“Your offering is not a tip for a good sermon, nor are you paying for services rendered. Your stewardship, bringing your tithes and offerings to the community in which you worship, is a spiritual practice that comes right out of scripture. The people Jesus taught and healed lived in grinding poverty. And then there were the taxes, enforced by a brutal occupation army. Remember Matthew the Tax Collector and all those centurions running around? They weren’t there for a parade. Yet Jesus still presumed the Hebrew practice of tithing. Failure to give appropriately is a spiritual problem.”
Gary Brinn, pastor of Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ, Long Island, NY, from his “In But Not Of” column in the Sayville-Bayport Patch titled “Secrets Your Pastor Can’t Share in a Sermon“
Excellent quote. I just spoke on this theme at the Steward Leader Summit at George Fox University last night.
Once again, great minds think alike. You and Gary Brinn, I mean.
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