Why is Giving Down?
Barna’s statistics recently came out about giving trends over the past year. I just recently posted my thoughts about that as well. Here is the question, Why is giving down? Is it because of a bad economy? Is it because of gas prices? Is it because pastors aren’t preaching tithing enough? Probably due to the backlash against tithing, i’m sure pastors are preaching more about tithing. they have to keep up with the grandeur religious empires. After all it’s all about building the kingdom of ?_______?
Tithing is a simple solution for stewardship in a church. All a pastor has to do is make sure his people know they are required to tithe, and then increase the number of people. Viola! you have your church a steady budget to grow with. It’s very easy. The more people, the more offering you get. If people start questioning the use of the money, just make them happy with free coffee and donuts for a week or two. I think i’ll make a blog post about how to fool people into giving more money. Anyways, so all that a pastor has to do is make sure his people know that tithing is important to your relationship with God, and then make sure that you have lots of people. On the other hand, if you had Spirit-led giving, you couldn’t get away with that. A pastor would need to make sure that his people are in a right and full relationship with God. Once they were in that position, then the giving would follow suit. Not only that it verifies that the church leadership is going in a direction that the people are being called by the Spirit to pay for.
So why is giving down? Maybe it’s because pastors are less concerned with the relationship that their congregation has with God and are more concerned with keeping their empire flourished. I don’t know. For those of you out there, that are just gritting your teeth about my attitude towards pastors, just take a deep breath, because i greatly recognize that many pastors have kept their church on the right track.
Why should it matter that the economy is bad or that gas is $5 a gallon. If the people of God are right with God then why should our giving struggle?
Related posts:
Rich pastors not common, but not endangered
Giving by Bill Clinton
Tithing is a Flightless Bird
Starving the Needy to Feed the Vision
Sometimes the giving bypasses the collection plate and goes straight to the receiver. It irked my former paster when I would ask him if there were any financial needs in the body that I could contribute to and I was instructed to just put it in the offering plate and the church would make sure it got to the right person. I did that the first time just to learn that the person who needed the help never got it. So had I followed the Spirit and gave it directly to the need, they would have seen God at work through his people, one oerson at a time.
Comment by Ken — May 23, 2008 @ 6:40 am
Good comment ken,
I had just made a statement the other day that was along the lines of what you have said. The Holy Spirit is living and breathing in you, not just the deacons that allocate your church’s budget. Don’t promote thoughtless giving through an automated tithe. Promote Spiritual maturity through Spirit-guided giving.
Comment by tithe — May 23, 2008 @ 8:37 am
I gave to a bum yesterday outside of a Win co foods. I don’t know how he will spend the change that I gave him but I said “Jesus loves you!”. Everytime I give to a homless person or when I give a tip I try to remember to say the name of Jesus to the reciever of my gift. I gave a plummer 30 dollars for doing some off the books work on my sink. He said you don’t have to pay me and I said This is from Jesus. I feel that Christians should say the name of Jesus more often so that people will know who to thank for Christian generosity. Folks would associate Jesus with Charity. Even if Bums and my plumber mismanage my money they know who it comes from-Jesus. The name of Jesus is lifted up better in my opinion when Christians use their imagination while giving.
Comment by freewillgiver — May 30, 2008 @ 1:03 am
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