Church Giving: 101

Our church right now, as are our most churches, is going through one heck of a financial crunch in the last quarter of the year. We are already behind in our operational budget, so making it up and achieving the budget for the last quarter is a difficult task for what I suppose we can call a "struggling economy". A group of the executive lay team and pastors met the other night, and strategies were implemented to save costs (i.e., less use of the building, less accrual of money for HVAC units, etc.) and raise money. We discussed different fundraisers, but as we were discussing, we began to notice that the majority of these fundraisers would simply all be stepping on each others' toes and targeting the congregation.

What occurred to me was the thought, "does today's 'average' church member really know how to give joyfully?"

I suppose I had asked this question before when I was a youth minister in Kansas, as it seemed a quarter of my job was fundraising, after coming from a church where the youth ministry budget was so large we could buy whatever we wanted most Sunday nights. I also ask this question as someone who has given to the church for a while...but has never achieved that mysterious 10% number.

Church giving: 101...

-Giving is different than tithing.

Giving is that which you feel lead to contribute over and above your tithe. A tithe is an act of faith, trust and loyalty to God, through the avenue of the local church. It means pledging a percentage of what you earn and giving to God, because you trust that the rest will be enough and God will provide any needs. And let's be honest. I know that myself and about 50% of the population of the United States could afford to give over and above our tithes. We may not think so, because we wouldn't be able to pay the cable bill or our iPhone bill...but I suppose the question should be, "does God promise us an iPhone or cable?" Giving then becomes less about the trust and faith that God has already provided enough, but it becomes a joyful response each week or each day to the love that God has for you and you have for God. Sometimes it is the 50 cents you have in your pocket, and another time it might be more. There is no standard for what God is calling you to give.

-Giving can be done in multiple ways

There is a debate amongst church people about the appropriateness of people giving to "specific projects". I will say, that in good times, it does not matter. When the church is rolling and the pledges are being fulfilled and the giving is steady, then I believe it is absolutely okay for people to pay for items/stuff for the church or to donate to specific ministries.

However, in the situation that we have at my church we are so behind as a whole church, but still we are tempted to take a stock market approach to ministry. We are tempted to invest in ministries we think will bear fruit or ministries that are already successful. This is not giving, but investing. It's not bad, but in the situation we are in, we are looking for the church to band together and work for the good of the whole. We are looking for people to give without expectation, just to say "we love what is going on here, and trust God and you will use it to fix things."

In the situation we are in now, giving a direct donation marked for Children's, Youth, Sports, Praise Band or whatever, is essentially signing a letter to cut another part of the budget out. It also sends a message that the other ministries and staff people are not in your heart as much as the one you donated to.

This is natural, it's fine, but I don't think it's ideal. I think ideal is giving your money joyfully and trusting that it will be used in a manner worthy of the Gospel message. If you want to make sure that a certain ministry is going to thrive...volunteer your time and get involved. That's another message though.

-Giving is joyful.

As said earlier, giving isn't as planned as the pledge/tithe that you make to the church. Giving is often spontaneous, in response to need or in response to your experience with God. Seeing as God is good all the time, has already loved us more than we can ever deserve and there is always a need...giving is a constant thing. What is right though is to give joyfully, without expectation on how the money is spent and without a thought of "should I really give that much?" It would be similar to feeling called to adopt a child, but only loving them part of the time, and only if they are going to be a doctor.

I want to add a non-traditional view of giving, however. In the situation that we're in, we need money to cover staff salaries, operation costs, building loans and things that require cash, but I will posit the opinion that in the best of times giving includes those physical things to places outside the church. The church already coordinates several efforts for non-profits and gives part of it's budget to The United Methodist Church's apportionments, which includes several agencies trying to change the world. But there comes a time when everyone seems to say, well I gave to the church, they will take care of this other need, but often the church is engaged in organization and time management of people. We often do not have the monetary resources to keep these missional organizations running and stocked. I encourage most church members to tithe what they can, to give joyfully on top of that, and then find one non-profit or mission-based organization in town or around the world and give monetarily or in physical goods to that group as well. For the majority of people that I've seen do this, they realize two things: 1) they didn't need the money anyways and 2) when you give like this you often are way more content than if you spent the money on every summer blockbuster or every night at the bar.

