For The Rev: Faith & Finances
“Better to light a candle than curse the darkness”
The Rev needs our help. He asks:
“Was wondering if you could help me …to figure out how to do offerings … I of course don’t believe in tithing, and won’t teach it, but I do think some of the existing people do tithe.
But I wanted to just place boxes or jars on the tables, and maybe a note of explanation that people can put their prayer requests or offerings in the boxes and they will be collected at the end of service. I may or may not mention it from the front.What do you think? I am very uncomfortable about the whole thing, especially when there are visitors. Do you think there should be a prayer, and an offering time?”
As Lionfish does not have ‘all the answers’, I will ask ‘Team Signposts’ take off your ‘Black hats’ for a while and help The Rev out … (that includes you too Lance)
So what do you think?:
-At the heart of the issue why do visitors and clergy such as the Rev feel uncomfortable talking about money in a Church environment?
-Should the Church (The Rev) ask/beg for money from the Front? If so, in what context?
-If The Rev encourages the ‘Tithers’ or mentions the ‘T’ word will he go straight to Hell?
-How should The Rev or any Church go about raising necessary funds for his needs?
(Rev - I will progressively place my own thoughts and questions in the comments section over time – even of no one else does!).
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Yes I am aware of those Lionfish, I do think it is pretty common knowledge that Peter spent most of his time in Jerusalem. And I do not consider the first church council to be a missionary journey. So as far as I know there is only one, and that was relatively short term. It seems apparent to me that Peter was supported by the church in a more stable setting. Again, I advocate a grass roots movement like Bec is talking about in example a. I do believe that even in example a. there will be occasions where someone might be needed full time, but it should be an exception not the rule, in the perfect world
rev
August 3rd, 2006 at 1:48 am
kRev wrote ” It seems apparent to me that Peter was supported by the church in a more stable setting. ‘
What reasons do you have for the above statement?
(1) Acts 2:44-45 And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” –TDhis is not a descri-pption of supportint full-time clergy.
(2) Acts 2:46 “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.” —The fellowship met in the Temple. If they had stopped supporting the Temple, then they would lnot have been allowed to meet ther
(3) Acts 21:20 “And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law.”–30 years later they were still worshipping i the Temple. Do you realy think that they were support twodifferent organizations?
(4) Acts 20:33-35 “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” –30 years later Paul told ALL of the elders in Asia Minor to get a job and support the weak in obedience to what Jesus taught.
(5) Titus 1:5 “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.” –I cannot envision house-churches havfing full-time paid staff.
(6) When Christianity became separate from Judaism it was at first “illegal” and then “outlaw” after AD 80. The Romans considered those who had financial support but no job to be seditionists. What did they tell the census-taker? Did they tell them they were full-time preachers? I seriously doubt it.
Good discussion guys. Call me Russ.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:51 am
Russ,
Again, I agree with your assesment completely and have lived it myself, for most of my missionary life. Its a bit different now only because of visa issues. My point is that Peter, and the other apostles did receive care even when not on a missions trip. Paul seems to make this clear as he asserted that this was their right, not just a blessing, but he chose to forsake his right.
I think this is a big exception, and that most of us can and should work atleast part time and do ministry on the side. But there are some occasions, when a man should be payed full time. The tithe is not the answer to this, this happens when the need is felt and responded to by the generousity of Gods people, not through compulsion.
rev
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:07 am
Good converstaion.
Good point Rev-” The tithe is not the answer to this, this happens when the need is felt and responded to by the generousity of Gods people, not through compulsion”.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:09 am
John said How about you send an sms to your congregation whilst they are eating their dinner asking them to give as well
With the exception of the SMS, this is basically how we do offering at Tangent hehe.
As for the rest, I am really sensitive to this issue but I still think that it is being unfairly linked with the issue of paid ministry. I understand why - in a lot of places the money paid to ministers is a large expense. But imagine a church where the majority of income goes to repaying the purchase price of swathes of property. Is this church exempt from criticism because its ministry staff is relatively small when compared to its income?
I think that there are a range of separate issues here which are all of concern, and they might often appear together. But it isn’t necessarily true, for example, that preaching tithing is incompatible with financial transparence or accountability. Just as it isn’t necessarily true that paid ministry inevitably leads to undue financial pressure.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:26 am
At l;east we get top argue and discuss things like tithing:
This from here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5231106.stm
It’s easy to forget that others don’t have the freedoms we so readily take for granted.
