Generosity ...

A YouTube vidoe talking about generosity. 

Giving Core Value

A video with a short definition of the word giving referenced to the Kingdom of God with a high energy music backing. Great as an intro to a service or sermon on giving.

God's Pie

A man serves pie to all the expenses in his life. He is about to eat the last piece when he notices one more person at the table: the One who brought the pie.

Next Door

Whilst caring for some of the neediest people on earth Mother Teresa entered one hovel where she confronted children with hollow eyes and emaciated parents. They hadn’t eaten in days. Mother Teresa had brought to the family a small portion of rice. When she presented the rice to the mother, the mother divided it into two equal parts, and then rose to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” she asked. The woman answered “Next door they are hungry also.”

The gift without the giver is bare

"It is the personal element that Christian discipleship needs to emphasize. ‘The gift without the giver is bare.' The Christianity that attempts to suffer by proxy is not the Christianity of Christ. Each individual Christian business man, citizen, needs to follow in His steps along the path of personal sacrifice to Him. There is not a different path to-day from that of Jesus' own times. It is the same path. The call of this dying century and of the new one soon to be, is a call for a new discipleship, a new following of Jesus, more like the early, simple, apostolic Christianity, when the disciples left all and literally followed the Master. Nothing but a discipleship of this kind can face the destructive selfishness of the age with any hope of overcoming it. There is a great quantity of nominal Christianity to-day. There is need of more of the real kind. We need revival of the Christianity of Christ. We have, unconsciously, lazily, selfishly, formally grown into a discipleship that Jesus himself would not acknowledge. He would say to many of us when we cry, ‘Lord, Lord,' ‘I never knew you!' Are we ready to take up the cross? Is it possible for this church to sing with exact truth,

‘Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee?'

If we can sing that truly, then we may claim discipleship.

Charles M Sheldon in "In His Steps - What Would Jesus Do" p237

John Wesley's Giving

In 1731 John Wesley the founder of Methodism began to limit his expenses so that he would have more money to give to the poor. In the first year his income was 30 pounds and he found he could live on 28 and so gave away two. In the second year his income doubled but he held his expenses even, and so he had 32 pounds to give away (a comfortable year’s income). In the third year his income jumped to 90 pounds and gave away 62 pounds. In his long life Wesley’s income advanced to as high as 1,400 pounds in a year. But he rarely let his expenses rise above 30 pounds. He said that he seldom had more than 100 pounds in his possession at a time. This so baffled the English Tax Commissioners that they investigated him in 1776 insisting that for a man of his income he must have silver dishes that he was not paying excise tax on. He wrote them, “I have two silver spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread.” When he died in 1791 at the age of 87 the only money mentioned in his will was the coins to be found in his pockets and dresser. Most of the 30,000 pounds he had earned in his life had been given away. He wrote, I cannot help leaving my books behind me whenever God calls me hence; but in every other respect, my own hands will be my executors. In other words, I will put a control on my spending myself, and I will go beyond the tithe for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.

Quoted from: www.soundofgrace.com/piper95/09-10-95.htm

Cookies At The Airport

A woman was waiting at an airport one night
There were several long hours to wait for her flight.
She hunted for reading in the airport's gift shop
bought a big bag of cookies -- found a place she could drop.

She was engrossed in her book, but she happened to see
a man sat beside her -- as bold as can be
and grabbed up a cookie from the bag in between
which she tried to ignore -- and not make a scene.

She munched at her cookies and glanced at the clock
as the masculine cookie-thief diminished her stock!
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by
Thinking, "If I wasn't a lady, I'd blacken his eye!"

With each cookie she took, he took one or two.
With only one left, she watched what he'd do
With a grin on his face, and a nice nervous laugh
He took the last cookie and broke it in half!

He offered her half as he munched on the other
She snatched from him and murmured "Oh Brother!
This guy has some nerve, and he's also quite rude
He never showed even polite gratitude."

She had never known when she had been quite so galled
She smiled with relief when her flight -- it was called.
She gathered her stuff and marched to the gate.
(With not even a glance at the thieving ingrate.)

She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
Then sought out her book which was almost complete.
As she reached in her bag, she gasped with surprise,
Her bag of cookies were in front of her eyes!

"If mine are right here," she moaned in despair,
then the others were his and he was trying to share!
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!