-Last but not least, giving affects you more than the church

It's true, we get the money, but I know when I give joyfully then my spirit is so full of The Spirit that I never miss the money. Most others will tell you the same thing, whether it is time they donate or money, if it is done with no strings attached, but just in love...then I would wager that 100% of the time those people have a happier life. They feel they are engaged in something bigger than themselves, but do not have any thoughts that they are buying salvation...that would be something too large to pay. When we give freely, we begin to feel part of the healing work of Christ in the world, and that is what we are here for, it is our mission on Earth.

Have you ever taken someone out to lunch, dinner, a movie, simply because you love them? That's what giving feels like.

I hope this helps anyone who reads it.

What if we started with grace?

During our youth group small group time on Wednesday night we were given a list of compromising or difficult situations and asked to write out what grace would look like in the situations. They included "a kid gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar" and things like "in a marriage relationship, one party says regretful and hurtful things to the other". It was interesting to think of what grace looked like, and even more interesting to hear what others thought.

One situation really grabbed my attention, however. The situation was "a student gets caught cheating on a test", and another related one was, "a student turns in a term paper late." It wasn't interesting purely because of the situation, but in how most of the students responded. The immediate responses were:

"the teacher should realize how hard it is to be a student"

"the teacher should let us get away with it"

and similar...

Every youth in the room knew that they would fail or get kicked out for cheating, and also knew that most teachers will not take late term papers, or at least give you a hefty deduction of points.

But the point that almost all of the students in this small group began commenting on how mean, rude and apathetic the teachers were struck a hard chord in my body. After all, I'm a very academic person at heart, as well as also one who believes in earning what you get, so I'm thinking immediately, "it's your fault for doing the wrong thing!" But grace doesn't always work this way does it?

I began to challenge myself that maybe grace in this situation looks like the teacher giving the student a second chance, a day extension, a new test to retake...but I couldn't get over the issue that the student completely didn't live up to the covenant with the teacher, no matter what the circumstances. So what does grace look like in the student's case?

Grace is generally thought of as something that a superior gives to an inferior, which is the way that many see God giving us grace, as something that we do not earn, but is only given. This is theologically sound, but I'm not sure the power dynamic needs to be there in human terms. It is true that a teacher has the power in the classroom ultimately, but the students hold a share when they are themselves apathetic, rude and disruptive. They then undermine a teacher's effort to educate, causing the teacher to then shut down.

So, in essence, the education system is having to deal with students who walk into a classroom with the immediate assumption that "the teacher hates me" and teachers who walk into a classroom with the immediate assumption that "the students hate me." Not a lot is going to get accomplished.

So maybe instead of "what does grace look like" we ask the question, "what does grace accomplish?" What is the end result of grace, because we need to know that if we're going to inspire people to act.

The end result of God's grace towards us is that we are able to live fully in the vision and mission of God, to be the humans that God created us to be, because of the mercy and grace given to us through the incarnation, death and resurrection of God in the person of Jesus Christ. We gain eternal life and a life with meaning in this world.

In this relationship, there is still a relationship, however. We have to accept that grace, even though it is freely given. It's not forced upon us. So when we accept it, that's when the special stuff happens.

What if we extended this to all of our relationships? What if we didn't respond with grace, but we preempted with grace like God does?

Imagine a classroom in which the teacher prepared for the first day of school with an open heart and the attitude that "no matter what, I am going to love these kids and teach my heart out for their benefit." On the other side, what if the students walked in with the attitude of "no matter what I think of this teacher, I am going to love and respect them and work as hard as I can to learn from them."

If people stayed true to this ethos, do you think people would cheat or miss an assignment? Perhaps, we're human, but I bet people would take more responsibility for it. Do you think there would be as many fights among friends or spouses? If we truly went into every encounter with every person with the assumption that I was going to treat them with the utmost love and respect, even if they don't deserve it...I wonder if we'd have to do as much reacting.

The issue of course comes from the problem of getting people to do this and keep doing it. It's hard to bring grace first, because we want people to prove themselves to us, or we want people to "earn" our trust...as though we couldn't just give it for free. We might get burned sometimes, we might get taken advantage of sometimes. But won't we be an incredible witness to the doubters, skeptics and all those who claim that Christians are more judgmental than the rest.

I'll be thinking about this for my next blog post..."can a Christian really stage a protest and not be accused of judging his/her neighbor?"