Tithing

“You won’t believe what I got from Shein for only $100!” The video opens with an influencer flashing perfectly manicured nails and a box bursting with clothes, accessories, and things no one actually needs.

Within minutes, thousands of comments flood in: “I need this!” “Adding to cart.” It’s consumerism served piping hot to millions of impressionable viewers who didn’t know they needed a $9 glitter bucket hat until five seconds ago.

Consumerism is the temptation we just can’t shake. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have turned buying stuff into a sport. This “haul culture” isn’t just harmless fun. It feeds the idea that more is always better and that your worth is tied to what you own. Haul videos like this are the poster children for a culture of overconsumption.

But while the world’s social media feeds scream “More, more, more!” the Gospel quietly calls for something radically countercultural: stewardship.

Possible Preaching Angle: Stewardship isn’t just about protecting the planet. It’s about managing every resource—time, money, relationships, possessions—in ways that honor God (Gen. 2:15). When our shopping carts (digital or otherwise) are overflowing with things we don’t need and can’t afford, we’ve veered off course. And when our closets look like a Forever 21 warehouse but our tithing is nonexistent? It’s time for a heart check. The issue isn’t, “Can I afford this?” It’s about remembering that everything we have—our paycheck, our possessions, our very breath—is on loan from God. When we buy mindlessly or hoard resources, we’re not just being careless. We’re saying we trust in “stuff” to bring satisfaction instead of trusting in the One who provides all we need.

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.

Charitable giving went up nearly five percent during the economic trouble caused by record inflation in 2022, according to a Fundraising Effectiveness Project study of American nonprofits. The number of donors, however, declined by about seven percent—fewer people gave more money.

Number of megadonors -0.4%

Number of medium donors -1.4%

Number of small donors -13%

Money given +4.7%

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.

After surveying more than 16,500 donors to 17 Christian ministries, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability discovered that most give based on internal values, not on who asks them or how they are asked.

Why Would You Support a Ministry?

45% - I’ve been blessed, so I give back

23% - My gift makes a difference

15% - It’s the right thing to do

9% - I know someone working there

6% - God will bless me for it

4% - Other

How likely are you to support ministries that works to:

96% - Tell others about Jesus

95% - Make God’s Word available to all people

86% - Care for orphans

77% - Aid in disaster relief

66% - Address injustice or oppression

48% - Benefit my own community

More than a quarter of American evangelicals do not give any money to church. About 11 percent of evangelicals (defined by belief) never attend a church, so perhaps it makes sense that they don’t give to one either.

But according to a survey, another 15 percent attend church but never put money in the plate. Giving, historically, increases with income and age, but the study notes that millennials and Gen Z are much more likely to give directly to family, friends, or even strangers than to support institutions.

Percentage Of Income Evangelicals Give to a Church:

10% give more than 8%

23% give 2% to 8%

26% give 0%

42% give less than 2%

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.

Kirk Cousins, starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, makes more in a year than many people make in a lifetime. But NFL careers have an expiration date. In fact, an old joke is that NFL stands for “not for long.” So, Cousins is committed to giving and saving in a way that will enable his family to continue giving generously for the rest of his life.

Back in 2005, when he was in high school, Cousins heard about the ministry of International Justice and their work fighting human trafficking and slavery. Cousins was moved. Instead of traveling with the organization or joining the staff, he had in his mind that he wanted to support IJM financially. Cousins said. “I walked out of the service that night and prayed, God give me more to steward, give me an opportunity to help some day.”

That didn’t happen immediately. But after college, Cousins was drafted to the Washington Football Team in 2012 as a backup quarterback, signing a $2.5 million four-year rookie contract. In his fourth year, the team promoted him to starting quarterback and he signed a one-year $20 million deal. When his contract expired, the Team signed him for another year for $24 million. Going into his seventh year in the NFL, Cousins and the team weren’t able to agree on a long-term deal, and he signed a three-year fully guaranteed $84 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings in 2018.

He quipped, “There aren’t many starting quarterbacks who are 50 or 60 years old. At some point, unfortunately, what I’m doing ends—earlier than I’d like—and the income stream gets cut off.” With that in mind, Cousins is learning to save so that even after he is no longer playing professional football, he can increase his giving percentage each year.

A Conyers, Ga., resident is out $6,500 after his plan to hide a wad of cash backfired. After 27-year-old Devon Silvey sold his car, he took the cash to his mother’s house for safekeeping. Rather than tell his mom about the money, Silvey hid it in an old Mickey Mouse tumbler. When he returned days later, Silvey discovered the mug missing. Silvey’s mother had put the mug and other clutter in a box and taken it to a Goodwill store.

“That mug had literally sat in our cabinet untouched for about 15 years,” the mother told Newsweek, adding that she felt like “the worst mom in the world.” Goodwill apparently then sold the mug without checking the contents. Silvey’s mother is now asking the person who bought the mug to return the money.

Possible Preaching Angle:

When it comes to handling our money, some of us are careless, giving little thought for the future. God is most pleased with those who handle their money wisely and give deliberately (1 Cor. 16:2) and joyfully (2 Cor. 9:7) to God.

The richest 80 people on Earth are now as wealthy as the world's 3.5 billion poorest people. In other words, 80 people control as much wealth as half the population of the planet. That's one of the most shocking findings from a report released by Oxfam, an international charity dedicated to finding solutions to global poverty.

Take, for example, Larry Ellison, the third-ranking deep pocket on this year's Forbes list. Ellison just stepped down as the CEO of the Oracle business software colossus. His net worth: $50 billion. What does Ellison do with all those billions? He collects homes and estates, for starters, with 15 or so scattered all around the world. Ellison likes yachts, too. He currently has two extremely big ones, each over half as long as a football field.

Ellison also likes to play basketball, even on his yachts. If a ball bounces over the railing, no problem. Ellison has a powerboat following his yacht, the Wall Street Journal noted this past spring, "to retrieve balls that go overboard."

Possible Preaching Angles: It is hard to imagine having that much money, but in reality we are no different than Ellison and other multibillionaires. How we spend our money, however little we have, still reveals what we value. We show what we value with our wallets.