Situation 3: "What do I teach new believers about tithing and New Testament giving, and then how those tithes and offerings are to be administered?

The new believers are starting to ask questions about money and with a couple of them I've talked about the principle of tithing. Yet when I read the New Testament I see nothing about tithes but everything about giving."

Response: The tithe is not a New Testament Command or practice of the early church. The purely Jewish churches may have continued to pay tithes to the Temple System (failure to do so would have been akin to income tax evasion), but none of the Gentile churches of the New Testament knew tithing. The reason is what you mention. The tithe was for the maintenance of the Levites and Priests (a full-time clergy also unknown to NT churches) and for the Temple complex upkeep (religious buildings were unknown to the early church which met from house to house).

So the question is, without the tithe (and verses from the OT Prophet Malachi to scare folks into coughing it up) where are we at in terms of Christian giving?

In YWAM Frontier Missions we have NT Guiding Principles (non-negotiable) for planting new churches among the unreached. One of those principles (and perhaps the heart of all of them) is:

E. We make disciples who are obedient to Jesus' basic commands (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 2:37-47):

1. 1. Repent, believe, receive the Holy Spirit (these go together, we can't do one without the others) Mark 1:15, John 20:22
   2. Be baptized (this includes living forever the new, holy life it signifies) Matt. 28:19-20
   3. Love God, family, fellow disciples, neighbors and even enemies (forgiveness). Luke 10:25-37
   4. Celebrate the Lord's Supper (including cultivating the communion with Christ and His people which the meal affirms) Luke 22:14-20
   5. Pray daily, Matt. 6:5-13
   6. Give generously, Matt 6:19-21
   7. Make disciples, (witness, teach, train leaders, etc.) Matt 28:18-19, Luke 24:46-48.

The key command above for our topic is that we teach believers to obey Jesus in generous giving. This forces them to consult the Holy Spirit about how much and how often is generous. Tithing only forces us to consult a calculator, not God. And we all know it is not generous to tithe. (Want 10% of my candy bar?) We need to radically trust the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. We can't enforce an Old Testament system designed to support the clergy-class while we are planting New Testament churches where every believer is a functioning priest.

I would challenge you to ignore the last 1500 years and plant churches the way Paul did, introducing active obedient disciples to the living God who is willing to guide them in all things, including their giving.

Okay Brian, but let's be practical. Does this actually bring in the bucks for church activities?

YES! I can affirm this from personal experience. In Erdenet, Mongolia, where our team planted the church, the believers were largely unemployed and poor. They were taught the commands of Christ in accordance with the Great Commission ("Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you") and our YWAM guiding principles. They learned that the standard for ALL believers was generous giving. (Obviously generous looks a bit different for Bill Gates than it does for a poor widow. It is much more fair to the poor than tithing. 10% is NOTHING for the rich and may mean malnutrition or worse to one on the brink). The Mongolian believers gave generously - cash, jewelry, marmot furs they shot and cured, all sorts of things. And God blessed their generous obedience. After a year and a half the leaders we were training asked us to ask the church in Sweden to stop sending any money to them. The local church was fully self supported by the gifts and offerings of her people! I praise God we didn't teach them to tithe!

By the way, if you are following the New Testament principles for church planting, then your group has no professional clergy to pay and no building to buy and maintain. House churches led by "lay" people have plenty of money for OUTREACH (and books and picnics)! And you can be content with whatever comes in as your people learn to obey Christ by generous giving.

As for your question, I think you should teach on giving (pages 53-56 in the Pastor's Storybook has a good basic lesson.) The leaders you are raising up should, with your guidance at first, decide how to spend the money. Focus on care for the poor (widows and orphans) and outreach. We did have some full-time church workers in Erdenet and their pay came out of the offering, too. If I were doing it over we would not have paid any church workers, but instead used those who had jobs or other support, but that I will leave for another discussion.

Bless you as you serve Him among your adopted people group -- Brian H, CPC