Missionary Renegade: Leading Ideas: Nine Ways Generosity Leads to Healthier and More Purposeful Living | Navigating Shifting and Competing Values from Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C., United States

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Leading Ideas: Nine Ways Generosity Leads to Healthier and More Purposeful Living | Navigating Shifting and Competing Values from Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C., United States

Leading Ideas: Nine Ways Generosity Leads to Healthier and More Purposeful Living | Navigating Shifting and Competing Values from Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C., United States

Wednesday, July 15, 2015
"Nine Ways Generosity Leads to Healthier and More Purposeful Living" by Ann A. Michel

Do you sometimes wish for empirical evidence to back up your faith claims? In The Paradox of Generosity (Oxford University Press, 2014), sociologists Christian Smith and Hillary Davidson provide compelling social-scientific evidence suggesting that generosity leads to a happier, healthier, more purposeful life, confirming Jesus’ teaching that “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matt 10:39)
Smith and Davidson examine a number of generous behaviors including financial giving, volunteering, relational generosity (giving time, attention, and emotional energy to others), and neighborly generosity (being hospitable and helpful to others). They conclude all these practices of generosity are “positively and significantly” associated with five important outcomes — greater personal happiness, physical health, a sense of life purpose, avoidance of depression, and personal growth.
And if you find yourself wondering whether it’s generosity that leads to well-being or well-being that leads to generosity, the authors devote an entire chapter to the question of causality. While acknowledging that generosity and well-being reinforce each other in complex and interactive ways, they maintain that “the association … is not an artifact of reverse causal influence. Certain well-known, explicable causal mechanisms explain the specific ways that generous practices shape positive well-being outcomes.” Indeed, they present social-scientific evidence to support the following nine specific causal mechanisms.

Generosity fosters positive emotions that promote happiness and health.
Generosity triggers the chemical systems in our brains that reduce stress and suppress pain.
Generosity promotes our sense of personal agency and self-efficacy.
Generosity provides us with positive, meaningful social roles and self-identities.
Generosity reduces our tendency toward maladaptive self-absorption.
Generosity reinforces our perception of abundance and blessing.
Generosity expands our social networks and relational ties.
Generosity expands our intellectual and emotional horizons by exposing us to the needs of others.
Generosity is associated with a more active lifestyle.

Practice Makes Perfect
Interestingly, there is a caveat in the otherwise consistent relationship between various forms of generous behavior and positive personal outcomes. Some acts, such as designating a large financial bequest through one’s will or signing up as an organ donor, are extremely generous; yet they do not produce the specific positive outcomes associated with other forms of generosity. The authors’ explanation for this discrepancy is that these forms of generosity involve a single generous act rather than a repeated pattern of action. It seems that the positive benefits of generosity flow from ongoing behaviors that involve recurrent intention and attention. To put this in spiritual terms, generosity is a spiritual practice that forms us — a tool that God uses to shape our hearts.
The Paradox of Generosity
The book’s title, The Paradox of Generosity, alludes to a two-fold paradox. First is the simple, ironic truth that it is by giving that we receive. This is good news. The troubling aspect of the paradox is that despite the benefits of generosity, very few Americans reap the positive outcomes because they fail to embrace the generous lifestyle. Christian Smith (with coauthors Michael Smith and Patricia Snell) exposed this grim reality in his earlier book, Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money (Oxford University Press, 2008). [See “Giving Up to Our Potential”, Leading Ideas April 15, 2009.] It seems that those of us who proclaim the Good News have our work cut out for us in helping more people embrace a generous lifestyle.
The Promise of Biblical Generosity
The call to Biblical generosity is an invitation to step beyond the destructive lure of consumerism and self-gratification into a transformative way of life that counteracts greed and selfishness and brings forth true abundance. The Paradox of Generosity documents what our theology of stewardship teaches. It is an enormously helpful and hopeful work.
Ann A. Michel is associate director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership and teaches stewardship at Wesley Theological Seminary.The Paradox of Generosity (Oxford University Press, 2014) is available through Amazon

or Cokesbury.
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"Navigating Shifting and Competing Values" by Judy Worthington

When I have done strategic planning with congregations of older members, it is common to hear their values expressed as family, community, and faith. But all these are changing. Family has changed. There are fewer nuclear families and more extended-families, blended families, single-parent families, among others. Communities are changing as well, including their expansion given the global nature of today’s world. Community is bigger and broader than anything the earlier generations ever imagined.
Faith is changing as well. For younger generations, the dominant values are often authenticity, inclusivity, and diversity. Authenticity is about being one’s true self with no pretenses. Inclusivity and diversity are about welcoming and including others even if they are different than we are. They include valuing everyone despite differences. For older generations, faith is often seen more in conformity to beliefs and rules of behavior they were taught and accepted. These conflicts are seen most dramatically today in how people of faith view same-sex marriage and how they see their proper relationship with persons from other religions. Some of the conflicts churches are experiencing come from the boundary place between these two different sets of values. For those that value authenticity and inclusivity, these debates are about allowing each person to be his or her authentic self and accepting others despite differences. For those putting more value on tradition, they are concerned when what they are encouraged to believe goes against their understanding of biblical teaching. They may feel they are being asked to cross boundaries that compromise their faithfulness.
Jesus lived at a time when the values of his day were also in flux. His work was very much boundary-crossing work. His was the movement of a faith that was exclusively Jewish to a faith that was inclusive of everyone — the Gentiles. The Apostle Paul speaks about these changes when he says in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
As our churches try to navigate these and other boundary-crossing issues, it will be easy to hurt one another because we are looking through different lenses. As we face differences of opinion, we need to hear one another and listen carefully for the values the other is expressing. We need to make decisions that are respectful of the changing world in which we live. None of us has all the answers. We are called to listen thoughtfully and respectfully as we navigate at the crossroads of our world. I pray that we will see our changing world through the lenses God intends for us, not necessarily the ones with which we are most comfortable.
Judy Worthington is pastor of the Franktown United Methodist Church in Franktown, Virginia.