Church Finances

This week I received an email in my inbox.  It was just an advertisement, but it caught my eye.  (You can read it below with the personal content removed)  The advertisement was for churches to learn how to boost the amount of money they receive in weekly giving.

Now, on the face of it, this always seems a little suspect to me, but I thought I would at least read the email and see what this person had to say.  After reading it, however, my resolve was only strengthened, that our church should never engage in these kinds of attitudes.

Instead of trying to bring in as much money as possible, the church should be trying to figure out how to teach people to use their own personal finances to advance God's Kingdom in their own life, and in their own sphere of influence.  The church woefully misunderstands its power and its influence when it thinks of its resources in terms of what is in the church budget.  To be succinct the financial resources of the local church include all of the wealth that all of its members possess.

Think of the scope.  Even a church that was filled with committed tithers would have a church budget that equalled 10% of the income of its members.  What if, instead of thinking about how to get more people to give to the church (focusing on that 10%), we tried to mobilize church members to use the 90% in ways that honor God and advance His Kingdom?

This is where financial power could truly be used in creative and fruitful ways:

Instead of aiming to get 100% of our members to give 10% of their income to the church, lets focus on getting 100% of our members to recognized that 100% of their income belongs to God, and that they will have to give an account to Him for how they used that money to cooperate with His will in their own household, and in their own community.

Here is the letter:

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We're cruising toward the "crunch time" of 2016. A mere days away from the 4th quarter of the year. 

How has your giving been?

How was it today?

Do you ever ask yourself the following questions:

Q. How well is the church's ministry vision being funded?

Q. What are we having to cut because of a lack of giving?

Q. What aren't the tithes and offerings at the same level they used to be?

Q. How can I get my church members to give more regularly?

If you are asking yourself ANY of these questions, it's important for you to join me for...

3 Secrets To Boost Your Recurring Giving

It's a completely free webinar I am going to hold and I'm going to help you get very positive answers to those questions.

We're limiting the number of churches that can attend this free webinar to 200.

So please reserve your spot now.

The Perverting Force

I had a recent conversation with my brother.  He is in the fitness/health industry in Southern California.  He shared with me that one of the largest forces perverting his ability to help people become healthy, is the fact that he derives his livelihood from this endeavor.

People come to him saying "help me to be healthy."  When he then offers them his program for health, the response is "I don't want that, I want some other program."  They then leave, and go somewhere else where they are given what they want, instead of what makes them healthy.  This creates a strong incentive to offer people not what makes them healthy, but rather what they want, so as to keep them around as paying customers.

His need to feed, clothe, and shelter his family is set in direct opposition to his desire to help people be healthy, precisely because he makes his living by helping people to learn to live a healthy lifestyle.

The connections to 'professional Christian ministry' are boundless...

Rivers or Reservoirs

I had lunch with a new friend the other day.  In the course of the meeting he shared with me that he has learned to treat his money like a river, not a reservoir.  That God provides in order for him to give, and that he has to keep 'the flow' going in order to keep it healthy.  I felt like that was a really good picture of the Christian life in all areas.

Whatever God gives us is to be treated like a river.  Prayer, mentorship, joy, food, hospitality, prophecy, righteousness, courage, discipline, and service, as well as money.

So what has God given you?

Are you giving it away?

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² “I will make you into a great nation 
   and I will bless you; 
I will make your name great, 
   and you will be a blessing. 
³ I will bless those who bless you, 
   and whoever curses you I will curse; 
and all peoples on earth 
   will be blessed through you.”


Genesis 12:2-3

Generosity is Victory

"...to give away money is to win a victory over the dark powers that oppress."

Thanks Linda

A christian is committed to the truth of Jesus words. He said, "it is better to give than to receive." These are not nice, but naive, sentiments. They are true wisdom.

Christians should be the biggest tippers, the ones who share our possessions most freely, the ones who spend our time on people who have nothing to offer us in return, we should be the ones who give away our best things to bless others; not giving out of our abundance, but giving sacrificially...

Halford Luccock

You remember that among the Franks, whole armies were sometimes given baptism at one stroke, and many warriors went into the water with their right hands held high so that they did not get wet. Then they could say, “This hand has never been baptized,” and they could swing their battle axes just as freely as ever. The modern counterpart of that partial baptism is seen in many people who have been baptized, all except their pocketbooks. They held these high out of the water.

Better than 90% is Not Enough!

The US poverty threshold for a family of four is approximately $22,000 a year.

Earning $22,000 a year places you in the top 10% of households worldwide.

Seems like a disconnect to me!

The US poverty threshold is much lower than what allows people to receive public assistance of some kind or another. In our area, a family of four can qualify for help with utilities, health care (of course this will be changing), and food, if they make less than $45,000 a year.

======================

$45K !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...and it's not enough!

Which One?

Financial Blessings aren't a Blessing?

Budget shortages force us to reconsider our priorities; a shortfall gives us a great excuse to kill unnecessary programs and other initiatives.

Money

...thoughts from Sunday.

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Our culture tells us in a thousand ways, big and small, that "money makes the world go 'round."

We are bombarded with images and slogans convincing us that we need the bigger grill, the better vehicle, the more expensive shoes, or the newer house; then we will be happy!

We are told we earned it; that the wealth we possess is our right.

We are taught to define ourselves by the income we make and the associated status symbols. Our individual and cultural identity is wrapped up in symbols of wealth.

Even those caught up in poverty often mistakenly believe that the solution to their problems is money!

