Weekly Update// Pastor Chris

Dear Asbury Family,

 This upcoming Sunday, November 19, marks Celebration-Commitment Sunday. We’ll hold a combined service at 10:45 am in the sanctuary, where we'll confirm students, celebrate the milestones of our ministry from the past year (and there are many!), and pledge ourselves to the kingdom work that God intends for our church in 2024. Remember to bring along your 2024 Commitment Card (if you intend to worship online, you can submit your card via our website) and a side dish for the potluck that follows.

As we prepare for this Sunday, I wanted to share the manuscript copy of last week's sermon on the significance of financial giving. While surrendering to Jesus involves more than our giving, it includes our giving. My hope and prayer are that God will use this message to lead all of us towards a new level of generosity, both for the remaining part of this year and into the next.

Blessings,

Chris

“Gifts”

Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:15

Asbury UMC

November 12, 2023

In his book The Walk, Pastor Adam Hamilton recounts a conversation he had during tax season with an accountant named Dan Hutchins. Dan was in the process of carefully preparing his clients’ taxes, and as he and Adam spoke, he made an interesting comment. He said, “You know, Adam, you can tell a lot about a person by their taxes. A tax return is a kind of ‘selfie.’” Intrigued, Adam asked, “What do you mean?”

Dan proceeded to pull up a tax return of one of our nation’s former vice presidents. The man had made the return available to the public via the internet, and it was dated just a few years before his bid for office. The return revealed an adjusted gross household income of $200,000, relatively high compared to most Americans. Digging deeper into the return, Dan found a very high mortgage interest deduction relative to the family’s income. “This tells me,” Dan said, “that this family was probably living on the very edge of what they could afford. I’m going to guess that I will also find a very low level of charitable contributions given that this family was spending so much money on their home.” Sure enough, he was right. The family gave $300 to charity that year—$300 from an income of $200,000. That’s about one-tenth of 1 percent.

From there, Dan explained that he and his associates had developed something called a “Tax Return Credit Score,” a tool that lenders can use to gauge a person’s ability to repay a loan. They found that in many cases, this tool is actually more reliable than a person’s FICO or credit score. The Tax Return Credit score looks at how much money you spend on mortgage interest compared to your income and how much you give to charity, with 90% of the score depending on charitable giving.

According to this tool, those who spend most of their money on their home and don’t give much to charity are at a higher risk of defaulting on their loan. However, those who are generous and charitable are likely living within their financial means and are considered more reliable at repaying a loan.

It’s fascinating that Dan was describing in the language of accounting and economics a lesson that Jesus taught a long time ago in the most famous sermon he ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount: what we do with our money matters. In fact, what we do with our money reveals the condition of our hearts. Here’s what Jesus said

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Matthew 6:21 (NLT)

Money is not directionless; it follows the state of our heart. It goes exactly where our heart tells it to go, prompting this important question:

What does your MOST RECENT tax return reveal about the state of your heart? How much of our money went to us last year versus how much went to others, particularly to our local church?

We’re in week 4 of a 5-part sermon series titled “A Community That Thrives.” Our aim in these messages is to better understand the membership vow that we take when we join Asbury, and not just Asbury but any United Methodist congregation. This vow includes supporting the church and faithfully participating in its ministries in five keys ways: through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.

Notice the vow doesn’t say, “Our prayers or our presence or our gifts or our service or our witness,” but “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.” Discipleship, which simply means following Jesus, is not à la carte. We don’t pick from one column like volunteering and then ignore another column like giving. Jesus doesn’t simply want some or even most of who we are and what we possess; he wants all of it. This includes what we are going to discuss this morning: money. Everybody’s favorite sermon topic—Amen? Isn’t that why you came to worship this morning—to hear a sermon on money?

Listen, I am not naïve. I understand sermons on money tend to be unpopular. After all, money is a sensitive issue. It stirs up a mix of negative emotions, especially as we continue to navigate a world where expenses are on the rise. But we need to understand it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for people in biblical times. Some people back then were wealthy, but the majority of individuals had very little financial margin. Even so, when we read Jesus’ words in the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), we discover that Jesus speaks about money and material possessions more than he speaks of worship, prayer, and Scripture study COMBINED.

Jesus makes clear that our relationship with money—whether we think we have a lot or a little—has spiritual implications. Money is a tool that can either suffocate, choke out our spiritual life or deepen and support it. The choice is ours! Are we investing our money in the things of God or are we investing our money in things that don’t hold a candle to eternity?

