Motivations Behind Generosity
Americans are weird about money. We don’t like to let people know how much a gift cost, we won’t say how much we paid for a house, it’s not right to ask someone how much money they make, and we are immediately suspicious of anyone that seems like they’re asking for a handout.
Of course, this is not entirely without reason. The Jim Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggarts have made even Christians hesitate to pull their wallets out for the kingdom of God. But now that Cindy, Sean, and I are seriously talking about raising support for our work in Thailand, it is bringing up some issues. On the one hand, asking for support seems to be the same as begging, and didn’t God say He would provide everything we need anyway? Why do we need to ask anyone but Him for money? On the other hand, aren’t the generous responses of other people the means by which God will give us that provision?
Firstly, there’s truth in both of these statements. I know of people whom God has told to not ask for a thing, and He has always provided for them. In fact, to my knowledge we have no record of Jesus Himself asking for money or support even though he had “no place to lay his head.” Cindy and I recently met a couple in charge of a ministry in Hong Kong that provides material needs to other ministries in Asia. These other ministries will put in a request like: “We need 50 beds for our orphanage.” The HK ministry doesn’t ask anybody for those beds, instead (if they don’t already have them) they get on their knees and pray. Every single time the beds (or whatever they ask for) will show up and they can pass it on. So living completely on God’s provision, without asking for anything, is both Biblical and practical in God’s kingdom.
Likewise, we have a strong Biblical basis for asking for support. Paul asked boldly and eloquently in II Corinthians 8-10, for example. So asking for support is both Biblical and practical as well. As we were talking about it, it occurred to me that neither tactic is inherently right or wrong, but rather both can be done in good conscience or with prideful hearts. Let’s look at possible prideful and humble reasons that we might choose to ask, or not ask, for money:
| Asking for Support | Not Asking for Support | |
| Prideful Reasons | “I can’t survive without money.”
“I’m not certain God will provide if I don’t help myself.” |
“I don’t need to live on other people’s charity.”
“I don’t want to coerce anyone into giving me money I didn’t earn.” |
| Humble Reasons | “Other people, who may have money but not time, will want to join in the work God has for us.”
“I want to encourage a generous heart in my brothers and sisters.” |
“I believe God when He says that I will receive whatever I ask for, and I know that He knows my needs.” |
Notice that the prideful reasons are based on fear or a strong sense of self. Conversely, the humble reasons are focused on God or others. I didn’t do that on purpose - that is simply the nature of pride and humility. Pride and fear come when we are thinking about ourselves and what is good for us. Humility is looking to God and others and what is good for them.
So if both means can be either good or bad, then how do we decide where to receive our support? Just as in every other decision, we have to look to God alone and listen for His answer, and search our own hearts to see what our true motives are. God cares so much more about what’s in our hearts than about where (or if) we get our money.
I intend on asking for support, not because I think we need it, but because in the last 5 months I have had numerous people spontaneously offer their support and I want to allow them to love us, and love God, in that way. Some people are just Givers. They have a generous heart, and all they want is an outlet. When we send out support letters and talk at churches, we will be speaking primarily to the Givers and saying, “Here is an outlet for your generosity, if you want it.”
There may be people who see our requests for money and think that we just want a free handout, or that we need their money, or that our cause isn’t “good enough”, or that we have any number of other alterior motives. I’m not talking to them. If I thought that we needed the support of those we ask in order to survive, then I would spend more time persuading them and convincing them, but I’m not going to do that for our sake. We will be asking people to support us for their benefit, not our’s. If nobody gives us money, it will be better for us - we will learn truly what it means to live out of God’s hand, and it will be worse for them - they will have missed an opportunity to learn the joy of generosity.
Adam! Came across your blog after checking out the Mexico pictures on Ray’s website! Really cool to “read” you think through the process of asking or praying for your material needs as you prepare to move to Thailand. You’re ight in line with Jamie’s message on tithing and giving a couple months back: one has great rewards for giving!
Someone told me recently (don’t know the details or if it’s even true, but it most likely is) that a guy in Russia wanted to start an orphanage and felt the best way would be to just pray it into existence. He prayed on his knees but told no one about his idea and before long he had an orphange!
Hi guys
As Adam requested, I’ve added you to the Vineyard Aggregator. Moving to Tailand sounds facinating - I shall have to read some more when it’s not so late over here. On money, I think if you’re planning to go and work for God abroad, money is an issue which has to be tackled, and you have to ask.
If you’re interested, I have friends who are doing that now, and seem to have quite a good balance about money, and I’m sure they’d be happy to talk with you about it via email (i hope that’s not patronising)- drop me a line if you’re interested.
I’ll be reading along
Cheers - Steve
Ah yes, the debate of support v. no support. I think it really is a case by case basis…sometimes we need to be like Christ and those that relied solely on God, at other times we need to be like Paul, proactive in asking. In my BSF class I remember hearing about George Mueller who was one of those who relied solely on prayer…God never ceased to provide. On the other hand, I am certain some missions and missionaries would never have accomplished what they have without the finanacial support they have/had.
Anyway, the only practical advice I am giving (because you’ve already decided to accept financial support) is to make sure you go through a sending agency of some sort for financial accountability. This can be as simple as having the funds go through Coast Vineyard. You can also look into ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability); I don’t know if they do individual cases like yours, but I know that any group that goes through them is held accountable for their funds.
Adam, I am not aware of your doctrines, so I’ll give you mine. God is a faith builder, when you pray for support, you are not changing God, but you. He has all
ready called you to the work, prayer will increase your capacity to recieve his supply by the faith in your inner man, the spirit man. Paul received the gift from Corinth(those who were of this faith) so that by there giving, they would be recipients of futher blessing of God. With the measure you give, the same measure will be given onto you, pressed down, etc. So pray for the purpose of confidence(faith)that God will supply you needs. Then give an offering to another of God’s works, to put works to your new level of faith. Regards, K D
You are now at the point where the rubber meets the pavement. You are absolutely right about offering others the opportunity to share in the blessing provided by your vision and desire to serve God in this way. For my Brazil trip I sent out a support letter with that in mind as I had already budgeted sufficient funds to cover the trip. God blessed me more than you can imagine as He did the handful who wanted to share in where God was leading me. Not everyone has the vision or desire to do something that you are planning to do but they don’t want to be left out of doing Kingdom work and they find something like this a natural way of doing it. I know the many people I have supported over the years have been involved in a ministry that I could not be personally involved with and God provided the opportunity and desire to support financially. There are times I have elected not to give support because I just couldn’t feel God giving me the desire for whatever reason. All I know is that as a giver and a receiver it is God at work and blesses those who obey. If people give because it is easier to give than to do they are giving with the wrong motivation and God can’t bless. The fun is watching how GOd pulls it all together in humanly unexplainable terms. It’s His responsbility - leave it with Him.
Just keep me informed Adam. Sunny and I will support His work through you as best we can.
Thanks for all your comments, guys. I appreciate the love and support you have already shown and if we get only your prayers, it will be more than enough.
I know if we were asking for money for our benefit, I’d stress. But I’m not worried about it. It’s entirely possible that’s because I’ve never had to worry about where my next meal is coming from (as most Americans), and if that’s the case you’ll get to watch our struggles from here. But don’t worry on our behalf.
God has called us to this, and if we never asked others (only Him), He’d provide. I know this because (1) He said so and (2) because we haven’t asked and there’s already a line of people waiting to support us :-)