Dani and I committed to giving consistently to the ministry of our church during our pre-marital counseling in the spring of 2008. However, we realized that once we set up our automatic payment with our credit union, the discipline became much easier and we felt like the work was not done. We felt that this was a good and important thing to do, but it wasn’t the end-all-be-all of the generosity spoken about in 2 Corinthians 8. So we began to be challenged about what it would mean to ask God to show us ways we could be generous to those we interact with every week (people we meet in the course of our work, the people who live in our apartment complex, the diverse people Dani works with and handles through her job as an attorney, the people I get to minister to and with as a pastor). Tomorrow and Friday, I will share two stories of how this has happened recently (and trust me, both of them involve me learning lessons the hard way – which is my normal pattern).

The following quote comes from a small group study I am doing with the college students I lead at North Phoenix. The study is called “Nehemiah: Repurposed” and you can get more info on it here (along with a host of other great small group bible studies that are written and intended for college students and young adults – but really work for all generations). These words reminded me again today that I need to take RESPONSIBILITY for being generous and not pass the buck to other people or just write a check and clear my conscience.

“Compassion is not a program of the church. It is an act of the church. Now it’s time to move from sympathy to action. Many in the church today notice the needs of others, and feel badly about their condition, but don’t act on their feelings. They respond with sympathy rather than compassion. Sadly, the institutional church is in part to blame for much of this.
Over the years, the church has outsourced its compassion-based ministries. Just as the globalization of corporations has greatly affected the U.S. economy, the outsourcing of compassion-based ministries has devestated the church’s caring economy. It happens as we send missionaries across oceans. It happens as we start parachurch organizations to love college students or those who are incarcerated. It happens as we send money to local food kitchens or neighborhood outreaches. With each of these well-intentioned ministries, the message to the people of God from the institutional church, intentional or not, is this: Caring for those in need is someone else’s job. Compassion is no longer something we look for in our lives; we look for it in someone else’s ministry. Compassion is just another service we pay for.”