A Dozen Ways to Give Less
Last week we looked at excuses the sinful human nature will throw in front of us to tempt us to give less to the Lord through our offerings to his church. It boiled down to one thing—doubt.
If I doubt the Lord is going to look after me, I’m going to have to look after myself. And if I am realistic about things, I have no clue what is coming my way, so I better hang on to everything I have, even finding socially acceptable ways to shirk my responsibilities to my kids if need be, until I really don’t have any more needs—when I’m dead! Then I can leave it all to the church, hoping it was just a misprint in the Bible, that love covers a multitude of sins—and that it really reads, a bequest covers all sins.
But if I know the Lord is going to look after me, I can be generous and happy in meeting all my present responsibilities.
A new set of ways to give less confronts us today. See if, at the end of this lesson, you can see the common thread in all of them.
4. I’ll give what everybody else in church is giving.
Certainly that makes sense. We expect everybody to pull their fair share. After all, in the great state of Nevada we all pay the same in sales tax—7.75% of what we buy. We all pay the same millage in property taxes—1.225% of what our homes cost. We want everyone to pitch in at home equally. Why not just give what everybody else in church is giving?
It would be easy to figure out. Just look at the church budget, divide that by the communicant membership (we’ll just assume we don’t expect the kids under 13 to give what we expect their parents to give) and you get the figure!
For this year, at this time, here’s the numbers:
Total Budget $495, 766
Total Communicant Membership 540
Total Needed From Every Communicant Member $918.09
Ouch—that’s a little high! Can we lower that somewhat?
Ok, let’s take what the school contributes for our joint ministry. $42,000 per year, about 10% of their income.
That brings the figure down to $453,776, $840.30 per member, $16.15 each and every Sunday.
That seems reasonable.
But then consider these harsh realities, as presented by the people in the WELS who have looked at congregational giving patterns over the years.
L 1/3 of the communicant membership contributes nothing—will they be your “everybody else” standard?
L 1/3 of the communicant membership contributes under $200—will they be your “everybody else” standard.
L That leaves 1/3 of the congregation giving, on average, $2421, $50 per Sunday, $100 per couple each and every Sunday.
If this group decided to do their “fair share” we would have a church budget of $52,000. We could afford the rent of a small storefront, electricity and that’s about it. Maybe take turns preaching.
Is there a simpler way?
There is!
How can each Christian “do their fair share” according to Paul?
Each man should give. Every Christian is to give to the Lord.
Who decides what to give?
Every individual.
What should not be a motivator of deciding what they should give?
Compulsion or reluctance.
Explain how using “what everybody else gives” can be a compulsive force in a Christian’s giving.
I feel like I have to keep up with the Joneses in my offerings. It sets an arbitrary goal for me to hit, without any relation to how the Lord has blessed me.
How can it be used to baby a sinful reluctance to give?
We can grudgingly give what everybody else is giving to avoid shame or ridicule.
Why does God love a cheerful giver?
Cheerful giving flows from a faithful and loving heart that puts God first.
What does God promise his cheerful givers?
To make them rich in every way that they can always be generous.
Is the Corinthian offering need based? If not, what is it?
Certainly there was a need—believers in Jerusalem might starve! But this is more information about an opportunity to show love and concern that has risen.
So, what are you going to give, relative to everybody else?
If we all are following God’s gracious guidelines, I will be giving exactly the same as everybody else—what I generously and cheerfully want to give my Savior!
5. The church really needs more money in the Building Fund, so I’ll put my offerings there.
It seems so harmless. It seems so natural. How can you say anything against this, because we are following this type of thinking right now!
As of July 1, 2007, we were at 93% of our budgeted offering envelope giving, $14,000 short of budget. Building Fund offerings, however, were at 191%, $30,000 above what was projected.
How did we get to this point?
1. The WELS Church Extension Fund was unwilling to rewrite a loan covering further cost overruns in our construction project. We paid our bills by not putting any money out for furniture and fixtures. That’s why we don’t have big screen TVs in the church.
2. We decided to give people a chance to donate specific items.
3. The council has decided, if there isn’t money in the general operating expenses, we can use building fund monies to pay for the mortgage, thus countering the loss of general operating revenue.
4. There are some cost cutting measures in the operating budget (salaries, outreach, youth and worship programs) that help ends meet.
We pray this is a temporary thing and we don’t get into a habit of doing this. It seems to me this is one of the biggest gripes of the public when it comes to government. They always cut the services to John Q. Public when they are short of money.
But what would a church look
like if need giving was the main motivator in Christians giving? Explain how
need-based giving is the main ingredient in these scenarios.
Community Church of Community, Indiana has an enormous campus and buildings. They are always building. Just last year they moved out of their 2000 seat sanctuary into a 7000 seat sanctuary just to keep one worship service a Sunday. Their deacon’s thinking is, “To keep the church growing, you’ve got to keep building.”
This church is addicted to building projects because they rely on need-based giving and the most popular need-based giving is one’s expanding church building! While it may be praiseworthy to have one service for everyone, so all can know each other, the deacon’s comments show the real motivation behind it—it is a ploy to keep the people giving.
General fund donations from congregations are failing to keep up with highly touted (and expensive) privately funded pilot programs which have now become ongoing programs of the national church body. So they decided to cut funding to highly visible and popular programs, foreign mission work, ministerial education, which people would pony up more to support directly. Each one of the arms of ministry affected hires an outreach director to hit up the people for their specific program. Just the other day, the local pastor received three urgent pleas from three separate ministerial schools, and he has been beating the drum for a unified budget to simplify giving.
