What if we all tithed?

Yesterday we had our church annual meeting. A good chunk of the meeting always talks about the budget for next year, which has increased very slightly. The church is considering doing a stewardship program called "Step Up," or something like that, which encourages people to increase their giving incrementally each year until they reach a tithe, or 10% of their income. I'm intrigued by this because essentially the same program was proposed at a company profit-sharing meeting a week ago. Apparently a lot of people don't put any money in their 401(k) accounts because they hear that they should be putting aside 10%, they think, "I can't do that!", so they don't do anything. But they can usually imagine putting aside 1% of their incomes, and the next year they can probably imagine setting aside another 1% of their incomes, and so on, until they reach 10%. "Step Up" is trying to encourage people to increase their giving the same way - by 1% of their income each year until they reach 10%, and then go even further if they wish. The tithe, of course, was commanded by God in the Old Testament, and He even said, "Bring the tithes in and see if I won't bless you!" (Malachi 3:10) so that seems like a good goal.

Pete & I have always tithed, and in the lean years, it was amazing to see God provide. Money would occasionally come out of the sky, it seemed. I had a strict budget, of course, but sometimes there would just be more in the checkbook than there should have been. A couple of times, we got checks in the mail from telephone companies in towns we'd lived in years before for a year or two - some kind of co-op dividend payment. Things like that happened just when we ran short.

What struck me today is - what could our church do if everyone tithed? If the average giving is 1.5% of incomes (as I've read in several places), then we would have almost a million dollars a year EXTRA. Do you think our church could help some poor people with that kind of money? Do you think we could support some missionaries? Do you think we could provide some great opportunities for struggling learners, or struggling doubters, or struggling marriages, or whatever?? I think so!! And that's just little Svea. What could the churches in Kandiyohi County do if everyone tithed? How about Minnesota? How about America? The answer to Big Government is - Tithing Christians!