to get you to stop giving. I want you to give as much as you can for the reasons that God has for you, not some fabricated excuse made out of emergency. Most of us go to local fellowships that have big budgets, but can we really justify not giving? I don’t think we can make the fat man skip a meal, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about that. It’s just too bad there is no way we could see a sign outside of every Church’s door that said “over 100 billion spent and over __ lives changed”. Would we be amazed or would we be disappointed, and would we eagerly anticipate seeing it, or would we pretend the sign doesn’t exist?

What do you say? Do you struggle for reasons to give to your Church? Speak below.

Every year my family saves up money in a jar to give to someone in need on Christmas eve. We have our small children (3 & 5) with whom we also encourage to contribute with change we give them. We then go out with our children and offer the gift to someone we feel led to give it to. We sometimes find a homeless person, a family at the donation center, or someone in a parking lot.

This past Christmas eve we stopped at the donation center and noticed a family shopping for adult clothing. There were about 4-5 children along with a woman. For some reason, we felt led to offer the gift to them. My wife and daughter approached the young girl (around 12) and gave her the jar with money. Immediately, the daughter started crying. My wife explained to her why we were doing it and we walked away.

As we walked out the door a woman ran out the door and stopped us. She said, i just want to say that what you have done was so special. She explained how she was fostering these children whose mother has just died and the children were picking out clothes for their father who was in jail – the kind of news that sends chills down your spine. In these moments you are reminded why the giver is more blessed than the receiver.

But this is not all. My wife and i are in the process of finding a small-group we feel God is leading us to in our Church fellowship. So we have been visiting many small-groups in the past few months. It’s taken us a long time to make our rounds because of the many choices, the holidays, being out of town, and my wife works every 3rd weekend as a nurse. Regardless, the next Sunday we were able to, we attended a small-group in the elementary school. They began planning out ways they were going to continue and serve a family they’ve been helping with lately. An individual leaned over to us and explained what was going on. She said that they were helping out a family of children, whose mother had just passed and the father was in jail.

Immediately, i was stunned at how similar this situation sounded. Someone then showed us photos of the children and the woman who was fostering their children. They were exactly the children and the women we saw at the donation center. The woman who had was fostering these children belonged to the same  small-group we visited the week after. Somehow we managed to offer our gift these specific children, which seems like a ‘random’ act of generosity that turned out to be a ‘lucky’ guess; But then to randomly sit-in with a group at Chets who were also ministering to the same family? One would say, “it’s a small world”. But ‘randomness’, ‘luck’, & ‘small world’ are the terms the world has been using to discredit the movement of God since day 1.

No matter how insignificant you think your service or gift is, you never know how much of an impact it can have. Luke 21:1-4.

Probably the most criticism I receive about this site is not the fact that I am against tithing. This may seem surprising considering that the tithing (so-called) doctrine is so near-and-dear to many. Actually, the number one criticism I receive about this site comes from both sides of the aisle. Both tithe-liberators and tithe-advocates actually come down hard on me about this. Quite frankly, it’s a bit cumbersome to constantly justify myself, so I’ve decided to write a post that defends my case once and for all. Some of you may be reading this that have already confronted me about this – I don’t mean to offend, it’s just that I am a plain-speaking person. So, I’m not holding back my feelings.

The issue that I am criticized the most about is that I do not talk about generosity more often. More or less, it seems that my message is “Don’t do” rather than “Do this.” Basically, the criticism is that I should be spending my time thinking about what we should be doing instead of what we should NOT be doing. I can understand why people would feel this way.

Turning on the Light Bulb

When I was first studying tithing years ago, I came across a slew of resources that taught against it. The balance on the scale was tipped pretty heavy towards the “anti-tithing” message more than it was for “pro-giving.” The reason I read so many resources about “anti-tithing” was that I was searching for answers solely about the doctrine of tithing. Quite frankly, when you look for studies on tithing you find so little that support its view; and the little you do find, it is shallow and minute. With the amount of time that is spent talking about tithing in sermons, you wouldn’t believe that the research done in support of it is extremely anemic.

Nonetheless, as I was studying tithing, I knew sacrificial generosity was required. How could anyone be talked out of this if they themselves have been redeemed by the shed blood of our savior? By all accounts and measures, i had been a generous person. This truth to me was common knowledge. I knew that God wanted me to give and wanted me to give sacrificially because i knew how God gave to me. I completely understood that Jesus and his Father sacrificed everything to give to me, so out of love I felt an obligation to do the same in return. What I didn’t know was that my method for giving was a complete error. What I also didn’t know was that learning the truth about tithing taught me more about generosity than anything else I had read before and anything I have read since.

