O' The Joys of Giving

I went to Church this Sunday, one of the many Sundays where I continue to search for a place to settle into to find some community, only to be slightly disappointed. Now, to set the record straight (even if it's for my own benefit), I have seen and been in some pretty "healthy" churches. Places, despite their failures, where I have seen their ultimate goal and direction and I desire to be apart of the community. I have seen churches also fall apart and set out for the worst.

Now on this particular Sunday I found myself sitting in the church pew and gratefully greeted by an elderly women that sat next to me. In this moment I settled contently into the church pew. Now granted there was a special speaker, a man who actually grew up in the church. He told story after story about the "hilarity" of giving. About how it is a blessing/hilarious to give an offering to the church. He told good stories...

He went into a story about a family in Africa who was pushing the plow by hand, when most families use an ox. A missionary family, watching them turn up the soil, asked why they did not have an ox to do this labor. The interpreter informed them that the family belonged to the local church and as an offering they recognized they had nothing to give, so they gave their only ox as a tithe to the church that year. The missionary couple said to the family, "what a sacrifice this must have been for you" and the family said " it was not a sacrifice but a blessing!"

The preacher pulled out the verse from 2 Corinthians stating that " God loveth a cheerful giver." In this he mentioned that the original root meaning of "cheerful" is hilarity/hilarious. How are we to be hilarious givers today...?

After this they set two huge metal jugs at the bottom of the podium and asked people to come up to the front of the church with their extra "stewardly" offering as we closed with a hymn. (understand that the offering plate was already passed around early in the service).

Is this manipulative? Is it wrong to use a story to touch the heart and give people one verse from the bible and capture the hilarity of giving?

First off, I believe that using a story from Africa, as such, is way off base. We are not from Africa and we do not have an ox in our family. We live in a culture that shoves materialism in our face everyday and we accept it! What about stripping this passage down and recognizing that HERE in America, all this "stuff" that we have is not ours to begin with. To recognize there is a deeper context here than just being a hilarious giver but being a deep giver. A person that understands the bigger picture of life, rather than just giving your extra stewardly offering that day/week/month. I think the stories were good and touching, but yet I believe one word in 2 Corinthians should not be the only hard truth that I walk away with on a Sunday. Where are we developing a people to understand the depths of scripture, to get more out of the text and it's surrounding than what we can find in our daily devotionals that we buy at the local Christian book store. How are we changing and shaping a community in the context of where they are at, and causing transformation and action?

I was a little upset, as you can tell, especially the more I talk about it and marinate on the whole situation. Finding a church is really hard, which is strange in a town that dominates in churches and bars.

(granted, if you gave me a church, I would not be able to develop what I long for. It is not that I am looking for the perfect church, but a church that amidst its imperfections it is directed toward pushing its congregation to see the bigger picture and not settle into the familiarity of how things are)