{"id":2308,"date":"2012-07-06T03:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T10:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=2308"},"modified":"2012-07-18T15:55:55","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:55:55","slug":"3-challenges-tithing-wont-solve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/06\/3-challenges-tithing-wont-solve\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Challenges Tithing Won\u2019t Solve"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve been in church leadership for any length of time, then at some point you\u2019ve been in the \u201cfinancial crunch\u201d meeting; that gathering of leaders who meet to discuss the budget shortfall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Image via iStockPhoto.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inevitably someone will say with almost prophetic resonance, \u201cWe must get everyone to tithe,\u201d and in all likelihood many around the table will voice strong agreement.<\/p>\n

How do you respond to this? This is when you must seize this teaching moment and help them see beyond the tithe.<\/p>\n

Specifically, you must teach your leaders that there are at least three financial challenges that tithing will not solve.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Tithing will not solve the inequality of giving challenge<\/strong>
\nAs John Maxwell has pointed out, the Pareto Principle dictates that the 80-20 rule will always be present.<\/p>\n

You must teach your leaders that even if every single person in your church were to tithe you would still find that 80% of your giving comes from 20% of the people, because 80% of the money in your church is held by 20% of the people.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Tithing will not solve the Kingdom return challenge<\/strong>
\nThere is a tremendous temptation to attribute decreased giving to disobedience to the biblical \u201crules\u201d on tithing.<\/p>\n

However, for many people, if they don\u2019t believe their local church is providing an optimal Kingdom return, they may well slide some of that giving to other ministries.<\/p>\n

Your leaders must learn that your people may well be tithing; but they may simply no longer tithing to your church.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Tithing will not solve the culture of generosity challenge<\/strong>
\nIn Exodus 36 God\u2019s people were so lavishly giving to the work of the Lord they had to be told to stop; there was too much coming in.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t get to that level of heart-felt generosity in your church by brow-beating your people into tithing. Help your leaders understand that this kind of generosity flows out of hearts that are fully devoted to Christ and fully sold-out to your church\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

To change the financial trajectory of your church you need your key leaders on board, which is why it\u2019s so important to seize these teaching moments.<\/p>\n

Your first step may well be to help them see beyond the tithe.<\/p>\n

What are the principles that you have taught when leading through a challenging financial season?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve been in church leadership for any length of time, then at some point you\u2019ve been in the \u201cfinancial crunch\u201d meeting; that gathering of leaders who meet to discuss the budget shortfall. Inevitably someone will say with almost prophetic resonance, \u201cWe must get everyone to tithe,\u201d and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,769,478,758],"tags":[105,918,917,906,915,916,914],"class_list":["post-2308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-culture-2","category-featured","category-stewardship","tag-challenge","tag-generosity","tag-giving","tag-john-maxwell","tag-shortfall","tag-teaching-moment","tag-tithing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2308"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2314,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions\/2314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}