It’s no secret that in our world today, where the average American experiences 47 commercials a day, we are bombarded with messages all the time, urging us to buy stuff we don’t need. Open your phone, scroll through social media, watch TV, listen to the radio—you’ll experience ads pushing you to get this and buy that, promising that these things will make you happy.

In less than two weeks, our culture is going to be observing the retail frenzy known as Black Friday. Originally started in the 1960s to encourage retailers to end their financial year in the black instead of ending it in the red, over the decades Black Friday has soared in popularity. Technically Black Friday, which marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, is supposed to begin the day after Thanksgiving. However, we all know many people flock to stores well before then, hoping to snatch up the best holiday deals.

I want to share with you some Black Friday shopping footage that was taken some years ago. Take a look!

"Did you catch what that newscaster said? Videos like that showing off chaos now seem as customary as the turkey dinner! Lord, help us! What have we become?"

I realize it’s highly unlikely that anyone at this church is going to the mall and taze somebody over a TV (at least I hope that doesn’t happen!). But if we’re honest, we have embraced our share of consumerism. We have participated in greedy forms of self-indulgence. We have forgotten these words of Jesus:

15 Then he [Jesus] said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. LIFE IS NOT MEASURED BY HOW MUCH YOU OWN.”

Luke 12:15 (NLT, emphasis added)

Despite Jesus’ message, it seems that many of us want to measure our life and well-being by how much we own—what kind of car we drive, what kind of house we live in, what sort of vacations we take, and how much money is in our bank account. We spend our money chasing after the latest gadget, the newest fad.

The antidote to resisting the lies of our consumer-driven world and embracing life as God intended is multifaceted. First, it involves gratitude and contentment for the things we have, which may not seem like much to us, but—you know what?—they’re far more than what many people have. Plenty of people don’t have access to adequate transportation; many of us do. Plenty of people don’t have a home; many of us do. Plenty of people don’t know where their next meal is going to come from; many of us have the luxury of not worrying about that.

In addition to gratitude and contentment, the other essential piece is generosity. Generosity realigns our perspective. Generosity reminds us that the world is so much bigger than us. Generosity compels us to look beyond ourselves and focus on others, thereby fulfilling what Jesus identified as the Great Commandment, love God and love our neighbor.

It goes without saying that there are many ways to practice generosity. However, a CRUCIAL WAY we as Christians do this is by expressing generosity to our local church, recognizing that when we do so, the work of Jesus goes forward in the world.

I so wish you could see what I see as the pastor, because every day I see Jesus using this church to reach people, change lives, and accomplish his mission. I want to share with you a message somebody wrote me after receiving Holy Communion at one of our worship services.

I hope your afternoon is going well. I wanted to tell you…that I have not taken part in communion for a long time because I did not feel I was worthy or in the right place in my faith. I realized this morning [after the message] it’s not about me being perfect before I partake; it’s about remembering what Jesus did for me…Coming to Asbury...has been eye opening and makes me think about my own faith and what I believe and have been taught all my life.

Somebody experienced God’s unconditional love at the table through the ministry of this church. Can we praise God for that? There are countless stories like this!

When we give, it’s not to keep the lights on; it’s to invest in Jesus’ ongoing work. However, it seems that many Christians hesitate to give to this work—or if they give, they give very little. It reminds me of a story about a man who came to church with his family. On the drive home, the man kept complaining about the service. “The music was too loud. The sermon was too long. The announcements were unclear. The people were unfriendly. The building was hot.” Finally, his son said, “Dad, you have to admit it wasn’t too bad of a show for that dollar you gave.”

We laugh but that story reveals the common approach people have toward giving.

I read a report this week that surprised me. Maybe it’ll surprise you, too! The report revealed that in a typical year 80% of church contributors (this is all church contributors) give so irregularly/infrequently that their combined donations make up 20% of total contributions. In contrast, 20% of donors account for the other 80% of total contributions (source: nucleus.church/blog/church-giving-statistics/).

That disparity is huge! 20% of contributors account for 80% of contributions. Now some people might challenge this information and say, “I bet those 20% of contributors are wealthy people.” Some of them might be but the majority are not. I promise there are wealthy people in this 80% category and people with relatively modest incomes in this 20% category. This isn’t really about the money; it’s about priorities. Oh, that all of us would make giving to the church a priority!

Churches are not businesses; they’re nonprofit organizations that rise or fall on the contributions of those who are members and attendees.

