Giving like you mean it.

Tithe barns can be found throughout Great Britain and Europe. They remain from a bygone era (about 500-700 years ago) when the town church, cathedral, or monastery built barns to store the tenth, or “tithe,” of what the local farms produced, which had to be given as offerings. The offered food was distributed to the needy and supported the church itself. It was a time before rulers and governments had developed elaborate systems of taxation and providing social services, when the Church was in charge of caring for the poor and disadvantaged.

In more recent centuries, while tithing was still the expected norm for all church-going Christians, it was out of that abundance of offerings that the Church continued its leadership in addressing the needs of society: before there was Medicare, the Church built hospitals; before state universities, the Church built colleges. The Church did phenomenal things from money given by faith, expressing values of faith.

There is something to be said for giving voluntarily. When we pay a tax because it is required of us, the reasons for giving become meaningless. Whether or not we “believe in” what we are paying for – unemployment benefits, health care, roads, libraries, schools, teachers, armies, legislators – really doesn’t matter. You pay to keep from going to jail.

When we give an offering of our own free choosing, we truly need to believe in what we are doing and know why our gift matters. For Christians to give as a spiritual discipline is to acknowledge God as source of all we have, that God provides enough for all – enough to meet our needs and to share for the improvement and well-being of others. To give to provide for schools, hospitals and basic human needs is to say, “These are things my faith says are important.”

Voluntary giving has tended to decrease in recent decades, while tax obligations have increased. Governments address needs that churches used to. Resentment over tax burdens overshadows personal engagement with the well-being of others. My prayer is that Christians not lose sight of the spiritual benefits of giving, that we give gladly and generously to things we believe in and that express our faith in the God who loves us all.