Tithing...to Charity?

Traditionally, we are supposed to give our first 10% back to the Lord. My question is, does that have to specifically go into the church?

Let me know if this is a crazy idea, because currently I'm thinking it's a pretty good one.

As of now, I don't have a church body that I am regularly attending here in Mankato but I do have a full-time job.

Meaning, there's a substantialish sum of money (as in, more than I've ever given before, because I'm making more than I've ever made before) that I want to give to the Lord. But, I don't have a home church. I could just give to my church back in Plymouth, but I don't really want to do that. I want to do something different.

Traditionally, we are supposed to give our first 10% back to the Lord. My question is, does that have to specifically go into the church? I've been thinking about supporting Christian charities.

Since Christ died and fulfilled the law, Old Testament laws are no longer required of us. Meaning, the "give to the Lord the first 10%" isn't as much a requirement as it is a guideline. We can give 10%, or 15%, or 5%  (or anything in between). The Lord loves a cheerful giver and so when we give, it should be cheerful and not because we're "forced" to do so.

Thinking about the amount that I am going to give, I would be much more cheerful giving to a charity that I really support or giving directly to the hurting and impoverished people. I really want to give, and to help them out, yet when it comes to giving to the church, it's more like something I feel I have to do.

If we're not under this law any more, is it okay to give to a charitable organization instead of a church? How about a missionary? I would say, yes!

Here's a list of some charities that I researched yesterday that I am thinking about sending my first 10-ish percent. (I picked a number that's a little over, but I mostly picked it because it ends in a nice "00").

Feed My Starving Children
Chicken! Veggies! Soy! Rice! FMSC is the classic youth-group field trip. I love this place and I love what they do here. They pack food for Starving Children in Africa (and other places). It's staffed pretty much completely via volunteers and 90% of donations go straight to the food. At 25 cents per meal, my donation could buy an awful lot of meals at a charity that I love.

Baptist World Missions
This organization supports Baptist missionaries.

Christian Relief Fund
I liked this charity as soon as I saw their mission:

I love that it's specifically based around Luke 2:52.

CRF also has the option to sponsor a child for $35/month. I've always wanted to sponsor a child! $35 is well under my alloted amount, so I would be able to write to the child and share the Gospel, while financially supporting this child.  I would also have some extra money available to support CRF or to support a different charity. Or I could support this child and then use my whole "tithe" somewhere else.

Once I really started researching child sponsorship I found 2 other Christian organizations that also involve sponsoring children: World Vision and Compassion International. While they were both very nice, I didn't feel like they emphasized the Gospel as much as CRF does.

Christian Community Action

"In the name of Jesus Christ, Christian Community Action ministers to the poor by providing comprehensive services that bring hope and change lives" 

 It looks like right now the focus of this charity is school supplies, but overall this charity looks very Salvation-Army like. They have a re-sale store and a food pantry.

Compassion International
This also has the opportunity to sponsor children. On their website it shows what each sponsored child will receive. I love that faith is so important to this organization!

As I type, I think it more and more likely that I will be sponsoring a child! In fact, I've actually spent the last hour or so researching the differences between the different sponsorship organizations and trying to pick which one I want to go through. I've also been looking at all the pictures of the children!!

That's all!
If I kept researching, I'm sure I could find COUNTLESS charities that I could donate to, but if I did, I'd have to pick one and I'm not great at making decisions in a timely manner. I deliberate for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time. I am my father's daughter, what can I say? ;)

Which one should I pick? Which one would YOU pick?

ROAD TRIP!!

This past weekend, 14 people from my church headed down to Kentucky for the weekend. As in, we left Friday morning and got back Sunday night. It was kind of a whirlwind trip. Here are the highlights: 

ARK ENCOUNTER: 



Wow! The ark was huge and I was pretty impressed. Mostly with Noah and not as much with the crew of construction workers that put this one together. I mean, he built (by himself, by hand) what it took a modern construction crew a year to do! Plus it's not like Minnesota where there's snow half the year. It took them a year in Kentucky, with only a little tiny bit of snow here and there. I know this because I watched a time lapse ;)



Here's a perspective picture. The thing is HUGE! I definitely had a lot of fun going inside and touring the ark. I enjoyed seeing how they might have stored all of the animals, and also how their living quarters might have looked. 

CREATION MUSEUM: 

Raptors are my LIFE.

The Creation Musuem (45 minutes from the Ark) was more informative than impressive, and I thoroughly enjoyed going through it and reading up on fossil records, seeing the bug and dino rooms,  and walking through the 7 C's of History.

