Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes...

This post is rather long and deals with money so if your squeamish or bitter you may want to click somewhere else.

I wanted to share what I needed to hear about a year ago (and I probably heard it but ignored). The church must talk about how people handle money.

The only people who will really get mad and leave are the ones who didn't have an intention on honoring God anyway. When we launched the church the topic of stewardship was one of the ones that some people in our initial core (yes I said initial) brought up. "We shouldn't talk too much about money... that's a knock on churches." I took that as a mental note "Don't talk too much about cash... Got it."

The problem is that I now have come to understand that argument is... well.... bunk (to say the least).

A few weeks ago I spoke to an unchurched person about our offerings (this was someone in the business world) and explained that the offerings had been flat compared to where they should be by now. Ultimately after other conversation she looked at me and said "Well Pastor, it sounds like you should teach about tithing." Now obviously she knows something somewhere in her past about church when she says 'tithing' but more importantly was that she (who doesn't attend church presently) understands that it takes loot to make things happen.

So I fast forward to some lessons I've picked up recently:
- People will respond.
- You can talk about it in a way that people CAN receive it.
- Jesus talked about it alot.
- God doesn't want us to stop reaching people because we have people in our church who don't obey him in the first place.

There are others but I want to jump to this thought brought to me by Vince Antonuci, the Pastor of Forefront Church here in Virginia Beach.

We met a few weeks back and he said "Tally, I'm hard on this but I teach people that generosity starts at 11%" He could tell I was interested to comprehend so he continued "The bar has never been lowered under Grace. The bar before Christ was 10%. That's minimum worship in the area of finances so I teach our people that to be generous we start at 11%"

Vince went on to say that he doesn't teach people how to look at God as "if they can afford 10 or 11%" but rather "I ask them if they can live on 10% and work their way up. The moment they can live on 60, 70,80,85% of their income, I challenge them to be generous with the rest." And guess what... People respond.

Apart from tithing, Vince has people in his church who give away much more in many areas of society. Most churches have people who view cash as their little kingdom. They pile it up and stand on top of the stack. Vince is a church planter with a church made up of 20-somethings who don't have a church background. This is a message he gives to the hardest demographic (by most accounts) to reach. And his church is currently running over 700 after 5-6 years. Let's get rid of the idea that the unchurched are turned off by it. I believe the unchurched are put-off when it seems to be the center of a ministry, not when it's taught in context with everything else.

I'm not advocating that you run in and blast your church. That's wrong also. But I would say that these are thoughts to challenge me to get a backbone in the area of teaching about finances. I'm a relatively young Pastor so I'm glad I've learned this lesson now. I'd bet in the future we're going to be able to reach more people because the people at Focal Point will have a biblical view of tithes and offerings.

I know some people are anti-tithe these days. I don't care. People try to justify everything.

I just know that the bar was never lowered under grace.
- Jesus said the bar for murder was now in your mind (how you think of someone)...
- Jesus said that the bar for adultery was in your mind (how you think of someone)...
- Jesus also pointed out the woman giving 2 small coins and he said "She gave more because she gave from all she had while the rich gave out of their excess." He didn't condemn her for bringing her best. He actually pointed it out to his followers that when we cling to our 'stuff' we miss the point.
- The rich dude comes to Jesus and says "I want to follow you." Jesus said "Get rid of your stuff and then you can follow me." He didn't say "Sweet! Mr. rich guy... I'd love to have you in the ministry... This can't be done without your cash...so... Can I get you some grapes?"

No. He said "Your stuff isn't your stuff... it's mine... I'm God.... and since I'm God and since I know you love your stuff... Get rid of it and follow me."

Finally, this idea of 'build up to a tithe' is bunk.
Pastors say "If you can't do 10, do 2%... then build to 5, then 10" That's garbage.

I know, I know "Tally, if they aren't doing anything, something is better than nothing"

Really? Let's try that with other sin.
How about adultery? Would you as a Pastor tell a guy in your congregation "Hey, I know you sleep with this woman 3 times a week but God says don't do that so how about you cut back to twice this week and then in a few months just sleep with her once per week. Eventually you will not be committing adultery."

No, if it's a slap in God's face. and people want to know how not to slap God's face, tell them. With tithing I challenged our people this week to re-organize their budget. Don't make God re-organize his call on your life. I specifically said "If you have cable and your teens have cellphones but you say you can't bring your firstfruits to God, reorganize your bills."

After that message Sunday I had someone come up to me and say: "Pastor Tally, thank you for telling us like it is. We want to honor God. We tithed today and we're going to go home tomorrow and shut off our cable. That's not more important than my relationship with God and I know that I can't lie to Him about where we put our money."

BENEFITS:
Here is what you need to know if you're thinking I've lost my mind on this. There are other benefits for the family that tithes.

If your people in your church say they can't "afford" to tithe. They are also likely not saving a dime from their income. If people tithe to God what's his, they'll be forced to look at their money. They may even be forced to actually do the B- word....... Budget!

And if our people have to actually budget and look at their cashflow, they may actually see that they eat out way too much (which is our problem at times). They may see that they don't really need all of the features on their cable bill or cell phone. They may see that they give their kids way too much cash for movies without asking them to do anything to learn that money doesn't grow on trees. You get my point.

Tithing is one discipline that can lead to several disciplines. None of which will hurt your church members but on the contrary would cause them to improve many areas of their life. This is what it means to live in a way where God CAN bless you.

I love the people in our church. I want the people of our church to be financially stable and Bless-Able. How about you?