BiblicalInsights.net

     J. Clif Christopher in his book, Not Your Parent’s Offering Plate, reveals the reasons people give.  Christopher cites the landmark work of Jerold Panas, Mega Gifts, which was one of the first attempts to do in-depth research into the area of what motivates people to give.  Panas discovered that for major donors three factors ranked extremely high.  They are: (1) belief in the mission of the institution, (2) a high regard for staff leadership, and (3) the fiscal responsibility of the institution (Christopher, Not Your Parent’s Offering Plate, 13).
     The mission is what non-profit organizations offer to do.  Donors want to be a part of something that changes lives.  In America today, there are over 1.8 million nonprofit organizations, and over one million of these are 501 (c)(3)s.  There are about 370,000 churches.  Just ten years ago, in 1995, there were 600,000 501 (c)(3)s and about 370,000 churches (Christopher, 1).  What these numbers show is that in ten years the competition has nearly doubled.  Churches must define their mission in a positive way that demonstrates that they are helping people change their lives in wonderful ways.
     Christopher emphasizes the importance of the regard donors have for the leadership of the organization.  Potential givers desire to know the leadership and they want to have meaningful contact with them.
     “People do not give to sinking ships” (Christopher, 28).  People invest in success.  They want the money that they donate to be used wisely.  “The church is the only nonprofit I know of that seems to believe that the more you cry that you are sinking, the more people will give to you.  The exact opposite is true” (Christopher, 28).  Churches need to be good stewards.  They must demonstrate responsibility and accountability with the funds given to them.  
     If we can understand why people give, we can do a better job of staying on mission, providing good leadership and being good stewards of the funds entrusted to us.

     Recently, Christianity Today (Dec., 2008) published an article by Rob Moll titled, “Scrooge Lives!”  The article contained many statistics on giving that relate to churches.  I would like to pass some of them on to you.
    -More than one out of four American Protestants give away no money at all–“not even a token $5 per year,” say sociologists Christian Smith, Michael Emerson, and Patricia Snell in a new study on Christian giving, Passing the Plate (Oxford University Press) (24).
    -Thirty-six percent of Evangelicals report that they give away less than two percent of their income (24)
    -Only 27 percent of Evangelicals tithe (24).
    –Passing the Plate’s researchers say committed American Christians–those who say their faith is very important to them and those who attend church at least twice a month–earn more than $2.5 trillion dollars every year…if these Christians gave away 10 percent of their after-tax earnings, they would add another $46 billion to ministry around the world (24).
    -The average, regularly attending churchgoer gives 6 percent of after-tax income, but that’s a mean skewed by a handful of very generous givers (26).
    -The median annual giving for an American Christian is actually $200, just over half a percent of after-tax income (26).
    -About 5 percent of American Christians provide 60 percent of the money churches and religious groups use to operate (26).
    -America’s biggest givers–as a percentage of their income–are its lowest income earners.  “Americans who earn less than $10,000 gave 2.3 percent of their income to religious organizations,” Smith, Emerson and Snell write, “whereas those who earn $70,000 or more gave only 1.2 percent (26).
    -Households of committed Christians making less than $12,500 per year give away roughly 7 percent of their income, a figure no other income bracket beats until incomes rise above $90,000 (they give away 8.8 percent) (26).
    -“When Americans earned less money following the Great Depression, they gave more.”  When income went up, they gave less of it away (26).
    These facts are very informative.  Moll also gives the following reasons as to why many American Christians do not give as they should: (1) fixed costs have increased from 54% to 75% of family budgets since the early 1970’s; (2) would-be donors don’t trust how churches would use their donations; (3) Donors imitate the churches they donate to and spend the money on themselves (Only about 3% of money donated to churches went to ministering to non-Christians); and (4) they are not asked to give (26-27). 
    Giving should be an expression of joy and thanksgiving from a willing and obedient heart.  The apostle Paul assures us that “God loveth a cheerful giver” (II Cor. 9:7).  This is a good time to examine your own habit of giving.

Lecture Hall Bethany, WV

Alexander Campbell spoke these words to his students at Bethany College during the morning lectures that he gave on the Pentateuch.  He delivered the lectures in the great hall which is a part of the historic Old Main at Bethany College, Bethany, WV.  “If a man should have the ear of an earthly autocrat for an hour’s interview, he would tell the honor to his children and his children’s children.  But what is this, to having audience with the King of kings and Lord of lords? Can man conceive of any thing which should so inspire him with gratitude, with veneration and love, as that, upon the throne of his glory, God should hear the prayers of the frail denizens of earth–should listen to their supplications?  There is not, within the lids of the Bible, a presentation of the Divine character, so fascinating as that which reveals Him as a prayer-hearing God.  The idea that God, in his infinite majesty, could condescend to listen to the prayer of an earthly beggar–or that he would hold in abeyance the awful machinery of the universe, as in answer to the prayers of Joshua! What an exhortation to man, to bend his heart and soul in thanksgiving and adoration, to the bountiful Fountain of his being” (Lectures on the Pentateuch, by Alexander Campbell, 264).