Author Valerie Cox - From the book: A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul

Ten Percent Meets All The Needs

A husband and wife team of researchers, the founders of Empty Tomb, Inc., in Champaign, Illinois, have tracked American and American Christian expenditures as well as global needs. John and Sylvia Ronsvalle have estimated that $70-$80 billion a year could meet the most essential human needs around the world. "Projects for clean water and sanitation, prenatal and infant/maternal care, basic education, immunizations, and long-term development efforts are among the activities that could help overcome the poverty conditions that now kill and maim so many children and adults."

The Ronsvalles go on to write, "That figure of $70-$80 billion may sound like anything but good news. God may be generous, you may agree, but has he been that generous? Consider this: If church members in the United States would increase their giving to 10 percent of their income, there could be an additional $86 billion available for overseas missions."

Craig L. Blomberg, Preaching the Parables (Baker Academic, 2004) p. 51. Updated statistics from www.emptytomb.com

The Scorpion

“A holy man was engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him.

“An observer came along and said to the holy man, ‘Don’t you know that’s a scorpion, and it’s in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting?’

“To which the holy man replied, ‘That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature?”

Traditional

Charity at Home

Charity begins and home and all too often ends where it begins. Horace Smith

John Grisham

‘My wife and I measure the success of a year on how much we give away. The bulk of it goes to church related activity.'

Novelist John Grisham (quoted from A Box of Delights p 72 from USA today 2/11/99)

Good Value

After church one Sunday morning, a mother commented, ‘The Choir was awful this morning.' The Father commented, ‘The sermon was too long.' Their seven year old daughter added, ‘ But you've got to admit it was a pretty good show for 10p.'

From A box of Delights p 72

Long Walk

In a remote village in Central America the word got out among the peoples of the region that one of the American missionaries that had served this country for many years was about to return to the US to live out the remaining years of her life.

The nationals desired to honor her for her years of service with a public time of appreciation. News of the event went to all parts of the country in which the people knew the missionary. One very old and very poor man walked to the ceremony over mountainous terrain for 4 days to bring his gift to the missionary.

The gift consisted of 2 coconuts, but it was all the man had. The missionary recognized the man as coming from the remote village in the mountains.

"Brother, I cannot believe that you would walk so far to present me with this gift," said the missionary to the man.

His response: "Long walk part of gift."

From the Sermon Fodder Email list

Ten Pounds

The minister arose to address his congregation. "There is a certain man among us today who is flirting with another man's wife. Unless he puts ten pounds in the collection box, his name will be read from the pulpit."

When the collection plate came in, there were 19 ten pound notes, and a five pound note with this note attached: "Other five on payday."

Quoted and adapted from the SermonFodder email list

The strong man

The strong man at the circus was demonstrating his strength by taking a green stick and squeezing the sap out of it. When he had squeezed out several drops, he asked if anyone from the audience would like to try, and a frail-looking little lady came forward, took the stick in both hands, and squeezed. To the amazement of the strong man, a stream of sap ran down over her knuckles.

"Who are you, anyhow, lady? he asked?

"Oh, I'm just the treasurer at the Baptist church, she replied.

Quoted from net153.com email list

The last part

The last part of a person to be converted is their wallet.

Spirit Level by Ann Bird, Methodist Publishing p5

Hit him again, Lord!

The congregation knew the roof was leaking and needed replacement, but they kept putting it off. Finally some areas of the ceiling in the sanctuary began to sag. They called a congregational meeting to address the problem, and the richest member of the congregation rose to say that he would pledge $1000 toward fixing the roof. Just then a small piece of the ceiling fell and hit him on the head. Somebody in the back of the church said, "Hit him again, Lord!"

From the Eculaugh website

What to pray for?

Sometimes when we pray, as the Bible says, "We don't know what to pray for." That leads to some interesting dilemmas. That was the case for one pastor.

"I want to tithe," a man told his pastor, "I want to give 10 percent of my income to my church. When my income was $50 a week, I gave $5 to the church every week. When I was successful in business and my weekly income rose to $500 a week, I gave $50 to my church every week. But now my income has gone to $5,000 a week, and I just can't bring myself to give $500 to the church every week."

The pastor said, "Why don't we pray over this?" The pastor began to pray, "Dear God, please make this man's weekly income $500 a week so that he can tithe again..."

- Rev. John L. Mand, "Holy Humor" by way of wit and wisdom quoted from SermonFodder email list