By Fr. Townsend Waddill, Rector
St. Michael's Anglican Church, Ridgecrest, California
I can honestly look you in the eye and tell you this. I have been a Christian disciple all of my life, and I have never tithed until very recently. And this might shock you, right? I mean, after all, I am a priest of the Church. Surely all priests tithe, right?
Until this year, I did not tithe, although I did give. Deep down in my spirit, there was something that seemed wrong about not tithing, and I began to doubt whether or not I was doing the right thing. Tithing is, after all, an obligation for all Christians, isn’t it? In order to put a salve on that doubt and that growing sense of guilt, I tried all kinds of excuses and reasons for it. Here is just a small sampling of some of the excuses that I used for not tithing:
- God wants me to take care of my family, so He will not have a problem with me taking care of the needs of my family and giving Him what’s left.
- God wants me to get out of debt, so He should want me to do that first before giving to the Church.
- Since most of my debt is seminary-related, and since seminary is church-related, then my debt payments related to seminary should count toward my tithe.
- Since I am a priest and paid by the Church, then it would make no sense for me to pay the Church’s money back to the Church.
All of these reasons, these excuses, sounded very good…at first. As time went by, there was this gut feeling down in my heart that, even though I had my reasons, they just weren’t good enough, and something was still wrong.
That is when Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University program came into my life. I knew I needed to get rid of the debt and knew that his program would help me do that, but the most important thing that FPU impressed on me was the joy, the freedom, and the peace that comes from giving, and giving at least a tithe. FPU is designed to help people in even worse debt than me get that needed freedom from the slavery of debt. Yet in all his budget worksheets, no matter your debt load, the tithe was the first thing to come off the top of the budget. And he is right theologically. When we did our budget, we took the tithe off the top and designed our budget around what was left. Sure, our budget really seemed tight, and we had to make some sacrifices, but when I wrote that first tithe check and dropped it into the plate that Sunday, I cannot even begin to describe for you the sense of peace that washed over me. That was the manifestation of the blessing that God gave me as promised in Malachi, Chapter 3 – “Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” I mean, how cool is it that the Lord gives us one place in Scripture where we can put him to the test? Lisa and I put him to the test, and He responded mightily. The question you might ask is: how did He respond?
When we made the commitment to tithe and put it at the top of our budget, we thought that we would have financial troubles, that we would not be able to pay the bills, that it would take us much longer to get our debt paid off. Strangely, that didn’t happen. We don’t live extravagantly, but we also have not found ourselves in serious need. The Lord has really and truly provided for us, just as He always does. In fact, we are still on track to pay off our debt using the same schedule as before we tithed. Our God really and truly is an awesome God. All that we have to do is trust in Him.
Now that we have made the commitment, the Lord has blessed us with more new manifestations of that peace of God which surpasses all understanding. We know that we are helping to provide resources that will make the ministries of St. Michael’s, the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, and the Anglican Church in North America as amazing as possible. We are so passionate about what the Lord is doing here that being able to support these ministries is one of the best gifts that God has given us. We are so thankful and so amazed at the awesome provision of our Almighty God!
If you are not tithing – if you are holding back because you are anxious, I encourage you brothers and sisters to take a leap of faith. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. Take this one and only opportunity to put the Lord your God to the test, and sit back and be amazed at how the Lord will bless you. I know in my heart, with all faith in Jesus Christ, that He will bless you, and give you that wonderful gift of peace – financial peace.
