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Why do we make our giving a public event?

// October 19th, 2009 // Christianity, church, people, twitter

One of the issues I have with the attractional model of church is that the church is always doing what it can to draw people to itself. It can come across as asking people to come into the church and see how Christians act for an hour on Sunday, rather than going into the world and sharing Christ with them where they are at. Many instances of giving or acts of service for the attractional church come at a price. That price is fame and notoriety and glorification of the church. Ever notice how a group of church members all agree how cool it would be if they went out onto the streets downtown and gave water to homeless people on a hot day? The notion is a good one and it meets a need, but then why does the water bottle need to have a label with the church logo on it? Seriously, are they expecting the homeless people to travel from their downtown shelter to the suburban outpost where you conduct Sunday services? Why do you need the church-branded water bottle? Who does that message connect with? It’s just an outward sign to show that XYZ Church of The Suburbs came into an area where homeless people congregate and gave them some water. Does anyone else find anything wrong with that?

I don’t know if you heard the news about Drew Carey giving $1 million to help fight cancer if he gets 1 million followers on twitter by the end of the year (Read about the story titled, “Make Drew Carey Give Away $1 million” by clicking here). So, Drew Carey makes the announcement, which gets picked up by the news agencies, and then he writes a blog post about his thoughts post-announcement. In essence, he makes a point that our giving should be done in secret. We shouldn’t broadcast our giving for the world to know about it, if it is the notoriety that motivates our gift more than compassion for our fellow human beings. Funny thing is that Drew uses Matthew 6:1-4 as an example of how we should not make our giving a public enterprise, but then goes into a sort of exegesis to breakdown the intent and content of the passage in Matthew:

This is from the New Testament, Matthew 6:1-4 (NIV) “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

I’ve always used that as the general rule for my charity giving. It’s tough to do when you’re famous though. I get invited to a lot of things involving a charity auction of some kind where I have to announce to everyone how much I’m giving just to be able to give money and get the auction item. But I still think it’s better to just give the money and shut up about it whenever you can. Don’t take out an ad. Which is why I’ve been feeling the way I’ve been feeling.

But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the meaning of that passage lately, and maybe I got it wrong.

Jesus is talking about intent here as well as action, no? If the intent of your charitable contribution is to let everyone know what a big man you are, then verily I say unto you that the good karma stops there. But if you would just do all your giving in secret, well then… problem solved without even thinking about it. Theology students and bible scholars, feel free to chime in via the comments section.

My guess is I fall somewhere in the middle on this. My intent is totally pure, but I did it publicly AND asked for something in return (a million followers), so see you in hell. (Ha ha. Just kidding. The idea of a bunch of people suffering for all eternity in a big cavern of fire being poked in the butt with pitchforks by demons and whatnot was made up by Dante. It’s not really in the Bible. The concept of hell is, but not the pitchfork in the butt stuff.)

If one is a celebrity like Drew Carey, I can see how giving in secret every time could be difficult or maybe even impossible. Being the host of The Price is Right and on our tv screens every weekday, it’s obvious he doesn’t need to do anything to gain more attention to himself. Therefore, I believe that his intent was to be gracious and to give to others. I also believe that even Drew makes millions of dollars per year as a celebrity, that writing a check for $1 million to help find a cure for cancer is not pocket change for him. However, what about us as the church? How do we give? What do we expect in return?

Mr. Carey declares in his blog post:

And though I’m now miles from what you would call a practicing evangelical, a lot of the teaching I received from that time in my life still sticks with me. After all, good advice is good advice. Doesn’t matter where it comes from. Nowadays I’ll take a spiritual lesson from wherever I get it: Jesus, Buddha or the guy who cuts me off on the 101.

Knowing that there are some instances of profanity in Carey’s blog post and an admission that he spent his youth as part of a Pentecostal church, I think we in the church would tend to disregard Carey as not being relevant to us. For me, I argue that Drew is absolutely relevant to us and that we can learn from him. If someone can take the Scripture and not try to take it out of context, and even go the extent of using it to sort of convict himself of doing something that may have went outside of his personal beliefs as to what is right, that speaks volumes to me! In a world where so many people try to take examples from the Bible and extract them out of context as proof of how God does not operate under grace and love, I am encouraged to see someone in the public spotlight like Carey studying a Bible passage and relating it to his own life in a positive way. If only more Christians would do the same thing, we could then show the world that we aren’t just blindly following some ancient book that has no merit or relevance to our lives today. May we examine how we give…why we give…what expectations or demands we place on our gift, and shed our nature of seeking recognition for our acts of kindness. Instead, may we give from a clean and pure heart and bless others rather than seeking to be blessed ourselves.

Thank you Drew Carey for making this Evangelical Christian analyze how I give to others and how we as the church can learn from people outside of the church, Buddha, or the guy that cuts us off on the freeway. Thank you for your compassion for others and for your openness in sharing your thoughts on your blog.

PS. For those of you on twitter, won’t you help Drew Carey (@drewfromtv) raise money for the fight against cancer by simply becoming a follower? Who knows, you may get some wisdom along the way as well :)