In our latest installment of “Generously Speaking”, 5.0, Reverend Ed Priestaf, newly appointed pastor of Ebenezer UMC in Raleigh, reflects on the meaning of tithing. Ed is a graduate of Candler School of Theology and a native of Michigan. This is Ed’s second appointment in the NC Annual Conference. Feel free to use this as an intro to the Sunday morning offering, as a bulletin insert, or as both…
Generously Speaking
About ten years ago, my wife and I were adjusting to life with our first newborn child. We had not been going to church – like many couples in our modern times, church had long since moved far down on our list of priorities. The baby kept us up all night, we would leave the house with everything but the kitchen sink, and our work schedules left little opportunity for sleeping in. Sunday was our day to relax; why would we want to wake up early, get dressed up, change the baby’s routine, pack the stroller, diaper bag, extra clothes, and pretend to be happy for an hour of distracted discomfort?
Even so, as my wife and I reflected on what it might mean to be good parents, each of us remembered that we had been brought up in church as children. Church was an important part of our identity as people, and some of the better lessons of childhood had been learned in those nurturing church environments. Like many parents, we decided to give it a try – for our baby’s sake! Little did we know that it wasn’t just for our baby’s sake that God wanted us in church; God was inviting our whole family into a relationship with Jesus.
I’ll never forget that first Sunday. After getting our child into the nursery and taking our places in the pews, the worship leader announced that there was a guest speaker delivering the sermon that day. The guest was a staff member at a Christian financial planning organization. I don’t remember everything he said, but I remember this as if it was yesterday: “Your money is not your own. Nothing that you have is your own. It is God’s. You are the stewards of God’s money, of God’s resources. God has entrusted you with God’s gifts, and God has directed you to share God’s resources with your brothers and sisters through the church. It’s not just a church idea; it’s the way your life is meant to be! If you are not tithing now, God desires that you move toward offering a tithe: the first tenth of your income.”
For some reason, I drank up the words that he proclaimed as if my family’s very lives depended upon them. I came looking for a blessing for my new son; I took away my responsibility as God’s child, which led to even more blessings. I wish I could say we were able to start tithing right away; I think we began at 5% of our income and moved toward 10% over the next year. Our faith journey has been one of ups and downs, and we place our hope not in our own faithfulness, but in God’s grace which is sufficient. We have always tried to live into the grace-filled call that God placed upon our lives. When we struggle, it is God’s grace that woos us back in love and faithful response to the Gospel. When we are faithful, it is a goodness that we have not experienced anywhere else. That life of grace and response began with a decision to offer God what God asked of us.
I wonder what God would do in the lives of our congregations if all of us responded to God’s invitation to share God’s abundance!
Ed Priestaf
Pastor, Ebenezer UMC – Raleigh