If we want our church to thrive, do well, and continue to accomplish great ministry, then collectively we need to step up and practice generosity. Not giving our church the bare minimum, not giving the leftovers in our budget once we’ve paid all our bills (too many Christians do that), but giving in a way that’s consistent, planned, intentional and sacrificial; that demonstrates on the tax return we’re going to submit next year that Jesus is indeed the Lord of our finances.

As Amanda and I have leaned into this by God’s grace (and I share this for no other reason than to be transparent) this means following the biblical precept of tithing, giving 10% of our combined (because she and I both work; God has given us both jobs) annual income to the church. Tithing is a value that was instilled in me from an early age.

One Saturday when I was 12, my mom, brother and I were on our way to a bagel shop for breakfast. As we were walking, we went past a restaurant that was closed. I looked at the ground where I noticed a thick envelope. Curiosity got the best of me, so I picked up the envelope and opened it up. I found a substantial amount of money inside, around $4500. The money was the restaurant’s earnings from the previous night. The manager had gone to deposit the money at the bank when he accidentally dropped the envelope on the ground. I showed my mom the money. Even though the restaurant was closed, we managed to go inside and give the money to the manager, who thanked us.

A few weeks later, the owner of the restaurant contacted us. He said, “I want to express my gratitude for turning that money in.” He stopped by our house and personally delivered a $300 gift certificate to Sports Authority. I was 12 years old with $300 to Sports Authority; I was so excited! I immediately began to think of all the things I was going to buy with that gift certificate like a sports watch and new shoes. That’s when my mom said to me, “Christopher, God owns that gift certificate; you are simply the manager. At least 10% of that needs to go to the church.” How on earth do you tithe off a gift certificate?! Under my mom’s direction, I purchased socks and underwear and donated those items to our church’s clothing ministry.

Thank God for my late mother who not only took me to church (including on occasions when I didn’t want to go), but who taught me that everything I have belongs to God and that I am to tithe off what the Lord has given me.

Tithing might seem intimidating, but it’s actually straightforward once you begin. You discover new levels of God’s provision. I have never heard a tithing Christian say, “I haven’t had enough.” Did they have to adjust things in their budget? Yes. Maybe they had to go out to eat a little bit less and/or get one car instead of another. However, all their needs were met. If you don’t believe me, test me on this! Try tithing for a few months. See that God, who holds the whole universe in his hands, doesn’t handle all your needs.

That said, I understand not everyone is in a position where they feel they’re ready to tithe. If that’s where you are this morning, here’s what I would invite you to do: start with a smaller amount and then allow God to GROW your giving from there. Resist the temptation many people have to give the same amount each year because it feels comfortable and familiar. Remember, faith involves letting go of our comfort and journeying with God into the unfamiliar.

As we close out this message, I want to share some information with you. [You can find a graphic about giving at the bottom.]

Last year in 2022, 238 households gave to Asbury United Methodist Church, totaling just over $853,000 in giving. Praise God for this generosity! Now, of these 238 households, 50 of them (or 21%) gave $500 or less. 80 of them (or 33-34%) gave $1,000 or less. Then, from there, you can see the rest of the numbers. I don’t know everybody’s individual financial situation, but I share this information to humbly suggest that there is likely room for many of us to grow in our giving.

When we collectively grow in our giving, a huge impact is felt. For example, if every one of these 238 households increased their giving by $20 a week, $1,000 a year, that would amount to $238,000! Or if every one of these households increased their giving by half that amount, $10 a week or $500 a year, that would amount to $119,000. If we had $119,000, we wouldn’t have a deficit right now. That would alleviate stress and free us to focus on reaching more people with the good news of Jesus.

All of us are in a different place financially, with varying levels of income. God doesn’t expect the same amount from each of us, but God does ask for the same heart and a similar level of commitment.

It reminds me of the pig and the chicken that were walking down the road. Suddenly, the chicken turned to the pig and said, “I was thinking we should open a restaurant!” The pig replied, “Hm, maybe, what would we call it?” The chicken responded, “How about ‘Ham-n-Eggs’?” The pig thought for a moment and said, “No thanks. For you, it’s just a donation; for me, it’s a total commitment!”

God doesn’t simply want our donations; he wants our heart, our commitment.

I began this sermon by asking what your most recent tax return reveals about the condition of your heart. That tax year is over, but this year’s is not. What is that return going to say? What are future returns going to reveal?

Resist the lies of our consumer-driven world. Practice gratitude, contentment, and generosity. Align your finances, and thus your heart, with the kingdom-work God is accomplishing in our midst here at Asbury.

Rev. Chris Jones Pastor