What church couldn't use fresh sources of income? Churches ask their people for support; that much is assumed. But sweeping changes during the past thirty-five years have altered other basic assumptions on which most local-church financial programs are based.

One assumption begging alteration goes back to the years of the Great Depression, when it was widely, and usually correctly, thought that most people did not have much money. This stimulated the idea that it would be wise to ask people to commit to the church a portion of their future income, which led to the system of pledging.

This right-hand pocket, where people placed their income, became the source of support for both the operating and capital expenditures of the church. This system was based on the assumption that people's needs exceeded their income, and unless they made an advance commitment to the church, that right-hand pocket might be empty before Sunday. The biblical teaching that the first tithe belonged to the Lord reinforced ...