There was one part of the creation museum that oddly made me super emotional. You know the feeling where your heart feels heavy and your chest constricts? I got that as I walked through the "corruption" C of History. The Fall into Sin. It showed some sins of today and it made me internalize how sinful we all are and how we desperately needed a Savior. Our world is so corrupt. More than that, our hearts, MY heart is corrupt. The heart felt SO heavy as I walked through here, and as I exited this section into a gloriously lit chamber with pictures of God's creation and glorious pictures of the sky, my emotions changed into happiness and thankfulness for God!! He is good :)

CHURCH: 

In lieu of my church stacking operation which would have been a little hard to complete, being that I was in a different state, I enjoyed great fellowship with my road trip companions and attended a Baptist church in Illinois.

I liked it! And I've decided to rate this one as well for several reasons. First, I think it's important to line it up with other churches to get a picture of what I'm looking for and not looking for. Second, I did have a couple of requests and people wondering what I thought about the church.

The sermon at this church was really good. The pastor focused on the Bible the whole way through and it was about loving God. The music was more praise-and-worshippy, than I'm used to, but weirdly so. Usually praise songs are pretty easy to get the melody and even harmonize, but these had some weird melodies and I could just not get the hang of it, so I kept making errors. Mostly they had good words though, although a few were a little weak. I really liked one of them that I had never heard before. I wish I remembered what it was called so I could look it up and post a link to the lyrics here.

At any rate, here's what I'd give this church, using my 3 scores.
Doctrine: 10
Music: 6
At home-ness 7.5

THE FELLOWSHIP: 

So I wasn't 100% a fan of spending all that time in the van, but uncomfortable seats, late nights (ahem, rolling into the hotel at 3am) and boring roads aside, I had fun. We had fun. The girls and I in my van laughed and laughed and laughed. I am coming out of this experience knowing them so much more than I did when we started the trip. 20+ hours of sitting next to someone will do that to you.

Photo Credit: Analisa (The one with the longest arms) ;)

Would I do this trip again? Absolutely.
No questions asked. :)

Lightning in His Fists

"He's got thunder in his footsteps and lightning in his wrists,

Our God is an awesome God" 

There's a song for everything, I'm convinced!

This morning (2:30 am) I woke up to the biggest boom of thunder that I have ever heard. It continued to roll and the lightning continued to flash for a good time afterwards. It shook the whole house. I thought, "wow! God is sure powerful!" And He is!

Then this verse from 1 Kings came to mind, and it reminded me that while God is always powerful, sometimes He can be found in the quietest, tiniest things: 

1 Kings 19:11-13

The Lord "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Incredible

I gave up Facebook for JESUS.

Hi, My name is Madelaine, and it has been exactly twenty-six days since I last went on Facebook. Well, except for Facebook messenger, because I use it for texting. Oh yeah and that one Sunday, because Sunday's aren't really lent. But that aside, I am such a good Christian that I didn't even go on yesterday. And that was a Sunday too! Oh and did I mention that I even gave up Pinterest?? I love you Jesus!

Er, right. While the above story is true, I don't think that it represents the correct attitude to have about lent. Not at all. See, Lent is season of preparation gearing toward's Jesus' death. It's not about me. It's about Him. 

Growing up, my dad always told me not to give anything up, which left me scratching my head. Everyone else at my church was giving things up. Why couldn't I? I believe he was on to something. He noticed that little 8 year old me didn't quite understand the purpose and point.

My best friend and I used to joke that we were going to give up doing homework for lent. One day, I squeaked out, "what would happen if I gave up....going to the BATHROOM. would I explode?" The two of us collapsed in a fit of giggles.

So, yeah. I think my dad understood that I wasn't quite old enough to grasp what Lent was really about. My question is though, do adults, really understand its purpose? I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a few do not. Let's talk about this picture.

I don't agree with this at all. First of all, lent is a season of preparation for the death of our Lord. Lent is not some happy occasion where we attempt to better ourselves. For too many, lent has turned into a sort of New Year's resolution, or maybe even resolution renewal. People give things up like "gossiping" or "getting drunk". In addition to the focus of these things being on ourselves and not on God, many times these are things that a Christian should not be doing anyway. 

"I'm giving up being mean to people"

--but shouldn't you always be nice?

"I'm giving up eating unhealthily"

--but isn't your body a temple and shouldn't you be treating it correctly all the time?

Lent is not about what you can do for yourself. Lent is a season of fasting. It's about giving up something so that you can greater appreciate what Christ has given up for us. For me, it's a struggle. Whenever I think about logging into Facebook or Pinterest I am reminded of what Christ has done for me. Yes, as an added bonus I get more homework done, but that's not why I gave it up.  I gave it up because I knew it would be hard for me. This season is about Jesus' work on the cross. So shouldn't He be the focus? 

What is lent to you?

"He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him,

and by his wounds we are healed."

-Isaiah 53:5