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Quotable – George Barna
Posted by Quotable in IMPACT Features
“They attend conventional churches less often. They are expanding their circle of Christian relationships beyond local church boundaries. And they are investing greater amounts of their time and money in service organizations that are not connected with a conventional church. That doesn’t make such giving inappropriate or less significant. It’s just a different way of addressing social needs.
“If this transition in the perceptions and giving behavior of born again adults continues to accelerate, the service functions of conventional churches will be redefined within the next eight to 10 years, and conventional churches will have to adopt new ways of assisting people in need.”
Researcher George Barna, commenting on research which indicated only 5% of American adults donated a tithe (10%) or more to charitable organizations … including churches.
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I’m a member of the “Administrative Board” at my church. I’m fairly “influential”, if you’ll excuse the assumptive term, in the direction and policy of our church. Most things that I strongly feel a direction from God to make happen, at least monetarily, I can fairly easily initiate.
I am NOT comfortable or satisfied with the “generosity” of our church. Money that is tithed to the church is often hoarded, or simply used for budgetary needs. We’re a small church with a small budget, but we still seem to be able to recover from fairly significant financial “hits” within a year.
Yet, as a church, we contribute VERY little to international missions and even local outreach from our tithes and offerings income. It would take quite a stretch to say we “tithe” our income, as a church.
It is frustrating to ME to see such a large percentage of the money that is “tithed” to the church used for non-ministry things. Storage buildings, while important, mean nothing to our community. Even sound equipment and other media equipment are not an outreach to the world. These are very “self-contained” things. Inward.
So, I am easily frustrated by this. I KNOW that much – if not all – of the money that I tithe to my church will never find its way to the poor. It will never feed the hungry. It will never place a coat on the back of a freezing homeless man.
I am saddened to even think of it in this way. Most of my “tithe” is not used for “charity” at all. It is simply given to an organization with a tax free status that is then run in basically the same fashion as a business – buy what’s necessary and meet a few really specific needs along the way. MUCH of the “charitable” work my church does is done by asking for gifts and offerings above the tithe, simply because doing so doesn’t require a vote or a debate about how much to give. It’s up to the individual.
With this in mind, I don’t tally my tithe. How much I give is personal to me, but I am not at all convinced that I am in the wrong to withhold some of my tithe from the church and put it directly into a needy situation.
There are a lot of social needs. A lot of churches, due to the “ownership” of the money by the members of the church, don’t give the leaders appropriate freedom to put the money where it really needs to go.
I don’t begrudge the money to the church, but I am simply aware that the church is not IN NEED of the money nearly as much as some other people in the world.
I suspect others of my generation have a similar thought pattern.
Flamesuit on.