About Tithing

About eight years ago, I was at a church service for some special occasion with my family; it had to be special, of course, because eight years ago I hardly ever went to church.

Anyway, it came time for the collection, and I opened my wallet to find only a $20 bill. I was horrified. What should I do? Ignore the plate? Give them the entire amount? Try to make change from the basket? Maybe do a slight-of-hand where I just rustled the money without making an actual deposit?

Hey, you laugh, but I needed that $20, and I was sure the rich church didn’t. The difficulty of the situation gave me head rushes.

Then, I was inspired. I decided to go for it, and give them the entire 20 bones. And I did exactly that—dropped that $20 in the plate like a high-rolling holy roller. I was especially pleased with myself, because no one had pressed me for this whopping gift. In one moment’s time, I’d become a full-blown philanthropist. I even felt smug as we exited the church. That $20 represented a 100% increase in my giving to the church over the previous year.

The truth be known, I felt very righteous in my ongoing decision to not support the church. That’s because I was sure the church had the religion thing all wrong: The god I believed in back then didn’t attend Sunday services—he spent his Sunday’s out on the boat with me, and he didn’t need my money. My god just needed the occasional high-five, and the several hours a week I would spend explaining to him how things needed to be improved for my benefit. He didn’t mind, though-- We were, you know, peers.

Back then, I was fairly sure that organized religion had one primary purpose: To pry money out of the suckers who sat in the pews. I had, in fact, decided organized religion was a spiritual bank of sorts, which made unsolicited loans of guilt to the attendees. The attendees, of course, didn’t want the guilt, but they were stuck with it… unless, of course, they paid a big chunk of financial interest into the collection basket, in which case they got to give guilt back for the week.

Then, oops, I became a Christian. And I had no choice but to take a hard look at this whole “religion and money” issue.

Understanding the money issue didn’t come easily or quickly. It still irked me that the church wanted my money, because it seemed like such an “unholy” topic. I remember the first year Heidi and I began attending church regularly, and the “annual pledge” topic worked its way into the minister’s sermons, and it all just seemed so secular. Why should the church get my hard-earned money? Why doesn’t the church produce a profitable product, like every other business?

Realization #1- It does. It produces Christians.

Realization #2- The Christians who attend a church are the church. And we’re supporting ourselves, in order to support others.

Okay, so I realized I had to start giving some money. I asked the assistant rector how much we should give, all the while fighting the desire to brag about my generous $20 gift.

He said, “In the Bible, God says you should give 10%.”

I said, “10%!!! Of my entire salary?!! Uh, is that gross, or net?”

He said, “Do you want your blessings to be gross or net?”

I said, “I can’t come up with 10% of my gross income! Oh, let me guess—that means I’m a lesser Christian if I don’t give that much?”

He said, “No, it doesn’t—give 1 or 2%. But try to work your way up to 10% over time. That’s what God tells us to do. We should give Him 10% of our first fruits.”

I said, “Do you give 10%?”

He said, “I do. And the Rector gives more than that. And the church gives away over 20% of what we take in to missionaries, missions, and needy causes.”

Realization #3- The church isn’t a corrupt televangelist—it doesn’t collect the money and use it to buy Lear Jets; in fact, there’s a committee in charge of the money, and they give away a pile of it off the top, then make the budget work with what’s left.

Once we started giving money to the church, I began to feel more like it was “my church.” Sure, we started small in the gift department, but it was something, and we were invested in the church’s mission. We were in the game, and felt good when we’d hear or read about the programs the church offered, and the causes it supported. After all, that was our money at work.

Realization #4- God is right when He says, “Where you store your treasures, so shall your heart be.” (God, I’ve noticed, gets a lot of stuff right).

As Heidi and I learned more about Christianity, and grew in our faith, and became what the media would call “right wing, religious-zealot wackoes,” we came to understand that the stuff we have is simply a blessing from God. Right now He’s loaning it to us, and after we croak He’ll loan it to someone else. It’s temporary. And it’s not ours. So if 10% is what God says to give, then 10% it is.

Realization #5- Even though it feels like it, your gifts to the church aren’t really gifts. You’re simply returning to God a tiny piece of what He loaned you to begin with… which perhaps He gave to you to see how you would handle it.

The weirdest part of this column, which still amazes me on a daily basis, is that God makes up for the dough you give. Now don’t get me wrong—if you give $1,000, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get a check from a lost uncle the next day for $1,000. But somehow, God blesses you in ways you didn’t know possible. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s other ways, but He always makes up for the money you return to him. It’s sort of a variation on an old saying, and translates loosely as, “The more I give, the luckier I get.” I don’t want to go into our detailed, personal financials, but we’ve been experiencing this personally for several years. Time after time after time.

Realization #6- You can’t out give God. I realize, of course, that this column is a topic that applies mostly to folks who are already Christians. And I realize as well that discussing the concept of tithing isn’t the greatest recruiting tool in the world. But any non-Christians reading this should know about God’s special New Member Plan: Should you decide to follow Christ, you can be exempt from giving as long as you want. God is very patient, and He’ll be happy to wait until you want to give… which one-day you will.