A Blog for the Church

When it comes to giving, many house churches have a problem.  For the most part, house churches don’t have much in overhead costs.  There is no building to maintain, no utilities to pay, no or few staff to pay, no budgets to fund, etc.  House churches are cheap and that is a good thing.

As a result, many house church leaders don’t know whether they should be asking their communities to give or, if so, how to go about it.  After all, if there aren’t overhead costs, what could you possibly say to someone who attends a house church that will motivate them to give?

And that’s the question I want to address today.  Before I do, though, I want to make clear that this is not just an issue for house churches, this is an issue for every church because every church has members who need to be taught how to give.

There are one of two paradigms a church can choose from when it comes to how they talk about giving.

Normal Church Paradigm: Giving to Meet Needs

Most of us who have been a part of a normal, traditional, meets-in-a-building church know that giving is a matter of meeting felt needs.  Case-in-point being Saddleback church.  Rick Warren asked members of Saddleback in the last few days of 2009 to give to make up a $900,000 deficit that emerged as the result of a significant decrease in giving around Christmas-time.  Members responded…and gave $2.4 million instead.

I in no way think badly of Warren or Saddleback for their actions, in fact I think it is a great testament to the generosity of the church members.

But, there is a problem that this story illustrates: for most churches, giving is matter meeting needs.  Without giving being at a certain level, churches need to take drastic measures: reducing budgets, cutting staff, and in the worst cases (or perhaps the best…) closing their doors.

Understand that I’m not railing against budgets, staff, or buildings.  I am, however, pointing out that no matter how good the programs or needs are, the church is ridiculously dependant on congregations to give money just so they can survive.

It doesn’t stop there, though.  Often times the church resorts to this paradigm even when the church itself doesn’t need money.  Perhaps the church is encouraging members to give so that the needs of others can be met: the homeless, the broken, the poor, the widow and orphan, etc.

It is great that churches are being awakened to the fact that there are needs outside of themselves and more important than their own, but the question must be asked, “What happens when the needs are met?  Should church members keep giving?”

That is the wrong question born out of wrong teaching.  There is a better way.

Better Church Paradigm: Giving to Give

At first glance, you may not be able to see why giving so that needs can be met is a bad thing, but doing so creates two problems: it necessarily holds quantity in high regard and it ignores how giving affects our own discipleship.

Let’s talk about that first one: giving to meet needs necessarily holds quantity in the highest regard.  When you really stop to think about it, it makes perfect sense – if there are 100 hungry children, the best giver will be the one who does the most good in feeding those children.  Consequently, those who think it an important cause, but can only give a little bit are, without intention, devalued.  It is important to note here that this is inevitable – no amount of trying to not devalue those who give less will change the fact that it will happen, it is an inherent flaw with the model.

Giving to meet needs also ignores our own discipleship.  There are two stories that will help us here.  The first is found in Mark 14:1-9.  While hanging out at Simon Peter’s house, a woman comes in with a jar of extremely expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus.  His disciples start freaking out saying, “Why this waste?  It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!”  Jesus, in typical fashion, says, “Leave her alone!  She has done a beautiful thing to me.  You’ll always have the poor, but you won’t always have me.”

The second story is found in Mark 12:41-44.  Jesus sat down at the place where the offering was put and watched people as they put their offering in the temple treasury.  A lot of rich people put in a lot of money, but it was the woman who dropped in two mites (less than a penny) that Jesus was impressed with.  Why?  Because it was all she had.

These two stories demonstrate for us that giving is not primarily a matter of meeting needs.  Rather, giving is a matter of our love for and obedience to Jesus Christ.  This is true whether what we give is a very little amount or a very large amount.  In fact, amount doesn’t matter at all.  What matters is not how much we give, but that we give and that we do so sacrificially.

Why?  Because we cannot serve two masters.  And the only way to ensure that we do not try is to willingly dethrone our money by giving it away.

This changes everything.  Whereas giving to meet needs will cause us to carry a burden  that is too heavy for us, giving out of love and obedience to Christ will cause us to trust him all the more – for our own, as well as others’, needs.

And we will find, just as the disciples did, that giving as a matter of discipleship is liberating.

Your Turn

I’d like to ask you to go through a process similar to the one we at The Well went through as we explored what generosity was supposed to look like for us.  On our Resources Page you’ll find a document called “A Study on Giving/Generosity.”  If you’d like to explore this issue more and get a deeper understanding of generosity and how you can begin to shift to a better giving paradigm, I would encourage you to take some time to go through this study.