I have a hard time figuring this out. Most Christians don’t want to talk about money. They may be generally committed to saying they would rather serve God than money. They understand that the two could stand in opposition. Two things are certain. You can’t serve money through God, but you can serve God through money.
The main issue in serving God is to play your part in fulfilling the Great Commission. That commission is all about moving people from the status of non-disciple to disciple and then teaching them to live right. The main mechanism prescribed is the local church, and the primary method is one-on-one work with people. Everything must point to this core. Christian endeavors outside the church must point toward the church, and the church must point to its members as the agents of winning others.
Oswald J. Smith famously said, “You must go or send a substitute.” I believe he had it wrong by one word, “You must go and send a substitute.” You must be a part with all your time, talent, and treasure. And it is often about the shared money you generate. It takes money to start a church. Missionaries, both here and there, are having a tough time raising their money if they are personally responsible for doing so, and that has diminished the number of recruits. It often comes down to money. That is the sending of a substitute part.
Some mission agencies have required new recruits to pay off their student loans and then come back and apply. That never made much sense to me because, by the time they pay off their student loans, they will be five to ten years older and settled into a different lifestyle. One key issue in the failure is the need for more money.
Approximately four out of ten who start into vocational ministry expecting to stay for a lifetime quit long before their later years. One of the critical stressors is that the donors who sent them in the first place drop out, and the worker doesn’t know where to find the new money to replace the old. When they were young, they could appeal to the older generation to help. Now, they are part of the older generation who won’t help more.
More financial help is needed and desperately needed. And that brings us to the money sources.
Pay Cheque Giving
The first type of giving is the more obvious one I will call pay cheque giving. This is the giving that fits well within the framework Paul set in 1 Corinthians 16:2. Paul said that everyone, man, woman, boy, and girl, should do the math on the first day of the week and set aside a sum of money in keeping with their income that week. Simple. Every person. Every week. If you took in any money this week, you are to participate by giving a fair portion of it. Very few fulfill this Christian obedience and responsibility. How do I know? The offering in churches goes up and down with the attendance. When people aren’t there, they generally don’t give. When they return next week, they don’t double up on what they missed the past week. All of that is now academic because it is easy to transfer money electronically if they cannot attend.
That weekly evaluation should include much more than the money you take out to use; it must include the money that lies dormant, tied up in the bank, or other assets such as ownership of financial instruments and hard assets such as real estate. If it grows, you owe the Lord as it goes.
Legacy Giving
The second type of giving is end-of-life giving. Even if you give from your assets as you go, those assets will keep on growing. Money accumulates over time in the hands of those who are responsible and even frugal. Many older people are overwhelmed by how much money they have accumulated. One of the ways they can demonstrate stewardship with that money is to write a large portion to Christian charities in their will, which is a good thing. But it radically fails the full orb of Christian stewardship.
This method of giving is easy because you are giving money that you won’t use in your lifetime. You will leave it behind. But it is still available to you while you are here on earth. You can change that before it is disposed of after death. You can do more now.
Net Worth Giving
The third type of giving is net worth giving. When you have an item you are not using, you can give it away or sell it. You only used to be able to turn that into cash through a garage sale, but now there are many online places where you can sell things. Ask a fair price and ask the Lord to bring you a buyer. Bear in mind if it is a substantial asset, you can give it away. Such donations usually qualify for a charitable receipt by a charity at fair market value. You can also give away property, shares, bonds, and bank accounts. You won’t need it later, so why not give it now?
Accumulation Giving
The fourth type of giving is giving from that which is accumulating in your accounts. Many people have investments of one form or another, and those investments continue to grow over time. Generally speaking, we can think of an existing investment doubling numerically every ten years or so. Have you ever thought about cashing out a fair portion of that growth and giving it? If, for example, you had $100,000, and in ten to fifteen years it turned into $200,000, you could give 10% of the $100,000 growth and still have $190,000 left. Wouldn’t you think that that should be a part of Christian stewardship? Lump-sum giving can make a tremendous difference for others. But even better, you can stop the accumulation in its tracks by giving as you go. None of us knows if today’s opportunity to give might be our last.
No Interest Loan Giving
The fifth type of giving is making financial assets available to others on a low or no-interest loan basis. For example, you could give a $500,000 loan to a pastor or a missionary and have it serve as a second mortgage on their house at zero interest. The money would still be yours because it is owed to you and must be returned someday. It just wouldn’t continue to grow even as the asset behind it grows to the missionary’s benefit. But then, if the growth in past years has been more than you expected, it won’t matter if it doesn’t continue to grow over the next time frame. The asset won’t disappear until Jesus comes again. And the investment will remain in someone’s hands after yours go cold in the grave.
Conclusion
I have heard many people talk about how they don’t have much. That is often because they think about the monthly income they have from either pay or pensions. But they need to think about the money set aside for the future. They often say they are setting it aside for a rainy day, but I am telling you, it is raining. Each generation has its own capacity to grow wealth; the next generation doesn’t need yours later when they have their own.
We need massive amounts of capital right now, strategically placed so that we can fulfill the Great Commission. That is where we started. Christians won’t talk about the money that is piling up unused.
To rephrase Oswald J. Smith, “You must go and send a substitute.” Why wouldn’t you make arrangements to do both now? That’s the part I have a hard time figuring out.
Why don’t we talk about that? Did you ever think about the five types of giving? Are you teaching others the five types of giving in word and deed? Have you experienced the joy of placing money into that substitute’s hands so they can amplify the money that was once in your hands? Ah, the joy of it all! But that subject is for another day.