What Kind of People Persevere in Giving?

The Community Center is going up. Soon thousands of people from our surrounding community will be able to receive free medical services, coaching for new jobs, English as a second language lessons, sports leagues for their children, music, arts, dance, marital counseling, daycare services, etc. Members of our church started off phenomenally in fulfilling their three-year pledges. After nine months we were running at about 98% of our pledged amount.

Unfortunately over the past three months there has been a significant decline in the fulfillment of pledges. We are now at about 91% of our targeted pledge amount after a year of our capital campaign.

What kind of people persevere in giving?

There is a man named Albert Lexie. You've never heard of Albert. He is a 63-year old shoe shiner in Pittsburgh. In 1981 he watched a telethon for the children's hospital in Pittsburgh and he scraped together a $730 donation to give to the children's hospital. Over the last two decades, he's given over $90,000 to the hospital. He saves it from the tips he makes polishing shoes. Albert lives on $10,000 a year. He recently emailed President Bush and asked the President whether he could shine his shoes. Albert said: "I'll bet the President would give me a $100 tip. Then I would have even more to give to the kids at the children's hospital."

Some of you may have heard the story of Michael Redd, the great basketball player from OSU who is now a Milwaukee Buck All-star. Michael's dad, James, was a stand-out basketball player at West High School, where Michael also attended school. James was recruited by Bobby Knight, Digger Phelps, and Dick Vitale ("Awesome Baby!"). But James' mom was ill at the time, and so he decided to stay home and attend Capital University. He met his wife there. He taught Michael how to play basketball by putting a pink trash can in the hallway and having him throw wiffle balls into it when Michael was just two.

Michael grew up to be an NBA All-Star. Not only has he bought his parents a house, but because his dad, James, is a pastor, he just bought his dad a church building. Along with all of Michael's other charitable giving, he just gave several million dollars to build a beautiful 500-person church on the eastside of Columbus.

Michael Redd and Albert Lexie (a wealthy basketball star and a poor shoe-shiner) are both extraordinary givers. Here is what I've discovered about persevering givers over the past 20 years of pastoring:

1. Volunteers Give
   The more someone volunteers at church or for a charity or non-profit, the more they give - and the more they consistently give. In other words, givers are people who tend to be generous not only with a check, but also with their time.

2. Active Christians Give
   One of the clearest findings of all the research on giving and volunteering is that the volunteer donor is likely to be an active Christian. This is a better predictor than income, age, race, or education.

3. Regular Church Attenders Give
   About a third of Americans attend religious services every week. They give two-thirds of all charitable contributions in the nation. And they just don't give to their churches. Two-thirds of all contributions for non-religious charitable enterprises come from regular church attenders.

4. Biblical Christians Give
   The research is also clear; those who say that their primary duty is to help others commit their lives to Christ give more than anybody else in America. As a general rule, the more biblically committed a person is, the higher their giving is.

5. People who give the most complain the least in church.
   There is a myth that says that when someone gives a lot to a church they are going to be the most demanding. But in all my years of pastoring, I have found exactly the opposite. There is an inverse relationship between complaining about something in church and giving. The truth is, the folks who give the least complain the most. Folks who are serving, generous with their time and giving, complain the least.

6. Most people want to give.
   I've talked with so many folks about how they are doing spiritually and about their giving. The majority of people say they want to give more than they are giving. They just need practical help. They feel strapped by too many bills. They feel like their finances are out of control. That's why we do financial counseling and Crown Financial groups. My experience is that if you are a follower of Jesus, you want to give. The vast majority of followers of Jesus want to give more than they are currently giving. And they want to not be occasional guilt-driven givers, but persevering grace-driven givers.

If you have made a pledge to our community center, please persevere until the pledge is fulfilled. If you haven't made a pledge, prayerfully consider making one. There are few things in life more reflective of the heart of God than giving. As the apostle John puts it in the most famous verse in the Bible: "For God so loved the world that he gave…"