October 2016 – River's Edge Community Church

The Generosity Principle

The Generosity Principle

Recent studies on giving have not been encouraging. In any given year, 22.1% of all Christians choose not to give (either to a church or a charity). In fact, only 9.4% of us give away a tenth or more of our income each year (whether that be to a church, a ministry or to a secular charity). That means the vast majority of us (a whopping 68%) in any given year give between .1 and 9.9% of our income. What would you guess the actual number is? Sadly, according to numerous surveys, most of us in this last category give somewhere around 2-3% (another study suggests that churched people give no more than 1.4% of their income to support all three of their top interests: their church, ministries they value and their favorite secular charities). Now, these results come from national surveys taken of people who have some affiliation to

The Day of the Lord

The Day of the Lord

How we understand the "Day of the Lord" will be either as a day of judgment OR as a day of deliverance and rejoicing depending on whether we are willing to repent and return to the Lord as described in Joel 2 (and then also quoted by Peter in Acts 2).

Blurbs in the Blogs

Blurbs in the Blogs

Now many of you are thinking, “What a waste of time these blogs have been. All this talk about giving when everything we needed to know was already in the printed BLURBS we read in our programs each week.” And you know what? You are right. But familiarity breeds contempt. Many of us haven’t read the offering blurb since 2005, and some people simply skip that section of the program thinking that it must be advertising. But our whole philosophy of giving is articulated in these eight rotated blurbs. If you’ve never read them, here they are in one fell swoop. If you read them long ago, but have forgotten what they said, here they are in DDTS (Dolby Digital Theater Sound). If you always read them (or read them once a year), you get to take today off! You may pass go and collect two hundred “way to go’s.”

The Loose Ends

The Loose Ends

Author Lance Morrow wisely noted that “a rattlesnake loose in the living room tends to end all discussion of animal rights." Loose ends, like loose snakes, can’t be a good thing and should be quickly dealt with (when you know you can’t end a sentence with a preposition, but have no other way to say it, well, that’s why God created the parenthetical remark). So today, we round up a few “loose ends” on tithing and giving as we start to bring this series on giving to an end. And to do that, let’s look at one of the premiere passages on tithing in the Old Testament, Malachi 3:7-12. The text reads: “Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are

What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You about Tithing

What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You about Tithing

Just to be safe (I mean, “clear”), I personally have nothing against the IRS (if any IRS agents are reading this, I’ve always said the IRS is like the FBI, except way cooler). But lots and lots of people feel the tax code is unwieldy, unjust and oppressive and that the IRS and the mob have lots of things in common; it’s just that one is legal thievery and the other not so much (not me, mind you, I would never say something like that. I love paying my taxes, and I loved The Sopranos!). Plus, people feel our taxes are just way too complicated and expensive. It’s not like it was back then. Back in the good old days, Israel had a tax system that was simple. It was called tithing, and it required that 10% off the top was given to care for the needs of the Levitical

Words of Repentance and Hope

Words of Repentance and Hope

While we often think of the minor prophets as only preaching judgment and doom, here we are reminded of the lengths to which God goes to show us his unrelenting love and grace as we turn to him in repentance. Based on Hosea 14:1-9.

To Forfeit and To Astound

To Forfeit and To Astound

To Forfeit and To Astound In our previous blog, we took note of some predictions that went terribly wrong. People studied a situation, made up their mind and could not see it in any other way. Unfortunately, they were really wrong. For instance, "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. “With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself.” Business Week, 1968 "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad." – -The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903 “Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can

The Awakening

The Awakening

New teaching series on the "Major Hits" (key messages) of the Minor Prophets. This first sermon is based on Amos 4:4-12.

All We Are Saying, Is Give Paul a Chance

All We Are Saying, Is Give Paul a Chance

All We Are Saying, Is Give Paul a Chance People say things all the time. Sometimes they are right on the money and sometimes not so much. Consider these predictions that didn’t quite turn out the way the speaker thought. "Who the heck wants to hear actors talk?" -- M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre. "Ours has been the first and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality." -- Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861. “What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?” -- The Quarterly Review, March, 1825. Sometimes the past has something to say to us and sometimes it doesn’t. In this post and in our next one in the “giving series,” we

A Top Ten List

A Top Ten List

A Top Ten List Back in the day, nothing was better than watching Letterman’s Top Ten List. While I don’t have time for all ten, here are five from his list entitled, “Top Ten Children’s Books NOT Recommended by the National Library Association:” “Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence.” “The Boy Who Died from Eating All His Vegetables.” “Teddy: The Elf with a Detached Retina.” “Things Rich Kids Have that You Never Will.” And number one: “The Care Bears Maul Some Campers and Are Shot Dead.” Classic. Simply classic. Today, we want to look at Jesus’ top ten thoughts about giving. We covered a lot of ground in our previous blog (and asked a lot of questions), but today we simply want to outline what Jesus has to say about giving and let his words speak to us. So here we go. #10: Matthew 6:2-4 – Our motives are critical;

Who Knew?

Who Knew?

Who Knew? How should one look at money? For many people, the question is easily answered: Money is a good thing that makes happiness happen. But there are other voices out there that would question such an enthusiastic perspective. For instance, Paul calls the love of money the root of all evil. And he is not alone. Winston Churchill once said, “We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.” Yikes! Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying: “Golden shackles are far worse than iron ones.” GK Chesterton wrote: “To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.” And just to paint the darkest picture, just listen to what Martin Luther said: “A man that depends on the riches and honors of this world, forgetting God and the welfare of his own soul, is like a little child that holds a

New Worship

New Worship

Chris Zang, our Director of International Ministries, explores our New Worship priorities based on Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4:4-18.

Why Should You Not Give?

Why Should You Not Give?

Why Should You Not Give One morning, Philippe Petit decided to take a walk. It was 1974. He decided that he would like to walk from one of the newly constructed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York to the other. No big deal. Except, he decided to do it 1,350 feet above the ground on a tightrope, without any safety net whatsoever. And to make it even more insane, he walked from roof to roof without any permission whatsoever from anyone. I strongly recommend that you watch the movie (The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt) or the documentary (Man on Wire) to get a sense for what Petit did, because it is nothing short of terrifying. See, there is something about keeping your balanced when you are a quarter of a mile above the ground that is really difficult (I tried to figure out how long it

Carwash Giving

Carwash Giving

A Preamble There’s a book out there called, The Question Behind the Question. The point is, there is always something going on behind the obvious. Even when a person asks a question, there are all sorts of things lurking nearby that, unfortunately, often went unsaid. And if you can address those lurking, unspoken questions, you are well on your way to success. Now, you may have noticed our budget is not doing great right now. Normally, churches respond to such news with a big push (a fundraising campaign, a stewardship sermon series, a thermometer in the sanctuary and things like that). We’ve chosen not to do any of those things. Instead, I have chosen to write a series of blog entries on giving. “Ah-ha!” you say. “You are nothing but a weasel. You say you aren’t going to do a stewardship drive, but here it is! It’s just on the

A New Allegiance

A New Allegiance

Being made new in Christ gives us a new allegiance to God's kingdom based on Mark 12:13-17.