This is the third post in the 'Churches and Money' series. You can read the introduction and who I think is responsible.
Here is actually the article that spurred on this series. As I said in a recent post, the great thing about the Bible is that it is relevant, and financial issues are always relevant.
It says that 20% of Christians give no money to their church and that most fall way short of tithing (10%). This adds up to 133.4 Billion dollars 'missing' from the church.
One of the questions asked in the above article is what would the church do with that kind of money. One of the commenter's, Bruce, said a lot of how I feel. The Bible says that those who are trustworthy with small things, are trustworthy with big things. That God learns about who to trust the big things with by watching who does well with the small things. Maybe a lot of churches aren't overflowing with money for obvious reasons.
What do churches do with the 'small money' they get now? Staff, buildings, programs (and not the good ones). Now get me here, those things aren't bad at their core. But the implementation of them has generally been bad.
Here is a bit of a secret. I don't tithe, never have, and likely never will in the traditional sense. I give a reasonable amount when I see reasonable use of the money to my church or just donate needed items to the church (being a geek, there is always something technical needed). However I generally skip the churches weekly contribution and just give to a specific purpose. In the past this was an easy decision for me because I didn't itemize my taxes, so giving to a non-profit wasn't necessarily a need. This year it became a bit of a dilemma I had to face. Money I now gave to people to help them out, would in fact hurt my bottom line come tax time. I had to make a choice, and basically figured I had to come to grips with where the money was going... to God. So I continued my old ways and give directly to those in need most of the time. Plus that whole James 1:27 thing... is another way I give back to God.
In the past I was really convinced to give sacrificially to 'my church' and I did. Only to find out staff members were making an unimaginable amount of money. It is easy to preach sacrifice when you make 100K per year with top of the line health insurance and retirement benefits.
To give a bit of a stat to this, in 2001 average weekly giving was just about $15 / week. To be honest, that stuns me. This is the people who give money, this is not counting the people who just don't give. I know my first church had an average weekly giving of around $30 per member. I am unsure of this stat in the next two churches I've attended.
So over the time of my life I am going to lose a lot of tax deductions, but I'll have a better idea where things I give are going.