Giving - Part Two

One of the biggest whips of having a blog you try to maintain is figuring out what the heck to write every day. I love it when people post comments, especially when they spur more discussion because now I've got a blog topic for the rest of the week! 

Yesterday, I talked about my message from 2 Corinthians 8 yesterday about giving, and my friend Lisa commented: "So are we free to give however much we want to whoever we want and count that as our tithe?" My other friend Kara also asked for my two cents. Unfortunately, after my opinion Kara is probably going to want some change back: 

Some traditions/denominations prefer that you give all your money to the local church (or denomination) so that they can sort out exactly how it's allocated. You give your "tithe" to the church, and they distribute it to the various ministries and missionaries that are associated with your denomination. The benefit of this kind of philosophy is that the denomination is able the ensure that your contribution supports ministries that connect with the same vision and values of the denomination. The Southern Baptist Church prefers this method, and as a result some of my friends who went to Baptist seminaries got to go for a fraction of what my degree from a non-denominational seminary cost me. 

In my opinion, although there are some significant benefits of that kind of philosophy, I see two things to be cautious of: 

First, it tends to remove people from a hands-on partnership with what God is doing throughout the world. Growing up in a Southern Baptist Church (a heritage for which I'm extremely thankful), I only knew of two missionaries in the world: Lottie Moon, and Annie Armstrong, because every year at Easter and Christmas an offering was taken in their honor to support foreign ministries through the SBC. Today, I write several checks every month to different missionaries with whom I am connected. I'm not just supporting their ministry financially - I'm a partner with them. 

The church where I'm a pastor right now gives more than a million dollars institutionally every year to local and foreign missions out of our operating budget. But it's impossible to estimate how much the church gives in reality because we encourage our people to partner directly with ministries they are excited about. When we have missionaries come and speak, we don't usually take a "love offering" for them to support their ministry as an institution. We encourage our people to connect with them on a more personal level so we are involved as individuals, not just as an institution. 

I think it's a much more exciting thing to be an investor in a ministry rather than simply an enabler of a ministry.

Tomorrow, I'll share the second thing I think we have to be cautious of: A lot of times we "command" people to give to the local church as an institution using Scripture that doesn't command people to give to the local church as an institution. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow... I'm resisting the urge to do a really long post and blow my good ideas for the week!