Estate Tithing – We Want Your Dying Dollar Also

Hooray for Southern Baptist Convention. They are so creative. I can’t believe of all the creative things they think of to motivate us to give. They even know how to help us give beyond our life here on earth. On the website BPNews.com, Erin Roach wrote an article titled, “Estate tithing is new focus of stewardship” This article specifically states that they want, “to provide church members with resources for making arrangements to fund ministries beyond their lifetimes.”

The focus on this is not about what the older adults are going to leave for their children. It’s about what the church and ministry is going to get from it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with tithing some money in your will to the church, but far too many of the older adults are leaving their children with nothing and giving the church everything they’ve got. I remember one story, where a husband had devoted so much money to the church that he left his wife nothing when he died. On his dying bed he told her that he wished that he had left more for her. In her heart, she didn’t care, but what a shame that that man had to die with such a feeling in his heart.

2 Corinthians 12:14, calls for the parents to lay up for the children. What you leave for your children and your family is more important than what you leave for your church. There is nothing that you give to your children that they can’t give to the church themselves. If you leave your family desolate, poor, or in debt, but relinquish the needs of others first, then you have not fulfilled your obligation as a parent. This is a command in 2 Corinthians, not a suggestion. As i said before, there’s nothing wrong with doing what the SBC suggests, if you’ve done your part as a parent first. Fulfill the mission to your family first, then the world.

(Excerpts from the news article above are taken from BPNews.com Sep 6, 2007 by Erin Roach)