A Different Mind Bending Concept About Tithing

Being a church member, unfortunately, usually breeds passivity. Sadly, we need only “attend” church services to be looked upon as a Christian in most cultures. Attending Sunday morning worship and one activity listed in the bulletin per week satisfies our stature.  We are so dependent on the professional staff to do everything, that they “enable” us by doing their job effectively. No wonder we do not feel part of the life of the local church.  Usually churches that are professionally programmed driven usually ask only one major form of activity from their casual members; their financial giving.  The offering is a central piece of every Christian program. Sometimes pre-offering speeches can be longer than the sermon, and “tithing” is a quarterly sermon theme.

What would happen if we Americans would tithe from what is most precious to them; their time?

What would the church staff do if each and every member in your church was willing to volunteer 4 hours, 1/10^th of their 40 hour work week to the church? The staff would probably generate more programs for them to attend! Really, if you have 100 members in your church each giving four hours, what would they do with 400 hours of volunteered time each week? A 500 member church with 1,000 free hours? Sounds like a cell phone plan!

If I would ask that question during a staff meeting I may get suggestions like: janitorial work, building maintenance, shrubbery trimming and clean up, painting, secretarial work, running off bulletins, up dating data base of members for email, newsletters, and mailings, etc., all institutional chores, but what happened to feeding and clothing the poor, caring for the widows in the congregation, hospital and jail visits, etc.  Most staff hired by churches are program related where they are highly visible, but who does the invisible tangibles that empower a church?  What they would list on a whiteboard as suggestions would show the priorities of that church.  With 400 hours a week of volunteering would force a change in priorities.

What would happen if the members spent their volunteer time forming nonprofit businesses in a service sector like a lunch time deli where they would feed and serve their community in a nonchurch financially profitable atmosphere?  How about a “Foot Wash”, fancy name for a car wash reflecting the foot washing passion of Jesus to the community, not as a fundraiser for more church activities, but for community benevolence. How about a moving company to help low income families and church families in moving to a new residence? These business would not only produce financial profits, but “help equip the saints for the works of service,” the Ephesians 4 principle as well as produce entry level jobs for young people, the homeless, and those wanting to start a life of financial independence while serving. Actually these acts of service are great evangelistic efforts, touching the secular community, and grafting them and the local church into stronger community bonds.

What impact would volunteered tithing hours have on the elderly if church members did not just visit them for ten minutes on a Sunday afternoon during visiting hours, but instead took them to their doctor and dentist appointments, or helped maintain residential housing that is beyond the physical capabilities of an aging widow, so she can still have the freedom of living in her home instead of being forced into an assisted living situation?

What freedom would it give a parent of a physical or mental handicap child if volunteers would spend time with that child, freeing them to go shopping alone, going to the athletic club for their own health, or just have a badly needed date without the pressures of caregiving 24/7?

These possibilities only scratch the surface; allow your imagination to soar at the possibilities of how “active” how “alive” a local church would be if we tithed from our most sacred resource, our time. I cannot find in the scriptures where Jesus asks for our money, but he does request our time when he says, “Follow me.”  “Following Jesus” will always change the way we think of doing church, the way the community sees church, the way the “staff” would have to operate, and the way we would chose church leadership.

What do you think? What impact would “tithing of our time” change the way your church would do “church”? What would “church” then look like? How would the church manage all those volunteers and hours without hiring a “case manager”, another full time professional position? Let’s hear from you! 

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part XIII

It is easy to find the Senior Pastor during the majority of Christian church services: they are up front, on a platform elevated in front of all, or by the exit door shaking hands receiving compliments, “Nice Sermon”, or in a formal procession at the beginning of the service but is the central figure of everything that happens during the service.  He/she, and only he/she, is entitled to give the sermon, the official interpretation of the Word of God.  He/she is considered “a man/woman of God” unlike any other in the congregation, so he is revered, honored, held in high esteem. When he/she dies or decides to leave “the ministry”, there becomes a huge void, causing a search for another professional out side the confines of the local congregation to be brought in to “fill” the vacuum left by his leaving, but this is not the model of leadership during the first century of the Church. 

