Wednesday, August 29, 2018
These days, it seems nearly impossible for some people to commit their time and talents to church. They juggle heavy workloads and family responsibilities. Long commutes and frequent travel eat into their schedules. They struggle to squeeze in even a little time for fun or fitness. It’s tempting for church leaders to just throw up their hands and say, “That’s just how life is these days. How can we possibly expect overly busy people to take on even more?”
Learning to steward our time can free us from the tyranny of endless societal time pressures, help us step away from a self-destructive pattern of chronic busyness, and experience the joy of serving God and others.
A question of priorities
But what If you asked someone to make a financial offering to the church, and they said, “Sorry! I can’t. I’ve already spent all my money?” You’d quickly realize the need to educate that person about the importance of honoring God through their offerings and prioritizing generosity. Faithful giving requires that we adjust our spending patterns and reprioritize our budgets. Yet we rarely challenge people to apply that same logic to how they spend their time.
I learned this lesson myself years ago when I finally joined a weekly Bible study group after years of thinking I was too busy for such a heavy time commitment. But once I’d committed to the group, somehow my other responsibilities fell in place around it. And when the year-long study was over, I was ready and eager to re-up. It turned out I really did have the time, once I made it a priority.
First fruits
This is, of course, exactly how people who don’t think they can afford to give become sacrificial givers or tithers. Rather than giving what is left over after all other possible claims on their resources are satisfied, they give to God “off the top” and adjust their other spending priorities in light of that commitment.
Asking people to make a first fruits commitment of their time is more than a way for the church to meet its volunteer needs. It’s an invitation to really consider how they spend the gift of time God has given them. Learning to steward this precious resource is every bit as important as learning to steward the material and financial resources God entrusts to us.
Putting things in perspective
When we prioritize giving — whether it’s of our time or our treasure — we learn to put our own wants and needs into perspective. It can lead us to discover that we really don’t need to spend $5 or $6 dollars a day on coffeehouse beverages or yield to the temptation of yet another online purchase. And we might also learn that we don’t need to be spending so much time going to and from that coffee shop, shopping online, monitoring social media, watching sports or cable news … or whatever other hidden time thieves steal your life away.
People who don’t know better might imagine that tithing and first fruits giving are merely clever gimmicks for funding the church. But when you adopt these disciplines, you discover they are instruments God gives us to reign in our tendency toward selfishness and overconsumption. In this same way, learning to steward our time can free us from the tyranny of endless societal time pressures. When we help people put into proper perspective how they spend their time, we help them step away from a self-destructive pattern of chronic busyness and experience the joy of serving God and others.
Related Resources:
- Stewarding God’s Gift of Time by David Gray
- Increasing Active Engagement Video Tool Kit
- 4 Ways to Engage Busy People by Doug Powe
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Photo courtesy Reid Temple AME Church. Photographer: Matt Anderson 2015
Ebonie Johnson Cooper describes how involving young adults in an innovative process of ministry design can enhance their church participation. She outlines five pilot initiatives that are proving fruitful at Reid Temple AME Church in Maryland.Contrary to popular belief, young adult Christians are not a monolithic group. We do not think alike. We do not worship God alike. And we do not see the church in the same way. Evidence of these statements is found in research conducted by several churches taking part in the Wesley Innovation Hub, an initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment that brings together diverse congregations to learn and practice ministry innovations that engage young adults using a design thinking methodology.
We should not place limits on how we reach young adults. The onus is on us to think outside the box and engage the next generation of Christian leaders in ways that encourage them to be the church and not just attend the church.
At Reid Temple AME, where I am a member, we employed focus groups, asset mapping, and in-depth interviews to discover issues that our young adults wanted to address. The team then created a number of prototype initiatives that are being tested over the next 12-15 months. While these initiatives are unique to the needs of the Reid Temple young adults, they can also be tested at other churches seeking to engage at a deeper level with their young adults.
1. Creating safe spaces
We have learned that young adults want to feel safe at church. They want to be able to be transparent with leadership while also sensing a reciprocal feeling of authenticity from leadership. To test the concept of safe spaces, we are implementing life groups, which are small group gatherings of 8-10 young adults, meeting over the course of 6-8 weeks, led by fellow young adults. Not to be confused with Bible study groups, life groups use faith-based books, podcasts or thematic devotionals to guide organic conversations week to week. These intimate gatherings create safe spaces for young adults to begin to trust one another and the ministry that has been developed for them.
2. Fostering community
Reid Temple has approximately 6,000 young adult members, across three campuses. As you might imagine, fostering a sense of community can be challenging. Instead of segmenting or limiting our young adults to programs at one campus or another, we will host programs that appeal to all young adults on neutral ground. One is a dialogue series on “adulting” as a young Christian. Many millennials use the popular term “adulting” to describe the hardships and nuances of traversing through the “real world.” Through our research, we found that Christian young adults are uniquely positioned to help one another navigate issues such as dating, marriage, finances and even parenting. Therefore, we plan to host a dialogue series to encourage conversation, support, and community among our young adults.
