Tithes

Most tithing Protestants still prefer a physical collection plate to a digital one. A Lifeway Research survey of 1,002 American Protestants found that since the pandemic, more people are giving online—but still not most. Today, only 7 percent of those who tithe use a church smartphone app. Only 8 percent have set up automated bank payments.

Preferred Mode of Tithing:

62% Only cash or check

36% At least one form of electronic giving

02% Don’t know

True or false: In general, bigger donors to churches, ministries, and charities give more because they have more ability to give.

Answer: It’s a trick question. The correct answer, to some extent, is both true and false.

The true part is that people with more money do tend to give away larger amounts of money. Grey Matter Research studied evangelical Protestants in 2021. Among donors, they found median giving to church and charity in the past 12 months was $2,200 when household incomes were $100,000 or more, dropping to just $200 when incomes were below $30,000. Clearly, higher-income evangelicals give more.

The false part is that when you evaluate giving amounts as a percentage of household income, they saw almost no difference in generosity between more affluent and less affluent evangelical donors. (Generosity is simply the proportion of household income that is given away.)

Donors with household incomes below $30,000 give away a median of 1.5% of their pre-tax income. The median is a nearly identical 1.56% when incomes are $30,000 to under $60,000. It does rise slightly to 1.85% with incomes of $60,000 to under $100,000, but then falls again to a median of 1.56% among donors earning six figures.

In other words, evangelicals who give money generally do so at a pretty consistent (and consistently low) rate, no matter what their income is like. But 1.5% of $100,000 is obviously twice as much cash as 1.5% of $50,000, so the amount of money rises as income rises.

Regardless of whether you consider tithing to be a biblical mandate or guideline, the chances are you’re not close to it: only about 13% of evangelical Protestants give anything close to a tithe.

Who are the most generous givers? As a nation, America tops the charts. The three most charitable cities in America are all in Idaho. On average practicing Christians in those Idaho cities give $17,977. That beats out the giving from people in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, which averages $3,308 per person.

Age also makes a big difference in giving. Eighty four percent of millennials give less than $50 to charity per year even though charitable giving ranks high on their priorities.

Today, the average church attender gives 2.5% of his or her income annually. During the Great Depression, that number was 3.3%. Thirty seven percent of those who consider themselves evangelical Christians don't give at all to their churches. Only 2.7% of evangelical Christians practice tithing.

Editor’s Note: You can read this fascinating Barna survey with all the stats here.

According to Lifeway research, among Protestants who attend church monthly or more, four out of five say tithing is “a biblical command that still applies today.” Here’s where they say such giving can go:

47% Can only go to a church

48% Can go to other Christian ministries

34% Can go to an individual in need

18% Can go to a secular charity

A thriving stock market (measured by the S&P 500 index) doesn’t translate to more charitable giving. According to a decade of data collected by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability:

• When stock value increased nearly 30 percent in 2013, giving to charity decreased by about 1.5 percent.

• Stock value went up more than 11 percent in 2014, and charitable giving from individuals and organizations increased by nearly 6 percent

• Stock value declined slightly in 2015, while giving increased another 5 percent.

• Rates of giving also appear to be disconnected from changes in median household income and gross domestic product.

Well-intended patrons arrive every day at 10:00 am at Goodwill locations with truckloads full of cast-off items. Goodwill spokesperson Heather Steeves says, "We hope everyone brings great things that help our programs, but we know some people make some questionable judgments about what is good to donate.”

She holds up a lampshade, which is stained and disgusting and literally falling apart. There's also a small table missing a leg, cracked purple food-storage containers and a used sponge. They're just a representative sample of the useless stuff dropped off the day before.

Along with simply being gross, these items cost Goodwill money. Steeves says, "All this trash adds up to more than $1 million a year in a trash bill, and it's been growing every year for the past five years.” And that's just for the 30 stores she oversees.

