Five Keys to Encouraging Generosity

Talking to our congregations about money is hard. It can feel self-serving (and let’s face it, sometimes it is). People can get defensive when we roll out that annual “stewardship campaign” or push for funding for a special project.

But the answer isn’t to ignore the topic. Over two thousand verses in the Bible talk about money, and it’s a recurring topic both in the Gospels and in the Epistles. If we’re not talking to our people about money, they’re getting their financial learning from somewhere other than the Bible.

So how do we encourage generosity in our congregations? How do we deal with the obvious connection between giving and the church’s need to fund ministry, and the conflict of interest that can cause? How do we inspire without manipulating?

In this article, we’ll look at five key components of communicating effectively regarding generosity, starting with clarifying terms and then outlining essential values.

Define and Differentiate Core Terms

Part of the problem is that, over the years, we’ve conflated the terms “giving,” “generosity,” and “stewardship”. Our annual “stewardship campaigns” are typically all about giving to fund the church, not about overall stewarding of God’s resources (which would include time, talents, etc.). So let’s be clear about what these terms mean and how they differ.

Giving

Giving is an action. Whether we’re putting money in an offering plate, entering an online gift, or slipping a card in a giving kiosk, we’re completing a specific transaction. We’re assigning part of the resources (specifically, money) that God has put in our care to the work of the church (or more broadly to the work of the kingdom).

Generosity

Generosity is an attitude. It’s a mindset in which we derive fulfillment from sharing with others. It can be reflected in any number of ways, one of which is giving to the church. Others include sharing our homes and possessions with others, donating our time to kingdom work and serving others, etc.

Stewardship

Stewardship is a lifestyle. This is the broadest of the three terms and encompasses all that we do with what God has put in our possession – how we spend, how we save, how we give, how we care for and multiply the resources God has given us. It’s a mindset that acknowledges that everything we have belongs to God, not to us, and that he has entrusted us with these resources to manage on his behalf.

Giving is not Generosity

“They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

— Mark 12:44

Giving is not the same as generosity. We can give generously or we can give in ways that are not that generous. One time, Jesus watched with his disciples as people going into the temple put money into the offering box. Many gave, but Jesus singled out a poor widow as having given generously. The rest had done what was expected (even required) of them; but this widow had gone “all in”. Her giving reflected a heart of generosity.

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

— 2 Corinthians 9:6-7

Giving can be done sparingly rather than generously. Reluctant, grudging givers will give sparingly out of a sense of obligation (“the church needs my help”), or as a result of peer pressure (“everyone else in the row put something in the offering plate; what will they think if I don’t?”).

Or it can be done as a matter of pride (see the Pharisee’s prideful prayer in Luke 18:11-12) or as a way of gaining the admiration of others (like Ananias and Sapphira’s gift from the sale of their house, Acts 5:1-11). This is why Jesus admonished us to give in secret, for the Father alone to see (Matthew 6:1-4).

But generous giving results from gratitude for all that God has given us, and from faith that he will meet our needs. It comes from a cheerful heart and a spirit of contentment.

And generosity shows up in more ways than just in monetary giving. The one who has no money to give can still be generous with their time, with their labor, with their experience and their wisdom.

Giving is not Stewardship

Over time, many believers have come to hear “giving” when someone says, “stewardship”. That’s because pastors have often said “stewardship” when they mean “giving”. The annual “stewardship campaign” is a common example of this. As a result, the idea of stewardship has been robbed of its fullness, and the term itself often leaves believers feeling defensive.

Stewardship includes all we do with the resources that God has put in our possession. Giving is part of that, to be sure, but when we equate the two, we ignore so much of the Bible’s teaching about earning, saving, debt, and spending. In fact, much of the reason that so many believers don’t give more can be traced to overall bad stewardship, including overspending, piling up consumer debt, and under-saving.

One problem with conflating stewardship with giving is that it creates the sense that we owe God 10% (or whatever amount) of what we make. This idea obscures the fact that in truth, all we have belongs to God. It creates a divide between what is “ours” and what is “God’s”, and fails to address the completeness of real stewardship.

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Value Message Over Method

Supporting multiple giving methods helps members overcome potential obstacles to giving. Online giving enables people to set up recurring giving transactions and helps people give when they’re not present at the service. Churches need to pay attention to lowering giving barriers, as this can increase overall giving participation. But these activities won’t necessarily create attitudes of generosity, let alone commitments to stewardship. If giving is to become a regular practice in our congregations, an understanding of stewardship and a commitment to managing God’s resources for his glory is essential.

Providing multiple avenues for giving is not a substitute for discipling our congregations in stewardship. Giving methods alone will not lead to heart change, and will not move the needle on generosity as an attitude. Members may give a bit more for a time or toward a specific project, but they won’t usually grow in their understanding of God’s ownership or of our roles as managers of his resources just because we make giving easy. So incremental, temporary increases in giving might result, but believers likely won’t re-prioritize their finances overall to create additional margin for giving.