I do not know historically when the Church strayed from its Ephesians 4 calling to “equip the saints for works of service”, but it must have happened early in Church history.  By the end of the first century the Church was entrenched in the Bishop clergy/laity hierarchy model, diminishing and eroding the power of the saints ever since.  Although the Church claims “to make disciples of all men”, it has failed in “equipping” them for “service”. A Sunday Church “service” is still basically a “clergy” led “service” with the laity, the saints, being reduced to enabled followers. That is not the Biblical model set out by the 12 apostles in the first half of the first century.

I have yet to belong to, or even visit a church, where the “senior pastor” just sat in the midst of the congregation with “apostolic oversight”, just seeing what the Holy Spirit is doing with His people because the Senior Pastor had trained and equipped his congregation to do everything that they once expected him to do!  What! A laity giving the sermon or homily that had just been revealed to him through the Holy Spirit! A laity singing a prophetically motivated new song that ministered immediately to congregation in the unity of the theme being laid out by the Holy Spirit instead of “special music”, or a choir anthem, or being led by a worship team!  A member of the congregation taking the microphone, telling of a testimony of what Jesus was doing currently in their life that just so happened to go along with the Holy Spirit’s theme!  Someone sharing an originally written poem!  Someone painting, drawing, etching, or molding an original piece of art during the service!  Members of the congregation not having to be ushers to “collect” offerings, but every member of the congregation giving into containers during the time of worship as their “acts of worship”, their “acts of giving”!  The gifts of the spirit flowing among the congregation to minister to the hurting, to meet needs, to give directions, to give encouragement and edification, to make the Logos Word, the written Word, now become the Rhema Word, or the living Word, among them!  Members of the congregation “breaking bread” together and “sharing the cup” as a communal body of faith rather than a religious rite or practice!  All this happening while the Senior Pastor and his laity leadership team just blend into the congregation, “seeing over” in amazement what the Holy Spirit is doing in their midst, bringing unity through worship and purpose among themselves!

If leadership has “equipped the saints for works of service”, then leadership needs to “release” their congregation “to serve”.  Where is the safest place to release them to serve? Amongst the body of believers when they are gathered, for if they fall and stumble, which often is the best way to learn and practice, then “grace” and “mercy” can be extended so that they do not look at their stumbling as a “set back”, or “back sliding” as carnal Christians call it, but as a positive teaching method, to show them correction, to “equip” them to get up and stand strong so they do not stumble again!  We claim “Christians aren’t perfect; just forgiven”, but in our church services we propagate a climate of perfection: everyone smiles, everyone hides their hurts, everyone shakes hands and pats each other on the back as if they are old buddies. If the service is planned to the “T”, basically controlled, there will be no evident problems. If anything “unpredictable” happens, we will subdue it, for if someone is “out of line” we bring immediate judgment and condemnation to bring correction instead of allowing mercy and grace to weave their healing balms.  We claim that Jesus’ precious Holy Spirit is the pilot of our program and we the co-pilot, but we fly the plane, not allowing the Holy Spirit to break free or through our scheduled, protected, well-organized programs.

Why do God’s people, Christians, fear, as in fright, not reverence, the Holy Spirit? They are afraid if they release the Holy Spirit amongst themselves things will get “out of line”, “out of order”, people will “swing from the chandeliers” even though the church has only fluorescent lighting!  We fear chaos and confusion instead of expecting peace and unity, and we forget that the Holy Spirit’s goal is to bring “all men” to Jesus Christ, producing unity, not division!  We belittle the person of the Holy Spirit because of our lack of trust in Him, thus we belittle the person of Jesus Christ, because the Holy Spirit IS the SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST!

