Today’s Value is Give Freely

The Bible has much to say about Giving, in fact the main truth of the Bible is giving.  God gave Jesus for our sin (John 3:16).  The earliest story of giving found in the BIble is that of Cain and Able, you can read that story in Gen. 4.  Then throughout the Old Testament giving was part of worship and support of the tabernacle. God instructed His people to give one tenth (1/10th) of everything they received back to Him for several reasons.

1. To show thanks for God’s blessing

2. To support priest and tabernacle (church)

3. To show trust in God for all there needs

Fast forward to today, some believe and teach that tithing ended in the OT and the New Testament does not support the idea of giving 10% to God and I would agree.  (Some may be tempted to stop reading here, don’t, the best is yet to come)  The New Testament teaches us not only to give 10%, but that everything we have belongs to God once we become a Christ follower.  We believe and teach at Fellowship Church that everything we have has been given to us by God and that we are only stewards of that blessing.  So, in essence, we own nothing and have nothing apart from what God gives us.  Therefore, giving God a 10% in tithe and then offerings as He leads us is appropriate and necessary for spiritual maturity.  We define this as Giving Freely.

Here is a quote that I came across that puts this into prospective, 90% of me + 10% GOD is alway better than 100% of me.  You and I will never be all God wants us to be until we learn to be generous.  Starting this Sunday we want to challenge everyone to give back to God.  We are inviting anyone who will to join us for a 90 Day Giving Challenge.  Here is how that works:

1. Pray – pray for God to teach you more about Him during this 90 days verses teaching you about money.

2. Make a commitment to give 10% of your income to God for 90 days.  Read Malachi 3:10 where God says “test me in this”.  This commitment will be private between you and God only.  Fellowship Church is not asking for you to sign a commitment or turn in your name, this is your walk of faith, you will keep your own records.

Here are a couple of tips to help make this work:

1. Sit down and determine what 10% of your monthly income is and how much your tithe should be.  Look at your budget and determine how you can fit tithing into your life, it may mean not eating out or buying a coke everyday, as small sacrifice for God’s promise of blessing.

2. Give the determined amount as soon as you get the income, if you wait you will spend it.  One great way to assure you being faithful is to set up your giving to be debited out of your account automatically.  We have several ways to help you do this at Fellowship Church, visit our website for more info.

3. When you give, celebrate God’s blessings and pray over your gift that God would use it to bring others into His Kingdom.

3. Give faithfully.  Through out this 90 day commitment be faithful, I promise there will be times when it will be easy to jump ship, don’t the enemy wants that, but God wants to bless you.  Here is something I have learned, blessing never come easy, but through suffering.

4. Celebrate the Blessings. We believe so much in the Value of Give Freely that we know God will use this time to bless you.  Keep your eyes open for how God does this.  Have you ever been riding down the road and see several cars along the way with flat tires?  I have and often I thank God that he allowed my tires to stay filled with air (I also pray for those who’s didn’t). But I can’t help but wonder maybe God protected and it all comes back to my giving and                       trusting Him.  Pastor you really believe that?  Absolutely, I believe my milk keeps past the spoil date because of God’s favor, and you can experience the same blessing as well.  A Word of Warning:  You will also find hardship when you make this commitment.  Satan the enemy will not be happy so expect the attack and celebrate that to.  Why did Job go through so much pain, because God counted him worthy.

Our Commitment as a Church:

It is simple we commit to share in this walk with you.  If in the 90 days you do not see God’s blessing in your life and you just don’t believe what we are teaching, we will sit down with you and figure how much you gave over the 90 days in tithe and we will write you a check for that amount.  We are offering you a money back guarantee so you have nothing to loose.  One rule: The refund will only be for tithes given to Fellowship Church.

I can’t wait to watch God work in your life.  If you want to talk more about tithing or help with your budget please don’t hesitate to call the office for an appointment.  Our goal at Fellowship Church is not to just have church, but to invest in your and your walk with Jesus.  See you on Sunday!

I know, I know, when it comes to this topic we all seem to shy away and some even run away. It is my prayer that each of us will be open to listen and willing to allow God to use this blog to share our thoughts on this subject.

Before I do, will you take a minute to pray for God to reveal to you and your family the value of this one new way at Fellowship Church. You know that our vision is to provide an environment for people to follow Jesus. So when we consider doing anything, we ask does this meet that vision or does it get filtered out. This new way met the challenge of our vision and we rolled it out.

Are you ready for the New Way? Sure?

Online Giving and Giving Kiosk at Church, that’s it. I can’t believe it, we now take debit cards at church, and it is instant and easy, but is it the right thing to do?

As we evaluate everything we do at Fellowship, we sat down and talked about the barriers that are in people’s way to keep them from participating. Giving is a very touchy subject, but one that is crucial to our survival. As we evaluated, we also studied other churches and considered how it might work in our area.

We came to these conclusions:
1. A lot of people do not carry cash any more.
2. People are moving away from writing checks.
3. We sometimes forget our money or checks at home.
4. People want ways to give more easily.

To answer these needs, we began by offering online giving in the Spring of 2011. It has been very successful as we have seen a steady growth in giving through this medium at Fellowship Church.

We also have studied kiosk giving. A way for people to give while at church through debit cards. While visiting a friend’s church in December I was introduced to Square, a way to swipe a debit card on an iPad and iPod at the church library.
It is very easy, you simple walk up to the library and ask for the kiosk (someone will be there to help you), you enter the amount you want to give, swipe your card and a receipt will be sent to your email address. We only ask that you write down your information so that we can give you tithing credit on our account system, because there is no way to know who gave and how much through the system. A piece of paper is located next to the kiosk to help us keep track.

One issue that came up and I struggled with a lot was what if people use their credit cards? Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about that. I want to take this opportunity to encourage you not to use a credit card, only use your debit card. The Bible teaches us to give God our first fruits, it would be hard to do that unless you faithfully pay off your card each month. We also don’t want to encourage bad stewardship by asking people to use their credit cards.

So, two new ways to give. Online giving that you set up with your bank, this will enable you to give even when you are not there and be more consistent and faithful. Secondly the giving kiosk at the library.

Let me encourage you to give it a try.