Thoughts on tithing, giving, generosity, and all that jazz...

Before I begin with this post, I want to quote a book. Now, don't get all hung up on the book or the author. Just listen to the quote… it's good!

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for 15 minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way."

 - Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Now to the focus of this post… as a kid that grew up in church, there was this thing about tithing that never resolved for me. A splinter in my mind if you will that still won't let me go.

As I have processed and processed this idea, I wrestle with how to explain God's expectations for money to people who live in the richest country in the world. Let's be real for just a minute. I don't want to lay heavy burdens on people unjustly. And at the same time I don't want to remove clear obligations either.  And because people are so weird about money it puts a lot of pressure on me to state the things that I believe are true, but say them in a way that can move both extremes (and there are lots of people in both extreme camps) to what I believe is a healthy and theocentric view of how we are to handle time, talents, and treasure.

I know there is a pressure to land one place or another. And I know that wherever we land, if we are going to be true to our conviction, there is a cost. So, as I have been doing over the past few posts, rather than writing to convince, I am going to give what I think are some healthy guiding principles for this discussion.

1. Proof texting any point is never a good idea. And the debate over tithing is one of the most proof texted and least understood conversations in scripture. On one side are those who bring out a few texts about tithing (i.e. Malachi 3) and on the other side are those who want to say that tithing is Old Testament and we are not bound by that covenant anymore.

I want to state emphatically and for the record - both sides are dead wrong. It is wrong to proof text and manipulate people by doing that. It is also wrong to assume that: 1. there are 2 stories of God working among man; 2. That God undoes one covenant to start another; 3. that we can use the Old Testament when we like it and disregard it when we don't (which gets done all the time); and 4. that just because God states something that He wants His people to do in the Old Testament and doesn't repeat it in the New Testament (which I don't believe is true in the case of tithing, but that is not the point) doesn't mean that we have no obligation to it (i.e. don't murder).

2. God's people understand that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. So, exactly "none" of my money, time or abilities are mine to use as I see fit.

God's people are never asking the question, "How much should I give?" they are asking the question, "How much should I keep?" And that is a very different place to come from.

3. This new generation loves to give to causes not organizations or institutions. This has lead to people trying to justify splitting their tithe out among several different causes that they deem admirable or needed.

For the record, I love giving to what are called "parachurch" organizations. These are organizations like WorldVision, Campus Crusade, Innervarsity, Navigators, etc. There is nothing wrong with these organizations and this is certainly not a post on the efficacy of the parachurch. My wife and I absolutely support some of these out of our "over and above" giving.

But there is not one example that you can find, Old or New Testament, where there was ever anyone who got to choose when and how to give their money. They always came and gave it at the temple in the Old Testament, and they laid it at the apostle's feet in the New in order to have it properly distributed to meet the needs of the body and the community.

Resolving this tension and where you land on it is not on the shoulders of those who believe in a full tithe going to the church. I am not going to be dogmatic about where your tithe goes, but I am going to say that if you want to "buck the model," the burden of proof is on you, not those who up hold traditional acquisition and distribution.

4. 10% is SO NOT the point. Many people want to camp out here and say we don't have to give 10% anymore. And you should therefore allow everyone to decide how much and where they are going to give. The truth is that, for most, this is an excuse to not have to be generous at all.

That will never be okay with God. Therefore, that should never be okay with His people. God is a generous God and so His Kingdom of Priests should be as well. We are putting Him on display after all.

For the record, no one owes me an explanation of where and how they spend their money. And I am not calling for a reckoning of those who feel differently. What I would suggest is something far deeper.

For those of us who have matured in our faith, who have wrestled with the limitless goodness and blessing of our God, we should all be looking at 10% in the rear view mirror. That should be the starting point upon which we build a much more generous lifestyle.

10% isn't a goal, it is a starting line.

5. The New Testament does in fact give us a standard for giving. And for what it is worth, for anyone who actually says that they don't like 10% because that is Old Testament and they want to give as a "New Testament" Christian (which is a terrible term from start to finish), I am happy for them to do so. But actually do it. Read the examples of what they did in their giving and do that.

If you decide to do that, and you actually do it, 10% won't be a problem at all. you will be way above that.

And before you throw "don't give grudgingly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver" in my face. That is NOT God saying that if you don't want to, it is okay for you to not give. You are still commanded to give regardless. But to do so grudgingly says more about how you feel about your God than about the money you are giving.

6. Our giving is not about us - at all!! In fact, the more we give, the more we can see that to be true.

First of all, giving reminds me that it is all His.

Second, no matter what western culture says to me, I am obligated to the community that I am a part of before I take care of myself. That is foundational to the Jesus way of engaging the world.

I will close with this rewriting of the opening thought.

I used to hate giving because I didn't see any benefit to it. Then one day I was part of a group with a tremendously generous person. And I watched as he told me the story of the blessing that it was to fulfill a need in someone else by laying down his pursuit of his own lifestyle and comfort. He had tears of joy in his eyes the whole time.

Then I saw what giving can do. So, I started giving more. And now, the more I give, the more I love giving.

Sometimes, you have to watch somebody who loves giving before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way to bring heaven crashing into earth.