“If your relationship with God doesn’t bring you into conflict with your culture, then you need to reevaluate your relationship with God.”
Pastor Rob Owens

The truth is that these things will complicate our lives and end up making us less satisfied with our lives! Once basic needs for food, water, shelter, health, and freedom are met, any increase in wealth leads to a decrease in felt happiness.

We operate from within a vastly unjust global economic system, and it is tilted in our favor! We haven't earned the wealth we have, it is a gift; the job, the economy, even the strength, health, intelligence, or skill that we possess that enable us to procure and maintain the levels of wealth we are accustomed to, are not things we are responsible for. They are a gift!

...and our value has nothing to do with the amount of stuff we control. We have value because God says we do! Our identity is in our reflection of His image, not in our hoarding of His possessions!

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The simple fact is that money is not central, it is peripheral. God is central. Whenever we allow our culture to convince us otherwise, our lives and our world suffers for it!

Even in the church money can gain the place of prominence. Churches command tithes to line the pockets of clergy, others preach a message that says "Jesus died to give you a big house and a nice car." Even the extreme ascetic streak that has run throughout the history of the Church can often be simply an unhealthy emphasis on the role of money (albeit a negative one) instead of putting money in its proper place.

=============================================

So what does God want us to do with money?

...a brief perusal of the way the topic was handled in the Jewish Scriptures is illuminating.

From the very beginning Jews recognized that all wealth comes from God. God is the creator of the earth, wealth included. He owns it all and has merely placed it in human hands to act as God's caretakers. We are YHWH's gardeners.

The wealth of the Nation of Israel was literally handed to them by God. They were a nation of slaves who left Egypt with the riches of their oppressors on their backs. God carved out a country from the surrounding nations and handed it to a people with no country.

The Law then proscribed that Jewish households were to periodically set aside 10% of their wealth for God and His purposes in the nation. (Some estimates are that this amounted to approximately the equivalent of a 25% yearly income tax) This was done for three specific purposes:

1) Maintaining the system of priests and Temple. This was essentially a tax to support the religious, educational, and judicial system of the country (as the priesthood fulfilled these roles in some capacity).

2) Redistributing wealth to those who had little or no capacity for generating income, orphans, widows, foreigners, etc.

The first two purposes fit well within our modern conception of taxation, the third, however, is uniquely surprising:

Deuteronomy 14:22-26

3) The Jewish People were commanded to use a portion of their Tithes to throw a tremendous nationwide party! Eating and drinking was not merely encouraged, but commanded!

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God loves stuff, that is why He made it! He wants us to enjoy it! Food, drink, beautiful scenery, physical pleasures, fine art, colors, smells, textures. Not only did God invent these things, He also designed us with the capacity to enjoy them! (Check this out.)

The problem is not with wealth. The problem is never in the stuff. The problem is in what we do with it, how we get it, why we want it, how much of it we use, whether or not we share it...

In short...

...the problem is us!

(More to come)

Money

Money is an intrinsic aspect of daily life. (Even in a hypothetical and romanticized agrarian, utopian barter economy there is this same reality...) This is not something we can simply ignore if we are to deal with the lives of everyday people. Jesus, does exactly that, deal with the lives of everyday people, and so, must be seen as having something to say about the way we spend, earn, use, save, and view, our money.

In fact, as we peruse the gospels with this thought in mind, we find that Jesus is constantly refering to finances, as metaphor for larger spiritual realities, in parable to to refer to the financial issues of His listeners, and even directly refering to the way specific individuals act in regards to money. It would be hard to think that Jesus was not very interested in teaching us how to live properly with money.

Here are some thoughts from our small group discussion last Wednesday on this topic:

We read and discussed the following passages:

Matthew 6:25-34
Matthew 23:23-26
Luke 10:25-37

We came to some conclusions...

1) as people who have decided to learn how to live from Jesus, our approach to money should be secondary, peripheral, indirect. Jesus essentially said, "don't worry about money, seek out what God is doing in the world, and align yourself with that; then your financial situation will take care of itself." We shouldn't spend time fretting about clothes and food, cars and houses. This is not an excuse to be lazy. This is about our attitude and our focus.

2) money is not given to people to bless them, but rather given to people so that they can use it to bless others. Jesus always had hard words for people of privilege who viewed their privilege as a sign of their superiority. This is because, throughout the entire recorded history of God's interaction with people, He has always chosen to bless people, in order that those people could be a blessing to the world around them.

(As a side note, visit this website to get a view for how much money you 'really' make!)



3) Finally we decided that we have a responsibility to those around us. We cannot ignore the suffering and need that goes on in our world and pretend that we are moral people simply because we don't hurt people. Being a 'good person' consists in more than simply not hurting others; it requires that we are actively pursuing the well-being of other people. (We learn this in the parable of the 'Good Samaritan' in the above passage.)

We concluded our talk with a few points of application:

1) Recognize that this is a heart issue. How you spend (and earn) your money, is an indicator of where your heart is at.

2) Instead of spending time with people who have more than you, spend time with people who have less. This will keep you from trying to 'keep up,' and will help you focus on 'helping out.'

3) Recognize that people need you to get involved more than they need your money. There is a middle option between saying 'no' and handing someone a $20. Find out who they are and how you can truly help them.

4) Build a discipline of giving into your life. Make it a habit to tip at least 50%, once a month give away your favorite article of
clothing, regularly give anonymous donations to people in need.

DID YOU KNOW..?

The world's 225 richest people now have a combined wealth of $1 trillion. That's equal to the combined annual income of the world's 2.5 billion poorest people.


(Check the title link)