It seems that Scrooge is alive and well and sitting in the pews of our churches. In an excellent commentary in The Baptist Courier, Don Kirkland reports on a recent article in Christianity Today entitled, "Scrooge Lives." In it, researchers discovered that more than one in four American Protestants give away no money at all, "not even a token $5 per year." Only about 27% of evangelicals tithe.
Kirkland also reports that the CT article confirms what I've known throughout my ministry--only a small percentage of church members cover the bills for everyone else. As Kirkland aptly puts it, "Small groups of Christians who are generous are 'covering' for the vast majority of Christians who give away nothing or very little of their earnings."
This is not new information but it is still alarming. The Bible is clear. God's people are to give. The NT is clear that the giving should be sacrificial. Paul, for example, commends the church of Macedonia as one that gave sacrificially in spite of their poverty [2 Cor 8:2]. Christians are to give no matter the economic times.
Again quoting Kirkland, "All church members must carry their own weight. It is wrong to continue to allow a small percentage of generous Christians to shoulder the load of the Lord's work with little or no help from their fellow believers." Amen!
I wonder if all of us would give, how much more could be done for the Kingdom?
Read Kirkland's commentary; it is worth the time.
http://www.baptistcourier.com/2962.article
1 comment:
I too have read the Christianity Today article, "Scrooge Lives!".
The article in CT is in fact a piggyback on a book entitled, "Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money".
The CT article assumes that the only valued giving a Christian can participate in is giving to his local church. It seems you may think the same as well.
Clearly, followers of Jesus should give.
Clearly, this giving is mentioned of Jesus' followers to be done out of the results of joyful heart.
Therefore, a follower of Jesus should not give out of compulsion, duty, rule or law - and should not be expected to give in this manner, either.
If these Jesus followers give out of a joyful heart and give when they are motivated by the Holy Spirit, then I argue there is true giving.
Perhaps the lack of giving is either the result of Jesus' followers not being joyful on their giving or not them not being so motivated by the Spirit. If we blame their lack of giving on their lack of joy, I have to consider just why such a mass of us are joyless in this endeavor. If we blame their lack of giving on their flat disobedience to the Holy Spirit, then someone else can point that finger - I certainly think surely no other man has the place to judge my own relationship with the Godhead in anything - I will not.
Perhaps it is that we en masse simply do not want to, cannot joyfully and are not prompted by the Spirit to give.
...I would offer this meek reasoning for all of that: perhaps most of us in Him are indeed not pleased with the end results of our giving even when it is done joyfully; perhaps most of us are worn from all the expectation that giving is much more similar to funding and more like wages and bill-paying than charitable in its function.
My family and I give to a handful of charities and we bless others in our family and in our circle of friends all the time. We certainly do not need a salaried leadership board who reside in a yet-to-be-paid-for building to properly distribute the funds they receive after all the utilities, insurance and equipment bills are paid.
Most of us who are His try and do what Jesus did, in a manner of speaking - we try and put our money where our mouth truly is.
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