As Mark over at Way Out West says:
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:15 am
Can someone remind me how to do italics??
I like the Rev’s idea - “when the need is felt and responded to by the generousity of Gods people, not through compulsion.”
But I also think that in post-evangelical, post-church type circles, there’s a lot of burnt people. There’s a lot of people that have left other churches feeling abused in terms of the use of their time and money - they’ve spent too much time on committees, on music teams, leading small groups, and they’ve been driven almost broke by building funds.
Sometimes they react by not giving anything at the next place they go. They’ll happily fork out $20 for a yoga class, but when the offering plate comes around, they struggle to put in $5, and they not keen to do much more than occupy a seat each week.
Now that’s fine - more than fine - for a while, and it’s really important that people are allowed space to grieve, to heal, to do whatever they need to do.
But we also need to be communities of disciples, challenging one another to follow Christ. And part of this means being a responsible member of your community - and expressing this through the use of your resources.
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:25 am
to do italics you type ‘em’ betweem
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:25 am
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:25 am
em between “”
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:26 am
em between the two bracket looking things next to the ? on your key board
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:32 am
to end the italics you need to do the same thing except type “/em” between the two bracket thingies next to the ? on your keyboard - also don;t use the “quotation marks” that was just to separate the em and the /em. have fun. you can also do the same thing with “blockquote” as in:
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Bec - Storehouse tithing and spiritual abuse is a breach of human rights happening in our own backyard.
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Lionfish, I think that’s a leeeeeeeeeeetle bit of an over-exaggeration.
It’s abuse, definitely. But if we stretch the definition of “human rights” indefinitely, they lose their power. And I just don’t see how the right to freedom from ministers who preach tithing compares to the right to housing, for example.
And frankly, I think there’s a lot of people aside from ministers that have to bear some responsibility for the hurt suffered in churches - I never cease to be amazed by how incredibly smart Christians just turn their brains off when they walk into church.
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:36 pm
See that is the risk with any of these sorts of discussions - that we create communities where we are too afraid to talk about things and challenge people’s behaviour because we are scared of being associated with the bad people.
For example, in the sort of circles I move in (churchwise) I find it reasonably common that emerging church communities go to the other extreme and don’t ever talk about money at all, let alone to suggest (impliedly or otherwise) that people should consider giving to the church.
August 3rd, 2006 at 5:07 pm
italics are cool
WIGGY
August 3rd, 2006 at 7:56 pm
I don’t think anyone has actually showed Bec how to do this, because when you code any html tags, it ends up as, ..well html.
This is how to do italics:<em>italics
</em>,then the word “italics” would be emphasised
as italics
Or, this will also work ….
<i>italics
</i>August 3rd, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Part of the “church” (ekklesia) in Australia is “early church”, called ‘House church’, ‘Relational Christianity’, ‘Simple church’, or ‘N.T. church’, etc. Finances do not have to go into maintaining buildings or staff, therefore the offerings can go to the poor, widows, orphans, etc, just as they did in the NT. I consider this to be (good) stewardship of His finances.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Now how did you do that oh master of the html
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Do a “view source” in your browser, and you will see how.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Wow I get a whole new look on the world. Now all I gotta do is decipher all that code and put it into practice. Yeah… likely story. Kinda cute the page I opened up is called Dan’s View Source maybe a doppleganger?
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:44 pm
i need to practice
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Am I getting better?
I think I had better find another space to try these out Webmonkey has cool easy to understand basics. That is if this works.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Nup
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Grace Required, W3schools has some good tutorials. You can change the code online and see the results.
If you want to go further with that, download either NVU, First Page 2006, HTML-Kit, etc. These are all free HTML Editors, and allow you to practice offline.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:14 pm
oygle,
you are very correct. This is the direction I would like the church to focus on.
rev
August 4th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Ogyle, I agree with your post, but we’re talking about different things.
The early church and the church in developing countries exists in a context where the informal (subsistence) economy is at *least* as significant as the formal (cash) economy. In Australia, we exist almost entirely within a cash economy - the informal economy really only exists in isolated indigenous communities. Compare this to other societies like, for example, those in Solomon Islands where it’s quite normal to get paid only a very small amount in cash, and have a significant garden which supplies most of your food requirements.
