Despite once being a world leader in generosity, the UK has steadily declined in global generosity rankings over the past decade. While still throughout the top ten for financial giving, our nation ranks lower in terms of helping strangers or volunteering – symptoms that suggest that a broader mindset of generosity is missing, especially regarding how we give our time.
Historically, the church has played a key role in filling this gap, and today’s congregations aren’t any different, contributing an estimated £55 billion in annual economic and social value to the UK. However, in response to Stewardship’s Generosity Report, the typical individual Christian within the UK donates lower than 3.2% of their post-tax income3 to churches or charitable causes. While commendable, this contrasts with the unconventional mindset of generosity we see within the early church.
In Acts 2, the believers didn’t view their possessions as their very own; as a substitute, they practised generosity by surrendering every thing they’d to God and being devoted to one another. It was not a recent concept, but there’s a difference between common ownership and sharing food, homes, and all our possessions. It was a change in perspective led to by the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, leaving the church willing to offer up every thing to be sure that nobody went without.
Generosity was woven into Jewish culture through practices similar to leaving the perimeters of wheat fields for widows and orphans and providing offerings to God. The principle of tithing, which was likely closer to 20-25% within the Old Testament, emphasised a giving mindset far beyond anything we see today within the UK, whether Christian or otherwise.
Our goal at Generosity Path isn’t to spice up giving within the UK, but to rekindle the generosity mindset that reflects a surrendered life – a life shaped by God’s call to like others and live generously. Of course, we might love giving to flow from that, however it’s about seeing generosity more as a joyful pursuit, as a substitute of a compulsory obligation.
Today, the church in Acts is usually seen as the perfect model, however it wasn’t perfect either. Even there, human frailty and deception crept in, as Paul’s letters and the story of Ananias and Sapphira reveal. But what stays timeless is the principle that God cares more in regards to the state of our hearts than about how much we give.
We can see this in Matthew 6:19-21 when Jesus told the disciples to not store up treasures on Earth and focus as a substitute on storing up treasures in heaven, ‘for where your treasure is, there your heart will likely be also’. Having a watch on eternity by giving up things on earth to speculate in it might have had a profound impact on those listening to it for the primary time.
Generosity due to this fact got here more naturally to the early church than it would do today, partly I think because additionally they believed that Jesus would return of their lifetime. This belief gave a way of urgency and immediacy to their actions, which we are able to sometimes lack. For most of us, we imagine that there’s all the time tomorrow to offer or help someone. This mindset affects not only Christians but in addition our wider community too.
If we too lived every day as if Jesus were coming back tomorrow, imagine the transformation that a generous mindset could have within the UK. Instead of being a time-driven culture, where church is full of programmes and activities that may sometimes leave little space for the Holy Spirit to maneuver, we might be a Spirit-driven culture, focused on how God is moving and bringing us into give up, trusting Him to guide our financial decisions and making room for Him in our on a regular basis lives.
The early church’s giving was an expression of their openness to the Holy Spirit. Everything began with give up – putting God’s purposes above their very own and intentionally giving the Holy Spirit space to maneuver. Fast forward to today, and the identical everlasting truth still applies. We have to create space for the Spirit to maneuver, rebuild the culture of giving as an act of joyfulness, and make generosity a cornerstone of our day by day lives.
To discover more about how Generosity Path may help your church spark the enjoyment and freedom that comes from giving, visit our website and become involved with our Journey of Generosity, or visit generosity-month.com to assist fuel a world movement of generosity that can bring hope and transformation to our neighbourhoods.
Steve Wood is a pastor and product and marketing director at Generosity Path.