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Value God’s Glory Over Human Impact

Many churches use impact stories to try to encourage generosity and giving. Stories of impact can be inspirational, but a consistent focus on human need can lead to compassion fatigue. No matter how much we give and how many different initiatives we support, there’s always more need that we simply don’t have the resources to address. This approach doesn’t create an environment of sustained generosity. At times, it can actually create a false sense of guilt and obligation.

Jesus described his mission this way:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

— Luke 4:18-19

We often focus on the human aspects of this mission: freedom for the prisoners and the oppressed, sight for the blind. But Jesus starts and ends with a focus on God. The overall mission is all about proclamation of the good news and the year of the Lord’s favor. Part of that proclamation is indeed the meeting of people’s needs. But the context is always about what God is doing.

When we highlight the human side of the story, we connect with the emotions of our congregations and hopefully create in people a sense of their participation in that story. But, like the Bible itself, our stories should be primarily about God rather than about people. By spotlighting the ways God is being honored – Scriptures being fulfilled, etc. – we connect our congregations with a broader context for giving and generosity that’s not tied to specific stories but rather to an increasing desire to see God glorified.

We also need to consider that an exclusive emphasis on the human side of the story obscures the difference between giving to kingdom efforts and giving to human efforts to relieve suffering. There is an eternal aspect to the life-change that kingdom efforts can bring about. Human relief efforts may improve the earthly living situations of their beneficiaries, but are not likely to result in a change in eternal destinies and are not designed to bring glory to God. This is a key differentiator between giving to the church (or to Christian non-profits) and giving to secular non-profits. Jesus’ mission statement began and ended with proclamation. Like the rest of the Bible, Jesus’ mission was first and foremost about God, not people.

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Value “For” Over “From”

When we speak about giving, generosity, and stewardship, it’s important to set a context of what we want for our people rather than what we want from them. This may be the most significant area in which our conversation around giving and generosity needs to shift. “Stewardship” campaigns aimed at funding ministry; capital campaigns focused on special projects; seasonal giving opportunities, etc. – these are all transactional. They’re all about what we want from our people. And we should make these needs known as appropriate.

But if the conversation stops there – if there’s no broader context of discipleship for our people – then we stay at a transactional level rather than advancing to a transformational one. If we can encourage real heart transformation through giving, we’ll find that the transactions tend to take care of themselves.

Here are some key benefits of stewardship and generosity that we want for our congregations.

Discipleship

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

— Matthew 6:19-21

The first key thing we want for our congregations is discipleship. And that starts with putting God in first place.

Jesus taught that our hearts follow our treasures. Wholehearted devotion to God requires that our treasure is in heaven and that we are stewarding faithfully the resources he has put in our care. We often use this passage as an encouragement specifically to giving; but giving is only one way that we store treasure in heaven, and it’s only one aspect of faithful stewardship.

Putting our treasure in heaven is not an end in itself (just as giving is not). Instead, it’s a means to an end – the end of fixing our hearts on heaven. That’s the real goal – that’s the “why” of stewardship: so that our hearts can belong completely to God.

Freedom

The alternative to placing our treasure in heaven is following after money. But chasing after money entraps us:

Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

— 1 Timothy 6:9-10

True freedom is not found in the accumulation of money (or in the spending of it!). Paul goes on to stress that wealth is uncertain; as a result, it’s not a good place to put our hope (1 Timothy 6:17).

Perhaps the best example of how wealth ensnares us is the rich young ruler, who approached Jesus wanting to know how to get eternal life. Ultimately, Jesus challenged him to choose between his wealth and devoting his life to God. Scripture tells us that he went away sad, because he had great wealth (Matthew 19:16-24). 

Jesus’ call to this man was not simply a call to give more. It was a call to orient his life around God rather than around money. But the man was ensnared by his wealth – trapped into a life of pursuing more.

Many in our congregations are similarly trapped by wealth – either by the pursuit of wealth or by poor past decisions regarding spending. Stewardship is the path to freedom for them.

Blessing

In his farewell to the elders of the church at Ephesus, Paul concluded his remarks with this statement: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Again, we often use this verse simply as an encouragement to giving, but the context indicates much more than just the offering plate. Paul’s “giving” included serving the Lord among them with humility and tears (verse 19), enduring great opposition (verse 19), preaching the gospel (verse 20), and working hard (verses 34-35).

We see this sort of blessing lived out in the lives of the early believers, as they sold houses and property to provide for the needy in the church (Acts 2:44-45; 4:33-35). Again, we tend to focus on the giving aspect of these verses but there was broader stewardship behind that giving – stewardship that enabled the believers to accumulate these properties in the first place. They didn’t spend all they had; instead, they built up wealth in the form of property so that they were in a position to provide for the poor.

Contentment

But godliness with contentment is great gain.

— 1 Timothy 6:6

Paul gave Timothy significant teachings regarding money to pass on to the church. And it all started with contentment. Godliness was not to be seen as a means to financial gain (1 Timothy 6:5 – with implications for the prosperity gospel today!). Instead, true godliness would be accompanied by contentment – and that would result in great gain.

