Money, money, money. Some times you just can’t escape it! That’s certainly been the case for me this week. Part of it involves wrestling with how best to use the money God has given me. How do I know what to do with it? (rent or buy?) Who do I give it to? (church or strangers?) How do I treat it? (blessing or a curse?) Do I buy myself nice things? (HDTV or McDonald’s?) Or is that wrong? (freedom or guilt?)
The other part of it has been influenced by watching people I consider my “peers” take higher paying jobs. I’d like to say that I always put God first in these matters, but I don’t. I find myself jealous of their financial success. And I know deep down that if I made some changes in my life I would have those nice things too.
But those changes would come at a cost. And that cost would be sacrificing God. At this point in my life there are some material things I can not have AND be following God’s plan for my life. Hopefully that will change one day, but for now, I can not have both.
One other recent event, however, has really focused my thoughts on money – fund raising drives on a few Christian radio stations (you know who you are). I have no idea what kind of a challenge it is to run a non-profit radio station. I imagine it’s difficult to get people to donate money. It’s hard enough getting them to pay for music! But as I listened I began to feel a bit uncomfortable. Something just didn’t “feel” right. “Maybe this was the only way they could hit their goals” I thought.
I began to think about how God handles finances. I kept asking myself, “is this really how God wants us to raise money?” 2 Corinthians 9:7 tells us that each person “should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
But that’s not what I hear coming from the radio. What I hear is this: a competition. A competition between people to “fund” a certain amount of programming an hour. A competition to get matching funds. A competition to be the next caller. The “if you act now, we’ll throw in a free toaster oven” routine. Which, ironically, I could really use…
Now I admit I haven’t listened to all of the on-air comments, or all of the Christian stations that are fund raising, so maybe I am missing the bulk of what they are saying. But so much of what I have heard has been secular in nature. There is no difference between the fund raising for this radio station and Public Television fund raising. So I have to ask – shouldn’t there be? Aren’t Christians called to live a different kind of life than the secular world?
I don’t believe God wants us to give for the sake of giving. Just like he doesn’t want us to love him because he said so. He wants us to make those decisions because we want to make those choices. God is all about us freely choosing to follow him. And because of this he has stayed away from manipulation. We choose to follow him, or not, based purely on our own decisions.
So what about these Christian fund raisers?
This is the problem as I see it: when you make the fund raising about meeting quotas, matching donations, and free gifts you are removing the one thing it should be about - God. Of course there is nothing wrong with quotas, donations, and gifts in and of themselves. They just can’t be the focus. People should be asked to give because it’s something God puts on their heart, not because we are being told to “act now.”
After all, isn’t God the whole point of Christian radio? Isn’t he the whole point of Christian churches? And Christian ministry? And Christian faith? What good is it to have any of those things if God is not being honored?
In the Old Testament, Israel time and again told God “no, let us handle this, we know better. We want to show the world what we’re made of.” So they would take measures into their own hands and make decisions without consulting God. As one would expect, disaster would always follow. They acted instead of letting God act. They didn’t trust that he would protect them, so they went about protecting themselves.
It seems to me that every year these radio station fund raising goals fall short. Sometimes significantly. I have to wonder, how much greater would their impact be if they fully trusted God to raise the money instead of relying upon worldly “competition” and various psychological techniques of motivation? Wouldn’t they be more successful if they built their entire campaign around helping people to understand why God wants us to be generous, rather than doing things that feel like manipulation?
Sure it’s a lot scarier and definitely less certain when we allow God to act. But just as the Israelites found out, it’s always better. Sometimes we have to trust that the path God wants us to walk is leading somewhere good. Even if following that path seems counter cultural.