Leadership complains about how much is expected of them, and no one is going to do it if they don’t! That’s a lie: equip your saints, then release those saints which will also release leadership to move on to the next things Jesus through His Holy Spirit has for them to do!  Paul operated this way when starting churches: equipping the new saints over approximately a two year period, then released them to stand on their own so that he could move on to the next place the Holy Spirit was leading him toward to birth, equip, and release even more!  Church, maybe we should step back and examine Paul’s example as an apostle to understand the power of the laity, the saints, if they are properly equipped, trained, encouraged, nurtured, guided, then released to do ministry.  If you do that, you are blessed when you just sit amongst them and watch them “do it”! Wow! What a blessing that would be!

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part XII

We have been looking at what it means to “equip the saints for works of service” as out lined in Ephesians 4.  Part of equipping is surrounding a person with those things that will make them successful.  That is the power and beauty of the five fold; the strengths of many support the weaknesses of one.  Because the five fold is a team effort, a family effort, a community effort, no man is an island.    Personally, I have learned to realize that several attempts at ministry in the past to which I have been involved were not as successful as they could have been because I did not have that support of diverse passions, desires, and ministries around me. My weaknesses help hinder the success of ministry, but I had no one around me to support and lift me up through their diverse passion in the time of my weakness.

Let’s say that you have the pastoral passion of shepherding; you love to care for others and nurture them physically, emotionally, and spiritually toward maturity in Jesus Christ.  To get the full potential results of your ministry, you need the other four (evangelist, teacher, prophet, & apostle) components of the five fold to aid, abate, support, and equip your ministry.  You need an evangelist to birth “babes in Christ” so that you have someone to nurture.  You need the aide of the teacher to “ground” these new believers in the Word of God, the Bible, the aide of the prophet to teach them to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit for themselves and how to make the Logos Word a Rhema, or Living, Word, and the aide of apostolic oversight to monitor their spiritual growth from birth through maturity.  Shepherding is only one part of the entire picture in equipping a saint in his spiritual journey!

Without added support, one can feel swamped, over extended, and eventually burnt out trying to be all things to all men. Often in the current pastor/laity model of most small churches, the burn out rate among clergy is staggering because the congregation expects their pastor to be strong in all five areas when he/she may be gifted in just one or two of them, and we expect him/her to do it alone because he is a professional.  We need to change our perspective of ministry from a solo effort to a team approach of five.  Ministry should be a “team effort”: the strengths of those around you should shore up your weaknesses and free you to minister in and through your strength.  Ministry should be a “family approach” where all are members of the family of God; as in most families, members count on one another in order to succeed. Ministry should be a “community”: a community is made up of many different, diverse components that aide each other for the good of the group.

The key word of “equipping the saints for the work of service” is the word “service”.  We have to learn not only how to serve, but also be served.  If we become too arrogant, to independent, rejecting help from our brethren, we will rob them of the joy of servicing us. The reciprocal serving back and forth is the key to the success of the five fold ministry as a team ministry. It is a give and take situation. One’s strength and passion, mixed with compassion, can be a very effective tool at aiding, abetting, and supporting another brother or sister in the lord with a different passion than our own.

In conclusion, we need to accept the fact that we cannot do it alone; the kingdom of God is too big for just me or you to do it all. We are a body in Christ, the Church, so there are many other parts, people, whose gifting, though drastically different from our own, are needed to maximize the ministry of the gospel. Divisions will diminish if divergent passions serve one another, draw from one another, aide one another, and equip one another. Truly, then will we see a powerful Church with effective ministry.

What Does “Equipping The Saints” Mean? – Part IX

It is basic to human nature to want to feel needed, to fulfill a purpose, to feel appreciated, to hear someone say, “What would we do without you?”  Unfortunately we often enable people in order to get the gratitude we think we deserve. What kind of parent would we be if our twenty-eight year old son still thanked us for doing their wash, feeding him, financially supporting him while he plays computer games all day, drive him everywhere, and are a part of every decisions he makes, but he shows his gratitude by saying, “What would I do without you?”  We would be considered a failure as a parent. The adult child is nowhere close to becoming independent because he has learned that you will enable him every step of the way.

