Over the years my wife and I
learned to respond thankfully to God’s abundant generosity from lay- people who gave intentionally, gener- ously and regularly. They taught us to respond to God’s abundant grace by giving a generous percentage of our income and grow toward 10 per- cent or more. These generous givers wanted to support the mission of their congregation, their synod and the churchwide office. My wife and I were inspired by
them to commit 10 percent off the top of our income even when we made only $7,000 per year. In fact, the more we made over time the more challenging giving 10 percent became, but the joy of supporting God’s mission through the church has motivated us to continue. It has helped our budgeting because we had to be careful about the 90 percent and donate some of that to our favorite charities: our seminaries, the many church institutions we love and a few key secular causes. Research has shown that ELCA
members on average give about 1.8 percent of their income in regular offerings to their congregations. There is a lot of room for growth— and lots to talk about. How much mission and ministry are we leaving unsupported? Many people want to give to the
causes and charities of their choosing in a designated way. There are no two ways about it: this is the trend and the church needs to recognize it if it wants to compete for resources with all the other charitable causes that demand members’ attention and support. There is a cost to this trend, as
regular giving through the offering plate diminishes and we have turned generosity into charity. The result is that giving has become more atom- ized and targeted. It’s no wonder that
we find ourselves besieged by mail- ings and phone appeals from charities. When every part of the church and society needs to make its own case for its ministries, the case may be clear but it’s expensive to have to spend valuable financial and human resources on marketing and development. It also forces us to accept the
growing disparities in wealth in our church and turns all giving into char- itable choice, where those who have the most can control the medium and the message. God was pretty clear to Job and the prophets that God’s grace and mercy was all the case that needed be made.
Ministry dislocations In addition, when regular, intentional and percentage giving is replaced more and more by designated giv- ing, dislocations occur in the church’s mission and ministry. As this is a series sponsored by the
seminary presidents, it’s important to know that, while giving by indi- viduals is vital, church institutions like the schools receive less and less in grants from synods and church- wide because those expressions of the church receive less from congrega- tional regular mission support. Seminaries have had to increase
tuition in response, and students have to borrow more. We have down- loaded the cost of leadership onto our students who are so stretched financially that most of our schools have food pantries. Congregations become alarmed and support these food banks in a charitable way. There is something not right
about this picture to an old steward like myself. I would think the church would know that seminaries produce pastors of the gospel of Jesus Christ and other leaders for our congrega- tions and agencies. We want to give to local charities of our choosing with our money—and we should. But it should be above and beyond our gen- erous, faithful and intentional (per- centage) giving to our congregations. Congregations then need to give
generously to their synods in mission support so synods have adequate resources for the church’s institu- tions and its global and domestic ministries. The synods in turn send generous amounts to the churchwide office, which also provides grants for global and domestic ministries and the ELCA’s eight seminaries. It’s a neat system, but it begins with
our joyful, intentional, regular and generous response to the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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