- 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. - Let’s invest in the next generation
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. - 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 distubing 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. - 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.
found your blog through this blog
http://www.mennoniteusa.org/2014/04/22/cashing-in-on-jesus/
“Does the church teach tithing to scam us into overpaying staff and constructing lofty cathedrals?” Glen Guyton.
I was frankly amazed to see a church official a Chief Operating Officer (of the Mennonite church), no less, say this.
Also, here are my thoughts on “Lies pastors preach”. http://juwo.blogspot.com/2013/12/lies-some-pastors-preach.html
I have an age-old question concerning tithes and wanted to try getting an unbiased opinion. Please understand, I have no issue about the paying of tithes. My issue deals more with the actual distribution of the tithe. I realize that many organizations, independent or corporate teach that ALL the tithe was to go to the “local” church, and offerings were to go to whomever the Lord so led. For years, that is what I have done, and accepted. However, my recent experience with a church pastor has actually caused me to re-look at the issue.
Here are my concerns:
1. If tithing is required as commanded of the Children of Israel under Moses, then it was required from EVERYONE; from the poorest up to the High priest. As for its distribution, I believed that tithe from the common people (or laymen) went to the support of the Levites, the Levites to the priests, the Priests to the High priest, the the High priest’s tithe went to the poor and widows. (That’s how I perceived it).
2. Many pastors use the term “storehouse” in Malachi’s account to support that tithe goes to “the local church.” Personally, I don’t see that in that particular scripture. It is clear that the tithe went to food to feed the “flock,” not just the pastor
3. When I presented these thoughts to the senior pastor of the church that I true d relentlessly to build a sustainable missions with, he got somewhat defensive when I suggested that if the tithing principle was true, then technically there should be a tithe from that which the common people paid, and that that tithe should appropriately go to support missions. As you might expect, I am no longer the missions pastor there. I’m ok with that, but Both the Senior Pastor and I both knew my heart for missions, particularly the persecuted church. However, his defensiveness is what has caused me to reconsider as to just where the tithe actually belonged. In addition, his defense causes me to wonder the real spirit behind the insisted notion for tithe going to the local church as being taught for selfish gain, rather than the support for missions.
Dennis, stating that the “storehouse” means the local church is nothing less than self serving spin doctoring, or twisting scripture into a pretzel for one own’s benefit.
One of the things I HATE about the local church. They state that 10% of your gross income is mandatory, but then when that church wants to do anything for the poor, they take up a separate collection.
May God have mercy. AFTER the first fruit goes to paying for the salaries and buildings, then we find a tiny amount of money to give to the poor.
Oh, by the way, I jumped off that sinking ship about 12 years ago.
I don’t know what kind of churches all the commentors go to.
I’m Eastern Orthodox and all tithes are free will. We manage to not only pay our church expenses, but we have many, many philanthropic internal organizations that also have national counterparts which carry out the mission/charities role of the church. They work very hard and contribute a tremendous amount of their time and achieve amazing things.
After 911, one our small parishes across the street from one of the Towers was destroyed. The property was owned by the Church, yet the City of New York “took” the property and promised it to a group who wanted to build a Mosque on it, if you can even imagine this. The Eastern Orthodox Church of America filed a lawsuit and was in the courts for 12 years to get their lawful property back. What we decided to do is build the St. Nickolas Greek Orthodox National Shrine complex which will not only be a functioning Orthodox Church, but also a place with a separate private chapel for all the families who lost loved ones in the disaster. At a press conference at the ground breaking, a reporter asked Archbishop Demetrios of North and South America who is going to pay the $39 million the structure is estimated to cost. His gracious reply was that the reporter was not to worry, that $35 million was already raised and that not one cent was coming from any local, state, or federal government source! This is what Christians can do when they donate.
A poor man may not be able to give money, but he can give his time or of his talents to his parish. Remember that in the NT the poor widow gave a penny toward a sacrifice at the Temple, and that was all she had. Jesus said that as opposed to the rich man, her contribution was the greater.
Christians today have no heart. They debate semantics in the Bible and believe themselves to be devout. One cannot understand God with the intellect. You get foolishness when you try to rationalize God’s Word. If you do not tithe to your church, then you are devoid of the spirit of Jesus’ message. In Acts is the history of the development of the Church. Before the Crucifixion, followers of Jesus all contributed to a common purse which they not only used for the needs of the followers, but also for those in need that they encountered. Jesus always preached taking care of the widows, orphans, the sick, the infirm, the poor. That was a directive, not just to us as individuals, but also to us as the Church of Christ! The Church has grown. We are too many to meet in houses any longer, so we erected buildings in which to pray together and carry out The Lord’s work.
Jesus openly called the Pharisees hypocrites. If the shoe fits…