Some further thoughts on the future of the church...

I want to run down this trail for awhile longer. There is a lot more to say. We will see how far I get…

I recently had a great conversation with an awesome guy who is getting a Doctorate in Ministry. His degree emphasis is preaching to millennials.

For those of us that don't know what this means - the millennial generation, also known as generation Y, is the generation of folks who follow Generation X. They are people who were born from the early 80's to the early 2000's. While there is no specific date as to when it stops and starts, this is the basic boundary of this socio-demographic.

The explanation of why this matters and the research involved in defining all this is vast and there are volumes written on it. But since it would bore most of us to tears, I want to simply draw some observations about how I believe that the church must respond to this next generation without delving too far into the why.  If it resonates, please let me know.

First, and probably most profound for this whole conversation, we have to stop talking about this generation as if they don't care about what is true or what is right. This is neither accurate, nor does it help to further the conversation.

Regardless of what you may think about the way we should understand truth, we live in a world where there is no way to keep from being influenced by a thousand different sources of input in a single day.

I can literally get online and listen and watch the top 20 leaders from any world religion at any moment I choose. And I can also listen to any anti-religious or non-religious speakers as well. My ability to take in information has exponentially increased, and the capacity to process the information has increased as well.

That leads me to my second thought… People are not dumber than they used to be. They are in fact, more aware and more rounded in their perspective than ever. And to try to blow off other points of view simply because they don't line up with your own is foolish and degrading to others.

People can and do process information at a higher rate now than ever in history. But writing and talking at someone are having diminishing affects. That doesn't mean that they aren't important, or that they don't work anymore. It just has less affect than it used to have. And this is due in part to the lack of trust in authority in general in our culture (see my previous blog post). We as a culture are not willing to "take someone at their word" anymore.

Put up or shut up. That is the Modus Operandi of our culture.

These 2 thoughts lead me to a couple of bigger thoughts that are really important as the church moves forward.

First, in order to see the next generation be open to a relationship with Jesus, we have to find a way to keep them part of the conversation long enough for God to get ahold of their hearts.

Prepositional, dogmatic preaching is quickly becoming a thing of the past. And to go back to the beginning of this post, that doesn't mean we have to compromise truth to effectively preach. It means we have to communicate truth better. Beautiful, compelling, inspiring sermons on the foundations of truth and life practice can be done and done well without the preacher turning into an insensitive bully in the process.

And many people will validate that you are "bringing a hard word" and that you "need to give it to us straight." I would suggest 2 things: 1. in relationship, there is no straight - it weaves and winds all over the place. That is the nature of community, and that is what we are asking people to be a part of; and 2. these people that are validating the "hard word" are already Christian. Did your "truth telling approach" bring anyone else to Jesus? Or did it reinforce the lies in people's souls that tell them that God could never truly love someone as messed up as they are?

And I would say that extends even to people who have said yes to Jesus. They might have said yes to being willing to follow Jesus. But do they truly believe that He loves them? Do they truly believe that He sees them as full of potential, not as mistakes or mess-ups. For that matter, do you believe that about yourself? and about others?

I think that for too long, what I would label as "Pulpit bullies" have reigned in our churches. They essentially have approached sermons with an attitude of - my job is to convince you that I am right and that you must agree with me or you are "out." As so there is a lot of pushing and convincing and drawing lines. And to be frank, many of the lines that get drawn are foolish and bound up in tradition not Scripture so they wind up having to get redrawn over and over again. And the church looks foolish because of it.

Second major point - I truly believe that in order to reach the next generation, we have got to stop talking about certain groups of people as if they are second rate. And before you dismiss this point as one you don't struggle with, hear me out.

Over Christmas I got to spend some great time with my family. It was so much fun and probably one of the most memorable Christmases that I have ever experienced. But there were several conversations that caused me to wonder about some things.

Now, my family are all Christians and in ministry. We all love Jesus and we all love the church. And I would say that we all love people from all walks of life. But some of the comments that were made off the cuff about people who are different than us lead me to believe that there are some underlying realities that we are taking for granted.

That which is not intentional is not reproducible. And if we don't intentionally validate and value other people, we will accidentally say all kinds of foolish things about them. And it only drives those who don't know Jesus yet further away from Him.

Nobody said anything intentionally mean. But a few of the statements that were made really made me think about the implications of many of my own statements and how I can say things without thinking that really hurt others.

And people in general have a tendency to do that. We joke and laugh about others that we perceive as weak or weird. It is just like junior high only we are all older. And I get it - I do. I fail at this more often than I want to admit. But our sacred privilege as followers of Jesus is to put our God on display to the world. And those people that we make our careless comments towards are precious to Jesus. So, when we say things off the cuff about other people, it isn't just that we invalidate them as human beings, we also paint an inaccurate picture of our God. And that is never a good thing!

So perhaps the place to begin is with these questions…

How do we determine to intentionally live out being a blessing to EVERYONE around us regardless of their past, present, or how we see their future?

How do we intentionally make sure that the people who come into contact with us are better when they leave than when they came?

How do we invite people into the life transforming relationship with Jesus and keep them a part of the conversation long enough to have it take hold?