What would happen if we all tithed?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I read this article by Matt Vande Bunte in a recent edition of the United Methodist Reporter. The link will take you to the same article in the Chicago Tribune.
I'm familiar with the depressing statistics about the level of giving among American churchgoers. But it always helps to be reminded what the church could do if we all gave at the bare minimum of what God expects of us.
Citing an annual study of church giving, the article reports, "The study theorizes U.S. Christians could evangelize the world, stop the daily deaths of 29,000 children younger than 5 worldwide, provide elementary education across the globe and tackle domestic poverty - and have $150 billion left over annually - if church members tithed a full 10 percent of their income."
Wow. And you know what the average U.S. churchgoer gave as a percentage of income in 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available?
(Drumroll please ...)
A whopping 2.56%!
There has simply got to be a way to help Christians understand that giving is a foundational part of discipleship. God, speaking through the prophet Malachi, makes it clear that giving less than a tithe is equivalent to robbery (Malachi 3:7-10).
Any ideas on how we can nurture better stewardship?
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 9:11 PM
6 Comments:
I did some research, in 2003, each Bishop in the UMC cost $250K, not including housing. With the current positions taken by the UMC, the question is; "Are they worth it?"
If you go to a town with more than 1 UMC, which one gets noticed? Is it the one with the nicest "structure"?
I think this is a huge issue for us to think about....our culture encourages us to buy the most expensive thing, because it must be better. People buy $4 cups of coffee (I'm guilty of this!) yet have difficulty throwing $4 a week into the plate. Many ask, "Is it worth it? Do I get value for my buck?"
I wonder how a church like Mars Hill Bible church in Grand Rapids, MI, under Rob Bell can get folks to cheer at the end of worship about giving a joy offering when they leave. Do they feel they get more value for their money?
Something I've been thinking about!
I don't know if this is true for the American Churches, but for us Korean churches (and this is a generalization) the bigger the church, the less tithing there is.
This church that i used to serve were full of lawyers and doctors but the tithing was small. My father's church is small, but percentage wise, tithing is higher.
I don't know how we can nurture better stewardship. But the more money people have, the more they depend on that than God.
Andrew, I have a question related to tithing you might be able to answer: does charitable giving to an institution other than the church count as tithing? Or is tithing strictly giving to your church?
Sarah -
That is an interesting question and one that seems to come up for a lot of people. I am not a biblical scholar, so maybe there are other readers of this blog who would want to comment on it. But here's what I generally take to be true:
Tithes rightfully belong to God, and therefore they must be returned to God (the necessity of this is underscored by the passage from Malachi that I cited in the original post). Thus, for charitable giving to count as "tithe," it must be given to God.
Giving to the church is, clearly, the preferable way to do this. But I believe that giving to God in other ways would constitute tithing as well, so long as those other ways are specific ministries of the church. For instance, giving $100 to a mission trip would constitute part of your tithe. Giving to the cub scouts would not. It doesn't mean that the cub scouts are an unworthy cause; it just means that they are not the proper recipients of tithes.
Hope that isn't too confusing. I'd be interested in others' thoughts on this issue.
I feel like the Act of Giving is what counts.
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