3. Growing disciples through missional outreach
We recognize that as Christians we are called to be disciples and go beyond the walls of the church to minister. Our young adults have expressed their desire to be more involved with missional outreach. We plan to test a few community service projects that will demonstrate our love for Christ by helping others. These mission-driven projects will take form through partnerships and service with local nonprofits, as well as international organizations.
4. Revamping young adult ministries
One of the most encouraging research findings we uncovered was the desire to remodel our young adult ministries at all campuses. The stereotype that millennials resist change has been largely debunked in the work of all the Wesley Innovation Hub churches. In fact, the young adults involved want change and are embracing innovative programs and ministries. Reid Temple will test the careful reconstruction of the young adult ministry leadership at Reid North and help to revamp the ministry at the Glenn Dale campus.
5. Young adult leadership development
One area rarely celebrated about young adults is their desire to lead effectively. We found this to be true during our research, as many of our participants want to be active in leadership roles within ministries. Consequently, we decided to test the success of a leadership development series using existing young adult leaders as well as those who seek to be in leadership. By providing leadership development training, we hope to empower our young adults to fill more leadership roles and equip them to serve effectively.
The five areas we are testing at Reid Temple are just the beginning. The Wesley Innovation Hub has opened a door for us to walk with our young adults as never before in ways that uniquely meet their desires. I have learned not to put God in a box or limit God’s ability to be who God is. Similarly, we should not place limits on how we reach young adults, who are the future of the church, based on traditions and stereotypes. The onus is on us, today, to think outside the box and engage the next generation of Christian leaders in ways that encourage them to be the church and not just attend the church.
- Leading Ideas Talks podcast episode: “Effectively Engaging Millennials” featuring Joshua Mitchell
- What Kind of Church Will Millennials Lead? by David McAllister-Wilson
- 5 Steps for Putting Good Ideas into Action by Jim Hoffman
Read more now.
The Right Question:
Leaders do not need answers. Leaders must have the right questions.
Hayim Herring and Terri Martinson Elton share some questions groups should consider if they plan to gather input through crowdsourcing.
1. What are the potential benefits and limitations of crowdsourcing this idea?
2. What social media tools would you use?
3. How would you separate good ideas from bad ideas?
4. How would you communicate the results?
Want more Right Questions? Read Right Questions for Church Leaders.
What can you do when 20 percent of your congregation does 80 percent of the serving, learning, and leading? The Increasing Active Engagement Tool Kit includes videos, narrated presentations, outlines of key points, and supplementary materials to help you get and keep people involved and engaged.
Learn more and watch introductory video now.
How can your congregation reach young adults better? Leading Ideas to Reach Young Adults, a curated collection of Leading Ideasarticles plus discussion questions, is an ideal conversation starter for those who care deeply about reaching younger generations. This insightful and practical ebook is available for Kindle and PDF.
Learn more now.
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To the Point: Teaching Children to Tithe
Teaching children to tithe is an important part of their faith education that we often overlook. To the Point: Teaching Children to Tithe suggests using "money jars" to reinforce giving to God, a core value of our faith that should be taught early. The most common way that I see tithing taught to children is simply by grownups giving children a quarter to put in the offering plate. This is all right for very young children because it gives them an opportunity to participate. But this may not send the right message to elementary school children.
First, the money wasn’t theirs to begin with, so they do not feel the satisfaction of it being a personal gift to God.
Second, it does not teach proportionality in giving or the idea of putting God first in our finances.
We want to teach children to be intentional about their giving. But our adult understanding of tithing can be too complex for children. For example, children are not generally taught to figure percentages until their middle-elementary-school years. So teaching younger children to calculate a percentage tithe is not age appropriate.
When our son was five, we started to teach him about giving using “money jars.” We have three jars sitting on his dresser that are labeled “Money for God,” “Money to Save,” and “Money to Spend.” He gets a two-dollars-per-week allowance. We give it to him as a dollar bill and 4 quarters; that way one quarter can be given to the God jar, one to the savings jar, and the rest in the spend jar.
On Sunday, he takes the quarter from God’s jar, and takes it to church. He fills out the offering envelope and proudly makes his offering at church.
As we implemented the jar system we discussed the following things with him:
1) God made everything, so everything is God’s.
Even us. We are God’s creation. We are thankful that God created everything. God has given us so much that we want to give back to God, too.
2) We want to think about God first.
So, the first jar we put money in will be the “Money for God” jar.
3) We give to God because we love God.
We also show God our love by going to church, praying, and doing good for others. In fact, when we give money to the church, it helps the church do the things God has asked the church to do. It helps the church teach people about God so that other people can know that God loves them, too.
The jar method seemed to teach what we think is most important for a child to know about giving to God.
This article is by Dan Pezet, a United Methodist pastor in the Alabama-West Florida Conference, and appeared in Leading Ideas February 1, 2012. It is adapted from his blog at churchandtea.com. Used by permission.
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Quotable Leadership:
These are the hard times in which a genius would wish to live. Great necessities call forth great leaders. (Abigail Adams, 1790)
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