2. The Table, the Tithe
Div school made me talk to friends about money — and it was awesome.
As part of our divinity school education, my cohort and I take a class every semester called “Spiritual Formation.” Keeping the same teacher and classmates, each term retains the same “circle of trust” but opens up a new focus topic. In year one we covered praying with lectio divina, practicing Sabbath, and fasting; with part of our work each term being to lead an out-of-class group conversation on our given topic.
This fall term we’ve officially crossed the comfort zone line. We’re focused on tithing.
I worked at a(n amazing) nonprofit for four years, and “thank God I’m not in fundraising” crossed my mind regularly. I’ve never been money-anxious, but asking for money or telling others what to do with theirs feels like a place I don’t go. After all, Jesus asks for a sense of privacy, even secrecy, when giving to the needy (Matt 6:3-4).
And then the moment I stepped away from said nonprofit in August (and the consistent income that went with it), it was time to talk about money. In the season I felt tighter-fisted than I ever have, it was time to lead a conversation about giving (a tenth of?!) our income away.
So last Monday night, some dear friends came over for dinner with their littles. After a full semester of talking and reading about whether we’re supposed to give 10% to the church or if we can divide it amongst several places, whether it has to be 10% at all, and all the hesitancies around transactional giving, I felt as prepared as I’d ever be to take the discussion out of the classroom. And with dinner finishing on the stove, wine pouring, and babies going to sleep in their pack-and-plays, there was really no time to be nervous about it.
For more than an hour, we told the stories of our own upbringings and experiences around giving: our parents’ examples, our church’s asks. We shared simultaneous joy and nerves in fully trusting the God who provides for our every need as we learn to give sacrificially. We shed light on our own failures and questions, and celebrated where we’ve been blessed by giving to God what was already God’s (Ps 24:1-2).
Three amazing examples I learned from:
“My dad always had us put the weekly tithe in the offering plate so that we could personally feel what it was like to give money to the church.”
“At the end of each year, my parents would also sit us down and talk through our yearly financials and we were able to choose what charities we wanted to give to as one of our Christmas presents.”
“They always actually told us the dollar amount we were giving to the church. I think this was really big because even now I think about how big of a sacrifice that was.”
Two factors that made our evening together so fruitful:
The first was making intentional space for what felt like a taboo subject in our culture, even among dear friends. I’m a big believer in shedding light on the places that may create shame in us otherwise, whether from doing or not doing. The conversation helped us unpack why we give, apart from the vague notion that we “should.”
Second, we did this over a meal. We put it on the schedule, lit candles, and had dessert. There is something adjacent, I think, about our coming to this table to our coming to the Lord’s Table. We discern God’s presence in the breaking of bread (Lk 24:35), and “his presence always brings the reordering of our lives together into his kingdom.”1 As we ate and talked, I felt the presence of God in each one of these friends, and sensed how God was already moving in them.
No, we didn’t land on an answer to those age-old questions around tithing, nor were there any clear “next steps” besides letting God stir in our hearts around stewardship. Still, I walked away from that evening feeling less tight-fisted, more open to the idea that my money can be much more fruitful when I make it available to God’s work.
Here’s to more dinners that shed light on hard topics.
One prompt that merited especially fruitful conversation:
Think of an example or two where you’ve been a “cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:6-7).
What does that say about where God would want you to to put your resources?
“Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.” - Frederick Buechner
Resources:
Watch: Dave Ramsey’s Thoughts on Tithing (7 min)
Read: this excerpt from Enough by Adam Hamilton (12 pages, easy read)
Read: Saving Grace: Hope Filled Devotions on the Way to Financial Well-Being (36 daily devotions)
Read: “The Lord’s Table” by David Fitch for more on connecting our shared tables with the communion table (14 pages, easy read)
Read: Tithing: Test Me In This by Douglas LeBlanc, a book full of short stories of people who tithe across many denominational and socioeconomic lines.
P.S. This newsletter is a place to share learnings and resources from divinity school. Some will be creativity and arts based, others won’t. I certainly will not typically ask for money. But in this soon-to-be holiday season, and given the subject matter of today’s post, it feels like an opportunity to share an ask.
An ask:
On top of her work at New Story, my friend Christina runs a small but mighty nonprofit called The Collective Effect helping ~20 once-homeless kids in Uganda get access to meals, medical care, education, and a loving home. I’m currently helping her fund boarding school tuition fees for one little girl: only $1,333 for the whole year. Would you be willing to pitch in to help me fund school for Gloria?
David E. Fitch, “The Lord's Table,” in Seven Practices for the Church on a Mission (Westmont, IL: IVP Books, 2018), p. 7.