Charismatic Tithing??

Don't start getting spoiled, but there have been too many "coincidences" in the past 12 hours to not share.

A bit of back story: Over the past several months/years I've had a staggering number of conversations about social justice and the Christian's proper response to helping those in need. I'm still thinking through the issues, but I'm definitely now more on the side of, "Let's do everything we possibly can to help restore as much of everyone's humanity as is possible!!"

So, for those of you not in a simple church you might not realize that we have no real expenses up here. We meet in houses. We feed each other whenever we get together. We share and just basically love being together, but we have no building, no mortgage, no heating (well, we do, but heating houses hardly counts. Although it feels like it should with $400+ heating bills--see my previous post.).

You might say, "So what's the problem? That hardly seems like something to complain about!" I'll tell you. Where does the money go? We need to be generous, but we don't have the "easy" option of just giving money to "the church" and washing our hands of the matter. There are so many good options out there, but I haven't been giving nearly enough of myself or our money.

Isaiah phrases it interestingly (check out the context):

If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness
and your night will become like the noonday.

Spend yourselves? How do I spend myself everyday? In a chasing after the wind? In pursuing religion?

Or in pursuing God and what He cares about?

Back to all the coincidences. Last night Adam W, a great friend who recently joined our group of Christ-followers, went to talk about a stewardship campaign at a local parish. While taking his wife, Nikky, home I asked what their experience with the Health and Wealth gospel has been. She hadn't ever heard of it.

Their position is that if a body of believers has committed to each other then they must share responsibility in all areas, including the finances.

Including the mortgage and heating.

What a profoundly simple idea. It makes so much sense.

This morning I was eating at my regular breakfast nook, The Broken Yolk, when the cook asked me if I had my Bible with me today. She was interested if I knew the verse where we were told to give 10%. I went off into a long diatribe on how that was never commanded of us--Abraham set a good precedent and Jacob after him, but we don't have to. We have to be generous with out lives.

Fortunately someone came in a placed an order, so she sent me looking in Ecclesiastes (where I found the profound wisdom I linked to above). I had some time to realize I was not having a conversation, I was teaching. When she came back to my table we talked, she read Ecclesiastes 5, she found Malachi 3:10ff, and we had a conversation.

I then realized I had been answering the wrong question. There are several commands to give 10% (literally "a tithe"), they just all happen to be in the Hebrew Bible.

Several months ago she had told me that her community is an Assembly of God in Revere. Before leaving I asked her about it (since yesterday's sermon had been on tithing) and she told me that it's a Spanish congregation and she'd love to have me visit. They even have a wonderful lady who will translate into English whenever someone shows up who would otherwise be lost.* I'm really looking forward to visiting soon.

The final coincidence was that George Barna had sent me his weekly study of American demographics while I was at breakfast. Here it is. Definitely something to think about.




*LOST. Isn't that a great word? I just finished a book AKA Lost that talks about how demeaning it is to even think that way. We strip people of their humanity when we don't think of them as humans, but rather "the lost." However, I most certainly would be lost at a Spanish congregation without a translator. Perhaps the word isn't all bad . . .