The push is there to give to the schools or missions or else they will close and ministers will be put out of work. The national church body is actually working at cross-purposes with the local pastor. A unified budget helps teach people to give as they have been blessed and then the “pot” will be divided by the church leadership rather than people voting for this or that program with their dollars.
A church found that need-based giving really works, so much so that they’ve gone 100% to need-based funding. “If you want it, you’ll pay for it and we’re only going to get the programs we want!” the church president trumpeted at the voters’ meeting that started the whole process in motion four years ago. The good-looking, back slapping pastor is getting a $100,000 compensation package and the pastor in charge of evangelism and member retention is getting $40,000. The mortgage payment is three months late, but there is $25,000 in a fund to buy candles for the five eternal lights that have been donated as memorials. The congregation was, however, somewhat dismayed that the former treasurer who had just taken a job out of town, embezzled $30,000 out of the new carpet, social concerns, fellowship, church softball uniforms and school textbook replacement funds. The good news was it looked like no monies had been misappropriated out of the other 97 special funds of the church.
Need-based giving creates book-keeping nightmares for the local (volunteer) financial crews. There ends up so many special funds the congregation can’t keep track of them all. And there might be a real misappropriation of money outside the embezzler’s grasp as the congregation is “spending” offerings on non-essential things while showing favoritism and funding frivolous or superfluous things.
What is the role of church leadership in determining ministry priorities for the body of believers and how is this role abandoned when money talks?
The church leadership should match programs with available resources and prioritize programs so that the most essential get funded and more iffy programs may get funded if there is enough money. When money talks, leadership simply asks, “is the money there?” and if it is, well, don’t be surprised if the youth group takes a spring break in Aruba to investigate the role of reggae on the Lutheran liturgy while the congregation’s offering to the national church body is slashed.
Most of us understand the budgeting process. If Mr. College Student living in an apartment with a $50 per week budget on groceries is walking to the checkout stand and sees a special display of Sugar Bombs cereal for $6.47 a box, it will be easy for him to say no, especially because groceries are the last thing he is buying this month and he’s got $25.82 in his pocket to last him until Friday and the groceries in his cart, hamburger, buns, gallon of milk, 12 pack of beer, toilet paper and a bottle of Motrin are going to come up to $24.17.
A budget, whether we think of it this way or not, is a way to ration our spending. It creates an artificial shortage (albeit a wise shortage) of money to spend on what we might, caught in a whim, want to buy.
A budget deals with shortages and creates shortages.
When I reach my budget I stop spending on that item. When I reach my budgeted bill and pay it, I don’t sock any more money into it. Southwest Gas gets $38.00 from me on its level pay plan every month and I’m not giving them a cent more.
When we look at giving in terms of the church budget, we are putting God in the same category as Southwest Gas. We are creating an artificial shortage in our giving to the Lord.
What if, in the December church newsletter, the Finance Chairman’s report tells everybody that the church budget is really hurting—we are 25% behind budget. What, probably, will that information do to giving in the month of December?
People will give more to meet the budget.
What if, in the December church newsletter, the Finance Chairman thanks everyone in his report for giving so much that this year the church is actually 4% ahead of its budget?
They will give less, if they are giving to meet the budget. The “bill has been paid, the budget has been met.”
Is that really how the Lord works? In terms of a budget that he needs our offerings?
I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
For every animal of the forest is mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
And the creatures of the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
For the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
Fulfill your vows to the Most High,
And call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
Does God need our offerings?
No.
Why?
Everything belongs to him. To insinuate that he needs material things is to imply he is something less than God.
What does the Lord desire to see?
Thank offerings and vows fulfilled.
What is a thank offering?
A gift given to the Lord in appreciation of what he has done for us.
Why would people take a vow?
A gift to the Lord in appreciation for something we prayed for and promised God a gift if he gave us what we prayed for.
Are either of these types of offerings, a thank offering or a vow, subject to a budget?
No. They are subject to what God has given. The more he gives, the more thankful I am.
Look at the last verse. What is the Lord more interested in than offerings?
The honor of a believing heart and the chance to show his ability to rescue us.
Read Malachi 3.6-12
"I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
"But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'
"In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse-the whole nation of you-because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.
What did the Jews learn when they tried to ration their offerings to the Lord?
He rationed his blessings to them.
Does this mean we have to give ten percent to the church?
We’ll postpone the answer to that until our last meeting.
What is the lesson of this reading for us Christians who enjoy the freedom of the New Testament?
If we ration God, he will ration us. If I ration the time I spend in church listening to his Word, he’s going to ration the blessings I am able to receive from him, such as the ability to discern if something is praiseworthy or if something is dubious and should be avoided. If I ration my giving to the church, he will probably give me the church I deserve.
What is the purpose of a budget, then?
The budget is to serve as a restraint on the church leadership. It will prevent them from buying something the church absolutely does not need, and then, since it was such a good deal, get two of them! There are so many good things to do with the offerings of the Lord’s people—fund a school, support world missions, help a daughter congregation get started, send a son of the congregation through to become a minister, pay the electric and water bills and buy new hymnals and the new Sunday School material. The council makes a promise to the congregation that it will ration the spending of the congregation to keep in step with its offerings. To see the budget as a way to motivate the giver is to turn the process topsy-turvy.
What if the budget again isn’t being met?
Maybe it’s time to get new church leadership who can spend money more wisely.
Did you catch the common denominator in these three reasons to give less?
Give according to the needs of the church.
What reason should dominate our giving?
Give according to the blessings we’ve received from the Lord.