Giving

A report in the January 23 Baptist Standard reveals that if American Christians tithed, churches could gain $156 billion a year. And if denominations allocated a greater percentage of their receipts to international human needs, they could make strides in eliminating poverty-related child deaths. The study released by John and Sylvia Ronsvalle showed that in 2003, members of Christian churches in the U.S. gave an average of less than 2.5% of income to their churches. [Ken Camp, "Untapped Potential in Christians' Wallets", 11].

I've alway said if church members tithed we would have more money than we would ever need to do God's work around the world. Here are some questions I've asked myself:

• I wonder what would happen if American Christians really wanted to help the poor, the hungry, the naked, and the diseased?
• I wonder what would happend if we decided in the SBC to be less top heavy and spend even more on attacking poverty, disease, etc.?
• I wonder what would happen around the world if we stopped trying to build bigger buildings and spend that money on meeting human need?

Just some random thoughts.