September 16, 2011
Ah-Ha
Each week our church bulletin gives a report on the previous week’s
donations. Recently we had a sizeable first of the month offering and a member
asked me, “Wow, where does all that money
come from? That’s a lot of money. Does the church get interest on some kind of investments?”
She was somewhat taken back when I told her the money was simply donations. I
can so relate to her astonishment. I have the same reaction every time I
encounter someone who has conquered a discipline that I didn’t even know was a
part of Christian maturing.
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3 comments:
If the people of God would simply tithe the church would never need to borrow money or take a special offering. The coffers would indeed be pressed down and running over. You think you had a good week, just imagine how much there would be if people were simply obedient.
Grace and peace.
Pumice,
You are absolutely correct. Call it what you like - tithe, first fruits, offering, or donations – we don’t always grasp that just beyond obedience there are always blessings…for us and the church.
Gail
Gail;
-----It would benefit everyone if central-control types shared your insights. You find them anywhere teamwork is important, even in the kid’s model airplane club. Although the effects of their controlling ambitions are not good, many controlling people are good at heart and well intentioned. Central-control is merely the intuitively logical conclusion about handling complexity.
-----Central control types view God as THE control type of all time. Alas! Like so many people errantly do, they only project their own understanding and attitudes upon Him. So they see Him as rounding up a bunch of brain zeroes whom He can infinitesimally control into total obedience like a child playing with toy soldiers. And of course, they view His control as actualized through themselves. However, in their fabricated God they are really seeing their own weakness for mistrusting the intelligence and abilities of others while trusting their own understanding to the point other people merely become their tools. Now of course, more people don’t even trust themselves than do, and these become the supporters of those who do trust themselves. Then the centrally-controlled organism comes to life.
-----As big as God is on the idea of perfection, He is not a central-control type. This might be a bit shocking to those types, because they are usually perfectionists themselves. But God can do something they can not do: He can understand that somebody else actually has enough capacity to perform a specific task, and He can trust them to satisfactorily perform it. He knows there is a point of sufficiency in every flawed system beyond which perfection is not that additionally beneficial. Perfection in a flawed system is like a nitro burning Hemi in a stock ‘63 Austin Healey Sprite. That engine might be perfect in power, but the first time you gave her half-throttle the little drive shaft would become a pretzel, if the transmission doesn’t first go starburst. God has a mind of other than perfectionism for His people during this flawed lifetime. He thinks: beneficial.
-----So Paul talks about the body of Christ in the same organic metaphor as central-control types think of their groups. But in Paul’s metaphor, each part of the body has a sufficiency of place and function, and each place and function has a sufficiency of inherent integration with those around it, such that they all naturally work together producing benefits as well as your feet walk together producing locomotion. Therefore, by their merely being in the Lord they sufficiently perform as they should without need of human control. And yes, we all know of Heb 13:17 (obey the leaders) and Paul’s instructions for Timothy’s and Titus’ leading in the church. But in as much as Romans 14:5-8 (make up your own mind) was also written for Timothy, Titus, and the seizers of Heb 13:17, the purpose of human leadership within the church becomes simply the thing of Eph 4:9-16 (grow up) such that the direction of the body will be in the Head’s connection with each and every body part through their mutual attraction for one another. This causes sufficient contributions.
-----If you want more contributions, then let someone by inspiration from the Head, be doing stuff that will need more contributions. But to just sit around and lament the lack of a Hemi in the offering plate is to expect frail little transmissions and drive shafts to deliver that kind of power into the pavement. Giant contributions within a church of slighter body activity just does not make a lot of sense. Mature the body and the contributions will come because its activity will need them.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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