Shaun on Francais on Giving

Shaun Groves reports on a very inspiring approach to giving that is going on a Francais Chan's church. He writes,

The story is - correct me if I’m wrong - that his church was on track to spend 20 million dollars to build a new building. What happened, and I don’t know how, was that the decision was made to build an outdoor meeting place instead. Much cheaper. Much much cheaper. And the money that was saved would then go to the truly poor around the world. And, the story goes, meeting outside on rainy days or hot days would serve to remind folks in the church of the discomfort others live in every day.

Spend less. Create empathy. Mobilize to show mercy. Sounds like church to me.

You can watch the video that is from Francais' church dealing with this issue here:



I greatly resonate with this idea. I sometimes wonder about how we use money as a Church. I don't really have any good thoughts formulated on this one yet, but just wonderings. All I know is this: If as church leaders we teach and model sacrificial giving, our people will follow. What would the face of the world look like if all American church leaders did what Francais did at his church?

At our church we don't teach the tithe, we teach sacrificial giving. You have to define that for yourself. For some that might be 5% and for others that might be 25% or %50. You pray and figure it out.

I know that money issues in terms of actual dollars spent will always be what I call a "Holy Spirit issue". It's one that you have to get on your knees in prayer and seek the Lord on because we have no clear cut dollars and cents lines drawn for us in the Bible in terms of giving. I was talking to my wife about this a few weeks ago, specifically on the issue of sacrificial living and giving. My thought was similar to Francis' church's idea in the sense of having "altars to the Lord" all over the house that would be reminders to us of our sacrifice that ultimately points to Jesus' sacrifice.

For example, let's say we really need a new kitchen table. We could use the money that we would have used to buy a new table and give it away to someone in need in our community or beyond. Thus every time we sat down at our crappy table we would be reminded of why we don't have a new one and that would point us to the fact that we are making a sacrifice for a reason. We withhold a good that could have been ours for the sake of the good of someone else. We haven't consciously tried this yet, but I look forward to when we do as it will be a great reminder for us and also a great teaching point for our children.