Goodwill does recycle lots of what it can't sell. The nonprofit reuses textiles and refurbishes some broken electronics. But last year, it threw away more than 13 million pounds of waste—technically other people's garbage—and that’s just in its locations in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

One cause of this growing trash problem is a phenomenon called wish-cycling, where people are hoping that something is recyclable and therefore they put it in with their recycling. Steeves said, "We have seen comments on our Facebook page recently that are like, 'If you wouldn't give it to your judgmental mother-in-law, don't donate it.' "

Possible Preaching Angle:

Offerings; Tithes – Christians are sometimes guilty of giving their second-best to God, while keeping the best for themselves. God wants our best, not our leftovers.

A Presbyterian missionary in Ghana told an interesting thing about the Presbyterian church in Ghana. The Presbyterians are the largest Christian group in that country. The church was established over a hundred years ago by Scottish Presbyterians, and their worship service is very much like a Scottish Presbyterian service. Recently they have allowed the African traditional experience into the worship service at the offering.

At the offering, they let the people dance. That's a part of African culture in religious, spiritual worship. They let the people dance as they bring their offerings forward. They really get down. The music is going, and they individually turn it into a production as they bring that offering to the offering plate. They take their time, too. The offering could go on for a long time because they are dancing all the way down the aisle. It's the only time in the service when they smile. I thought, How interesting. The only time in the service when they smile is when they're giving their money.

We should give as we would receive: cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

After a morning session at vacation Bible school, my grandson, Macky, complained to a friend that there weren't enough red crayons to go around and he only got one cookie at snack time. "Well," said his friend, who remembered their offering, "it really wasn't too bad for a dime."

Giving a tithe means nothing if God has enabled you to give 50 percent.

A young family regularly sits behind my parents during morning worship. Every Sunday when the offering is taken, the father gives each of his children a dollar to put in the collection plate. One Sunday, their little boy Dusty brought a friend to church. As my father passed the offering plate to his family, Dusty, without a second thought, tore his dollar bill in half, then handed a "half dollar" to his friend to place in the plate.

Our faith becomes practical when it is expressed in two books: the date book and the check book.

Because it's unpopular, the idea that giving is a theological matter and a major expression of your Christian faith has been, for the most part, lost.

Gary Thomas writes in Christianity Today:

Thinking about eternity helps us retrieve [perspective]. I'm reminded of this every year when I figure my taxes. During the year, I rejoice at the paychecks and extra income, and sometimes I flinch when I write out the tithe and offering. I do my best to be a joyful giver, but I confess it is not always easy, especially when there are other perceived needs and wants. At the end of the year, however, all of that changes. As I'm figuring my tax liability, I wince at every source of income and rejoice with every tithe and offering check--more income means more tax, but every offering and tithe means less tax. Everything is turned upside down, or perhaps, more appropriately, right-side up. I suspect judgment day will be like that.

I once heard a story about a father who inquired of his son when he planned to purchase a much-needed automobile. "When God sends my one hundred fold," the son replied. Then he explained, "Recently I gave a gift of $50. When God sends my reward I'll have $5000 and can buy my car." When he realized his son was serious, the father responded, "God is already sending you your reward. It comes every two weeks, and it is called salary." It is time we Christians stop and assess what we really believe about prosperity. A life lived for the glory of God is its own reward.

Americans in the '80s, the last years of the cable-television evangelists, were prompted to give to the six primary cable televangelists nearly $700 million. Besides financing the show-biz evangelists' television and promotional costs, the money didn't support very much else. Supported by this $700 million were four schools, one hospital, three churches, a couple of ministries for needy children, one home for the poor--and six television shows.

The denomination I serve, and there are many like this one, also received that year about $700 million. With that same amount of money, local churches sponsored some 3,700 foreign missionaries, 3,600 home missionaries, about 1,000 state missions, 67 colleges, 6 seminaries, and 23 hospitals. The list goes on and on. Perhaps the world is hungry to see again not people who take our money and entertain us but people who say, "For this money I spend, there's this much need and this much work, and this much touching that needs to be done."

When we discuss money, we're talking about commitment, and commitment is our domain.