Most church’s attempt at spiritually parenting is usually a disaster, for we enable those who come into our door. We greet them, pamper them, preach to them, pray for them, tell them what to do, when to financially give, when to stand, when to sit, when to be social, and when quietness is reverence.  We teach submission to authority to the point that authority tells one everything they should or should not do, never allowing them to figure it out themselves or let their conscious be their compass. When that authority or leadership leaves, everyone gasps, “What are we going to do without you?” while beginning to look for a replacement.

Enabling and equipping are opposites. When we equip people, we are preparing them to stand alone, no longer needing our assistance and care, and actually propelling them to accomplish feats beyond our capabilities. Enabling enslaves the person, keeping them in a position of control, continuing to draw them toward dependency. Jesus never enabled. He prepared and equipped his disciples to be able to stand alone once he left earth to return to his rightful place beside his Father in heaven. He built their faith on the Word of God while releasing the Holy Spirit to “teach them all things”.  In fact, he said that they would do “greater things” than he did during his earthly stay.

Apostle Paul would kick into the evangelistic mode when entering a new town or city. When new followers accepted Christ he kicked into the shepherding/pastoral mode and began to nurture them in the faith, using his teaching skills to make the written Word relevant while prophetically living it. He would see over what the Holy Spirit was doing amongst the whole group before leaving.  When he left, he left a fully sufficient, independent church of believers standing on their own faith. They did not have to have Paul around any more. They freed him to move on to his next evangelistic project. He had prepared them and equipped them.

Paul, and older brother in the faith, also prepared and equipped others younger in the faith in becoming apostles, future leaders. He and Barnabas journeyed together, but eventually Paul took young Mark under his care. Even though their relationship was rocky on his first missionary journey because of Mark’s immaturity, Paul eventually praises Mark, supports Mark, encourages Mark to continue in leadership, and the rest is history.  Preparing and equipping means walking beside a brother or sister in the Lord in their journey, not preaching at them or having them read numerous books on the topic.  As we have scene Paul used this principle and so did Jesus who walked with the 12 disciples.  It is not an academic exercise but a physical and spiritual one. It is the walking out, and working out, of one’s faith walk together. It is a daily walk, an intimate walk, a relational walk that prepares, builds, and equips others.

A key component after preparation and equipping is releasing.  Paul had to release each new church to stand on its own. He equipped them with the Word, the Holy Spirit, with spiritual gifts, with community, and the tools needed for leadership; now they had to stand alone.  All that preparation and equipping would be useless if he had not released them.

We as a Church need to rethink what preparing, equipping, and releasing means in our relationships of discipling and nurturing our brothers and sisters in their spiritual growth. As parents we celebrate when our sibling graduates from high school or college, gets married, and becomes a parent, all steps in growing up and becoming independent from our parental care.  The empty nest syndrome is the realization that our sibling has left the nest, our home, and established their own, gotten married or become independent, and may become parents themselves now supporting their own siblings. Most churches I know do not experience an empty nest syndrome as they have prepared and equipped their own laity, their own believers in Jesus, to become independent enough to go out and start their own church, their own ministry, their own acts of service producing growth. They do not reproduce others to replay themselves!

As we learn about the passions of our fellow believers in Jesus, we need to encourage them to grow in their passion, to develop relationships of equality with others who have different passions than their own, to learn to support one another by laying down their lives for one another, to prepare them by encouraging self reflection, developing a private discipline devotional time of Bible study and prayer, giving them an outlet to share what they have seen and heard during these times. We need to equip them with the Word, the Bible, teach them the literal Word of God, the Logos Word, and how to live it, the Rhema Word, and surround them with community, the Church. Then we may see a change, a transformation, from dead-beat Christians, enabled Christians to active, living, growing, nurturing, and supporting Christians. If we see those changes, we have prepared and equipped successfully.