I couple of weeks ago, one of our Bible Study participants brought up the idea of applying the principle of tithing (10% to the church) to our time. He felt that our time should be subject to the tithe as well as our money.
I love the idea myself. As a Pastor, I have to admit I was getting pretty excited as I thought about it. What if people gave 10% of their time to the church? What would that look like?
The obvious is that we would always have enough volunteers to work our dinners and Angel Food Ministry distributions, our committees would always have plenty of people participating in the various things that the committees specialize in, and our volunteer church cleaning crews would have enough people to do the cleaning in no time at all.
But what else? I think these would be just the tip of the iceberg. I think that our Bible Studies and Christian Ed classes would be overflowing. But more than that, I think that there would be people here, at the church. Things would get done without a big program to do them. Needs of the church would be filled, without announcing them for weeks on end asking for volunteers. When people saw something that needed to be done, they would do it, because they were here anyway.
Most importantly, ministry would happen. As hard as it is to raise monetary resources in a small church, the hardest resource to come by is people. Can you think with me the ministry that could be done with enough people eagerly dedicated to working for the Lord?
Maybe I’m dreaming. Yet maybe that’s the vision Jesus had…
I love the idea myself. As a Pastor, I have to admit I was getting pretty excited as I thought about it. What if people gave 10% of their time to the church? What would that look like?
The obvious is that we would always have enough volunteers to work our dinners and Angel Food Ministry distributions, our committees would always have plenty of people participating in the various things that the committees specialize in, and our volunteer church cleaning crews would have enough people to do the cleaning in no time at all.
But what else? I think these would be just the tip of the iceberg. I think that our Bible Studies and Christian Ed classes would be overflowing. But more than that, I think that there would be people here, at the church. Things would get done without a big program to do them. Needs of the church would be filled, without announcing them for weeks on end asking for volunteers. When people saw something that needed to be done, they would do it, because they were here anyway.
Most importantly, ministry would happen. As hard as it is to raise monetary resources in a small church, the hardest resource to come by is people. Can you think with me the ministry that could be done with enough people eagerly dedicated to working for the Lord?
Maybe I’m dreaming. Yet maybe that’s the vision Jesus had…
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