Learning the truth about tithing turned on a light bulb for me. I viewed my friends, family, and complete strangers differently simply because the bondage of tithing had been broken. Unexpectedly freeing a person does something in their hearts and minds that cannot be duplicated any other way. A response to grace is a power that cannot be broken. Motivation by fear, legalism, and incentives can all be broken because there is always something that can scare, threaten, or bribe you more.

My message is not about teaching generosity. To be honest, I feel that comes naturally when someone feels love, or when someone receives grace. When I broke tqwdqdaweraeraseasrerse[ me to give from my heart and not from my calculator were enlightening to my life.

I don’t need sermons from my wife and reminders from her about giving. When I see her grace and her freedom and her willingness to give to me, it is only natural for my heart to give to her.

Must I prod, poke, and push you to give in every single blog post? Even if I am successful in my endeavor, does it mean you are giving for the right reasons? Are you so childish that you cannot understand the obligation and responsibility to others to care, love, and provide for them? Maybe you have not experienced enough grace to realize what God has done for you? In that case, I don’t think a message on generosity is what you need.

What About Balance?

Some people ask, well why don’t you have some balance and teach about tithing and also about how to give at the same time. As a matter of fact I do. Many times I reference scriptures in both the old and new Testaments that point to examples of giving that were freely sacrificial. In the tithing e-book i have written, the last 1/4 of the book is dedicated solely to how our giving should be. Many times I reference principles of giving. Over and over again, I reference Jesus’ example of giving in the bible. Other times I relate our ‘giving’ relationship with God should be identical with how we give to our spouse. There are many resources in the bookmarks link on this site that provide links to sites that mostly discuss generous giving. There are also dozens of blog posts that focus primarily on generous giving instead of tithing. It’s there but the truth is that my primary message about tithing is not exactly kosher in most circles.

Nobody likes the guys that rock the boat. We want those guys that come out and say Jesus loves you, and avoid conflict at all costs. I want to let you know. I LOVE conflict. i can’t say it enough. I LOVE CONFLICT! I found out that conflict is the number one motivating factor in my life. When there was NO conflict in my life i found there i drew further from God. There’s something about controversy and conflict that drives me. Ok, it doesn’t drive you. Well. Sorry it does for me. If you sat at my dinner table growing up in my family you would think that a battle is enraging, but that’s just my family communicating. I can’t sit around like some and sing La La La papa smurf or sing koom-bi-yah!

I have very little patience to sit here and hold hands with you and encourage you to make sure you are being a good little christian and doing what you’re suppose to. Do it! Get over it! Quit talking about it. Be a man . .  or woman. i don’t want to petty talk with you about that stuff. Bores me to death.

Generosity vs. Truth

What’s the value of generosity when you practice generosity outside the truth? Imagine (hypothetically) if you met someone who believed that if he didn’t give away 10% of his income, then a green monster would come out of the ground and eat his house and car? Are you going to be more concerned about sharing the truth about the green monster, or are you more worried about preserving his generosity? hmmm. . . Maybe there are some pastors that wouldn’t mind letting that go if that means the offering is going to be fuller.

Maybe in this instance, it would be more advantageous to share the truth because he actually believes in a monster that’s going to eat his house and car. I don’t know. Let’s think about this. . . Let’s suppose he doesn’t believe in a green monster. . .  Suppose he believes that a tithe is required, and that if you don’t give 10%, then a devourer is going to come and eat his increase and consume his profit (Malachi 3:11)? At this point is truth less important because it sounds biblical? I guess a fictitious devourer doesn’t sound as bad as a green monster. . . or does it?

Why would preserving outward actions trump the truth, which is an inward reflection? Doesn’t the bible teach that what’s inside is important? Is it really that critical to focus on improving someone’s outward actions? Do you think it’s less important to know the truth? Since when is doing something right but for the wrong reasons make what you are doing right?

I don’t want to make the topic of generous giving irrelevant or lower on the priority list. Because it’s not. To be honest, i wish people knew about the truth already and we could skip to the next level. I look at giving the way I look at the nature of birds. I can’t talk about the big blue sky and the pretty view if the bird is stuck in a cage. Once I free them from the cage, then they are birds, they know how to fly. I don’t need to teach a bird that they exist for the sky any more than you need to teach a redeemed person their purpose. People forget about their purpose, but you know what, sometimes all you need to show them is the cage once in a while, not a big green monster.