Paul lived out this truth. He consistently approached life with an attitude of contentment, both in times of plenty and in times of want (Philippians 4:11-13). Perhaps this is part of what enabled him to pray with thanksgiving when he prayed (Philippians 4:6-7).

Contentment helps us avoid coveting and the love of money, and it demonstrates our trust in God as our Provider:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”  So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

— Hebrews 13:5-6

Contentment keeps us from taking advantage of others:

Then some soldiers asked him [John the Baptist], “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely — be content with your pay.”

— Luke 3:14

Scripture consistently contrasts contentment with greed. The pursuit of stewardship helps us develop a heart of contentment and avoid the idolatry of greed (Colossians 3:5) – a key contributor to our discipleship.

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Value Lifestyle Over Rules

True generosity is a condition of the heart and is reflected in our overall lifestyles. Emphasis on target percentages for giving – while Biblical – can result in legalism and rules-based giving rather than lifestyles of generosity. Generosity, on the other hand, is a holistic approach to life.

Head: Generosity Taught

As with other areas of discipleship, our teaching about generosity needs to start with the Bible. Biblical examples of generosity abound; for example:

• The generosity of the Israelites in bringing so many offerings for the building of the tabernacle that Moses had to tell them to stop (Genesis 36:1-7)
• Generations later, the generosity of David and other leaders in Israel in giving toward the building of the Temple, causing the people to celebrate and David to give praise to God (1 Chronicles 29:1-13)
• The lavish generosity of Mary, who poured perfume worth a year’s wages over Jesus’ feet (John 12:1-8)
• The joyful generosity of Zacchaeus upon his salvation (Luke 19:1-9)
• The inconspicuous generosity of the widow who gave God everything she had to live on (Mark 12:41-44)
• The consistent generosity of the early disciples, who sold houses and lands in order to provide for the needy in the church (Acts 2:44-45; 4:31-35)
• The overflowing generosity of the Macedonian churches, giving out of their own poverty to help out the believers in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)

Heart: Generosity Demonstrated

Generosity is a leading indicator of spiritual growth. As we saw earlier, Jesus taught that our hearts will follow our treasures (Matthew 6:21). Consider the transformation brought to Zacchaeus as he released his possessions for God’s glory (Luke 19:1-9). Contrast this with the rich young ruler, whose inability to part with his possessions blocked his heart from following Jesus (Matthew 19:16-29).

Again, consider the generous giving of the early disciples we mentioned in Acts 2 and 4 and contrast this with the half-hearted giving of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. In the one case, giving was to God’s glory; in the other, giving was intended to bring glory to the giver. Their inability to part with all the wealth from the sale of their property kept them from wholehearted devotion to God and led them to lie about their giving – with disastrous results.

Hands: Generosity Expanded

True generosity goes beyond our wallets and bank accounts. Money – being the chief rival to God for our worship – is an important starting point. But the generous lifestyle comprises more than just financial giving.

Paul’s final address to the Ephesian elders concluded this way:

I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

— Acts 20:33-35

Paul’s generosity extended to the hard work he performed in order to supply the needs of himself and others. He commended this kind of lifestyle generosity to the Ephesians.

What does lifestyle generosity include? A lot of things, but here are a few examples:

• Using our spiritual gifts for the glory of God and the building up of the body (1 Corinthians 12:7; 14:12; 1 Peter 4:10-11)
• Putting our talents to kingdom purposes, as Bezalel, Oholiab and a host of skilled workers did in the construction of the tabernacle (Exodus 31:1-6)
• Sharing our lives with others (1 Thessalonians 2:8) – giving them time, friendship, and community
• Offering hospitality graciously, out of love for others (1 Peter 4:8-9)

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Final Tips for Teaching about Generosity

With all the above in mind, here are a few final tips for talking with our congregations about generosity, especially when it comes to money:

• Avoid talking about generosity in the context of a “stewardship” campaign. This confuses the message and comes across as self-serving (which, in all honesty, it is).
• Couch generosity in the context of overall stewardship. Earning, spending, and debt all affect our capacity for generosity. Divorcing generosity from these other areas can create guilt over lack of capacity. Incorporating generosity into overall stewardship training provides hope by illuminating a path forward.
• Preach, but don’t prescribe. Our congregations need to hear the message about stewardship and generosity. But people in our congregations are in different places financially. Prescribing the path forward makes assumptions – often invalid ones. What will the unemployed person or the homemaker do in response to a sermon about tithing 10% of income? What does generosity look like in the absence of income?
• Be gracious, not judgmental. It’s important to teach Biblical truth but to allow the Holy Spirit to apply that truth to our congregation’s hearts. As in all things, it’s not up to us to judge the servant of another (Romans 14:4).
• Don’t say, “We can’t do it without you.” This communicates that the ministry is not empowered by the Holy Spirit but by the giving of the congregation.

Talking about money and generosity is hard. And no matter how intentional we are, some will not hear the message. But it’s still our responsibility to sow the seed – with grace, compassion, and holistic teaching.

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