Stewardship is a lifestyle orientation that lies at the heart of demonstrable Christian commitment. Faithful stewardship implicitly summons our attention to taking care of God’s world, including the environment, our fellowman, and our community. Further, it implores the wise utilization of God given resources such as our time, our talent and our money in ways that are pleasing in God’s sight.
Every time you participate in God’s work through faithful financial support of your local church; every time you return the “tenth” of your increase unto God, and give a sacrificial offering, you reconfirm and reactivate your confession of faith.
Despite a myriad of worldly paradigms supposedly offering financial safe havens for investment, the church remains the most effective object of financial investment for those desirous of biblical “storehousing” in today’s insecure economy. The events and circumstances of our present day world provide clarion reason for even greater commitment to the work of the local church as it works to provide hope and inspiration, training and activation for a diversity of needy people.
Our synergistic and unified commitment to consistent financial stewardship and support of the local church enables the unfettered and self-sustaining invocation of a common vision that impacts and transforms the lives of people everyday which is ultimately the most daunting task, mission and ministry of the church.
Tithe
The return of the tithe is perhaps the most basic, yet most evaded aspect of a believer’s covenant with God. It explicitly acknowledges that everything belongs to God in the first instance, and that He, and He alone is the sustaining source of all that lives in the final instance. Faithfulness in returning the tenth of your increase unto God positions you for the fulfillment of God’s promise found in Malachi Chapter Three: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Moreover, this requirement exacted originally under Old testament law, is reaffirmed under New Testament admonitions referencing the beneficial impact of the tithe inuring to generational successors.
Offering
The offering is an amount given to God above and beyond the tithe. The offering is not only an expression of our thankfulness to God for who He is and all that He has done for us, but perhaps more importantly for our purposes, it is literally a “seed” sown from our substance that produces multiplied harvest from God’s hand. His Word proclaims that “He gives seed to sowers” and that “ he is able to cause you to have all sufficiency, in all things, always”. For this reason, in recognition that God, and God alone is our ultimate source of supply, we give according to scripture “willing and cheerfully”, with the rightful expectation, as would a natural farmer, of a harvest. Indeed, the scripture decrees, While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest… shall not cease (Genesis 8:21-23). Thus, the practice and protocol of “sowing seed” is a pre-requisite for productivity and increase in our financial affairs. Finally, there is a scriptural mandate not only to give, but moreover to give sacrificially. The bible proclaims in that regard “ I will not give to the Lord, that which cost me nothing”. I Chronicles 21:24
Levite Offering
The word of God says “…forsake not the Levite as long as thou shalt live upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 12:19). Biblically speaking, the Levite was responsible for taking care of the House of God and their financial provision was exacted from those who most directly benefited from their services. Recognizing that as we bless a prophet, we too receive a prophet’s reward, we willingly and voluntarily take advantage of the opportunity to freely sow into the life of our pastors who diligently perform the work of God in the house of God without charge or predetermined stipend.
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