This week, The Barna Group published research on tithing in the United States. In 2007, 84% of U.S. adults donated money to churches or non-profit organizations, but only 5% of adults tithed. This is not too surprising. Pastors already know paying tithes is not a habit of most Christians.
What interests me is Barna’s analysis of which demographic groups tithe the most and tithe the least.
Who tithes in the United States?
Religion
24% of evangelicals
12%of people who have prayed, read the Bible, and attended a church service during the past week
11% of charismatic or Pentecostal Christians
9% of all born again adults
8% of Protestants
2% of Catholics
1% or less of atheists and agnostics
Politics
12% of conservatives
10% of registered Republicans
1% or less of liberals
General
5% of adults
1%or less of downscale adults (Those whose annual household income is less than $20,000 and who have not attended college)
1%or less of people under the age of 25
1%or less of single adults who have never been married
It stuns me that the percentage of Catholics tithing is not much higher that the percentage of atheists and agnostics who tithe. And equally surprising is that conservatives out-tithe liberals by at least 12 to 1.
But what surprises me the most is only 1 in 100 people younger than 25 tithe. And the same is true for singles who have never been married.
How can a church effectively get more of its members to start tithing?
Obviously, discipleship is a factor since people who pray, read the Bible, and attend church weekly are among those most likely to pay tithes. And I think it is also vital for church leadership to communicate the importance of tithing, whether from the pulpit, small groups, or leading by example. Congregations tend to be strong in areas that are modeled by leadership.
This week at the 2008 Q Conference, Jon Tyson of Origins Church (New York, NY) discussed the necessity of the re-urbanization of the church. Here is a mix of direct notes and paraphrased notes from several bloggers at the conference.
The Re-urbanization of the Church
The early church did it. In Acts, 120 people changed culture for the Kingdom of God. And because of them, 32 million of the 60 million people in Roman Empire were reached three hundred years later.
But why aren’t we seeing any change today?
We have people coming to Christ (individual renewal), but we are not seeing cultural renewal.
There is a lack of clarity on how culture works. Many people pull out of culture, but culture itself is neither bad nor good. You have to tackle the systems that run the world, otherwise you create a dualism. How systems are used determines whether they are good or evil.
We must address how the world is structured – the city, and systems. We need to deconstruct the bad systems and replace them with good systems. We need to return to the city, where culture is shaped. Paul performed cultural acupuncture by impacting cities. We need to train and release people into our cities’ channels of culture.
Just being kind and loving doesn’t cut it. We don’t just reach people out of an evil system. We need to change the system.
When it started raining, it did not look good for the 2008 Easter Egg Hunt at The Rock Church (Lynnwood, WA). Fortunately, the children’s ministry director had the innovative idea to move the Easter egg hunt indoors and bury them underneath thousands of packing peanuts. For an extra measure of fun, they added a blower.
Lead Pastor Scott Harris offers this warning to churches who want to host their own packing peanut Easter egg hunts – “The packing peanuts go everywhere, including the HVAC system!” Often the best ideas require more effort.
Pace Hartfield, the worship and creative pastor at Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX), posted a video of their Easter 2008 service. The projection screens display some great usage of motion graphics.
Be sure to regularly check out Pace Hartfield’s blog for the latest on Fellowship Church’s worship.
By its very nature, children’s ministry is challenging, but special needs ministry takes the challenge to a whole new level. Any children’s pastor familiar with teaching special needs children understands the importance of developing a unique approach and relationship with each child. It takes a great deal of effort, but it is well worth it when you can effectively connect and minister to a special needs child.
Autistic children are known for avoiding eye contact. And new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has identified why.
Autistic children shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat.
That is good to know, especially if you minister to autistic children. It was previously assumed autistic children struggled to process faces because of a malfunction in the brain’s fusiform region. This new research, however, shows that autistic children have “fundamentally normal” fusiforms but try to avoid eye contact because it over-arouses their amygdalas (an area linked to anxiety and mood disorders).
For Discussion:
- What advice do you have for ministering to special needs children?
The Center for Church Communications (CFCC) has had great success with their Flickr Church Marketing Lab. And now members are hoping to capture the synergy of the online lab and bring it to their communities by creating local labs. There are already seventeen regions across the United States that are creating local church marketing labs, and the list is growing.
One of those regions is my community – Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are already networking on Flickr and Facebook, and we plan to have our first meeting at 6:00 PM on Monday, April 7th at the Panera Bread at 71st and Garnett.
If you are in the Tulsa area and want to talk church communications, I would love to see you at the meeting. We will be meeting on the first Monday of every month. Meeting locations may vary from month to month. For the latest details, visit the Tulsa Church Communications Lab’s Facebook page.
For those of you outside of Tulsa, you can join an existing local church marketing lab or create a new one. Visit CFCC’s website for more information.
Just a friendly reminder that this year’s Internet Evangelism Day is April 27th. So be sure to take the next several weeks to consider how your ministry can better use the Internet for outreach.
