The Tithe

During our first year of marriage, my wife worked for a large non-profit that dealt with issues surrounding homelessness. As she was visiting various homeless shelters that Fall, she heard a common plea from fellow staffers: winter coats. Their clients were cold and coats were in short supply. We longed to do something to help out, but the only money available to us that month was (gasp!) our tithe…

We sought advice from various ordained minister types on whether or not this was a legit use of our tithe (this was back in my litmus test Christianity days). The answer? The tithe belonged to the church, umm, I mean God and we would have to sacrifice in other ways to help the homeless. Needless to say we were disturbed by this universal lack of response to individuals who were suffering (no mission committees offered to help either).

So after seeking this advice we promptly went and filled our little Civic full of brightly colored winter coats from Steve and Barry’s and dropped them off with the staff at the shelters. It was quite a kick seeing bright yellow and red coats all over the streets of Baton Rouge that winter.

Sometimes we in the church can’t see the forest for the trees. We get so caught up in the structures, rules, and minutia of being an institution that we lose sight of who Christ calls us to be on occasion. I am certainly as guilty of this as the next person. The “what I am supposed to do” often overwhelms the “who I am supposed to be”.