If you read my other posts, you’ll see I’m definitely not totally sold on the idea of full-time paid ministry. However there are arguments on both sides of the coin (ha!), and I think we need to be careful about drawing too close an analogy to the early church, because the broader economic context was so different. It’s a bit like uncritically reading the passages on women not talking in church.
August 4th, 2006 at 10:30 am
bec I see the difference, but do not understand why they matter in todays western economy. Simple church, meeting in homes, sharing the responsibility of care ect. does not seem to me to have anything to do with our economy. It can and has been done in our economy, it is just the choice of others to do or not do it.
Perhaps you can give some examples of why a simple church structure and economic idea would have trouble in our economy other than the choice people make to be more consumer motivated.
rev
August 4th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Rev, again, I agree with you.
I’m not an economist, but perhaps that’s even better here…it just means I struggle to express myself, but I’ll give it a shot!!
I actually think there remains a place for the institutional church, particularly within our highly institutionalised and bureaucratised culture. For example, institutional churches have highly visible buildings, they adopt legal structures that are widely understood and accepted by the corporate sector, and because they are “official” they can have more clout in the public sphere. By comparison, smaller churches tend to be more grass-roots, activisty etc - this has pros and cons - I like them because they suit my style of working!
For example, while much of the voluntary work I am involved in could be done very informally, out of people’s homes etc, a formal structure - such as a company limited by guarantee, or an incorporated association - is needed to build relationships with, say, accounting firms, or law firms. I don’t build relationships with private enterprise just because they provide funding - I build relationships because it’s part of my missiology. I believe in raising awareness of issues of marginalisation, I believe that in order to build a more inclusive society we must build bridges between those at the margins and those at the centre. As an individual, I can do that because I work in the corporate sector. I can invite people to my place for dinner, I can introduce them to my friends. But if I’m cold-calling someone in HR and trying to build a relationshp for the first time, that’s occurring at an institutional level. The reality is that for people in the corporate sector who aren’t involved in a community of faith, they look for “official” organisations to be involved in.
Let’s take Urban Seed as an example. You and I know that there’s a very large informal network, and that it’s very much a community. But we have also been intentional about our branding, we have been intentional about marketing ourselves as an organisation. That means we can connect with a broader range of people, it means we can attract funding, it means that there are formal “programs” we can invite people too like fundraising concerts, City Walks, Pain in the Arts exhibitions. The brand, the institutional model, gives us a recognisable tag that people can connect with. Sometimes people get involved via the community, but usually their first point of connection is at the “official”, “branded”, “institutional” level.
Of course, to run according to an institutional, bureaucratic model can come at the cost of community, and it can mean you have to have paid staff, and at least some of those need to be full-time in order to ensure someone knows enough to meet legal, financial etc obligations. And because they’re then very much in the formal, cash economy, they need to be paid.
Please note that I am not criticising the models of church you have mentioned in your post above - I am just trying to point out the benefits of institutional models (they do have some!) and explain why they are more embedded in the cash economy. I agree that simpler models of church can and are done in our economy, but I don’t think that they offer “entire” answers any more than the traditional, institutional models do - I think that both have strengths and weaknesses.
This is what I was trying to point out earlier with my polarisation of (a) and (b).
Am I making any sense? I feel like I’m not explaining myself very well. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but I haven’t really talked/written about it yet.
August 4th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Its interesting that you mention institutional church, but your example is the complete antithesis of that. It is a missions based, and more akin to a para church organization. It rents a building from another entity, and uses much of that as housing. Its chief aim is to interact with two segments of the urban society, and offer healing, and care for the poor and maginalized, while offering education for the corporate groups.
I actually think that Urban Seed is proof that those living in alternative ways, and in simple churches and faith communities can have the same impact, or even greater impact, as institutional churches. The same corporate people that support Urban Seed would not I belive be as willing to support Collins St Baptist Church.
Now I am not trying to be arguementative, I just don’t think you showed me any reason to accept our econmy as a reason why we need the “institutionalized” model, any more than the first century did. Infact I think you proved my point a bit.
rev