Out, are the controversial sermons, and the offensive gospel, and in, are the “one size fits all” challenges. Pastors are beginning to avoid controversial words such as “tithing“, and are using more generic terms, such as “offerings“, for doctrinal principles of giving. In order to accommodate the diversity in their audience, the mega-churches are the hot-spots for these generic messages. They stick to messages about prosperity, and joy, and avoid specific controversial subjects. Shortly, in the future, If their message does not change, their soft spoken-ness could come back to bite them. The obligation of giving is slowly disappearing amongst congregations, because tithes were the piggy-back of obligatory giving for so long.
Today, when people enter the church, convictions on singing, bringing their bible, tithing, repenting, are avoided for the sake of offence. There are few that are trying to hang on to strict interpretation of tithing, but for the most part, the obligation to tithe is slipping out of the minds of the rising generation. We can see this trend being proven with statistics from the recent years. www.barna.org has written an article in 2004 stating, “Americans Donate Billions to Charity, But Giving to Churches Has Declined”. In this article is proof that the force behind obligatory giving to the local church is dwindling down, but the freewill spirit of offertory giving is rising. In order to accommodate this swing in trends, and to avoid bankruptcy, Pastors, have no choice but to modify their message. In turn it will raise an oblivious generation that has not been confronted with the pressure to give a minimum amount to God. Of course there are many questions as to how this would affect churches of all sizes in the future. My feeling says it could affect many churches, if in some way they do not shift the focus from 10% tithing to 100% stewardship.
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Jared Brian is the author of www.tithing.com. There are over 300 articles written on research and reviews about tithing information.
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