A “Giving Church”...

Sacrifice.

Have you ever read the children's novel, "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein? It is about this tree and a boy.  The tree gives to the boy everything it possibly has.  Its leaves, its fruit, its branches, until finally it is only a stump left in the ground.

We made the decision to do church differently after having been a part of many church starts, sometimes as a helper and sometimes as a pastor.  We decided to stick to our beliefs, even the less popular ones.  We stuck to the belief that the body of believers should rely on the Holy Spirit to grow the church, rather than going out and doing things to "grow the church" in our own strength. Even though "growing a church" is a good thing.

We also believed that as a church body we should not try to grow our own church; instead we should be outwardly focused and concentrate our efforts not on our comfort but on the salvation of the outside world.

The decision to start the church in India was a hard one.  It meant that the handful of families that attended in Seattle and in Tokyo would sacrifice pretty much all of the church finances in order to start a church in a much poorer country. 

As a result an already small church got even smaller when families left Seattle because they didn't believe in the outward focus of the church and the ministries overseas.

That hurt, and it was uncomfortable, but sacrificing for India was very much the right thing to do. And God blessed the ministry in India and He blessed the people who traveled to the ministry and gave of their time and their love.

He blessed the people who gave of their own comfort in order to attend a "giving church" that doesn't spend a lot of time developing social programs or social outings, instead opting to spend more time thinking about ways to spread the gospel.

It would be easy to say that the churches in Seattle and in Tokyo are the "giving churches" sending all the resources to India and the Philippines.  But that is not correct either.  In preparation for the last outreach to the children in Leyte, Pastor Nol wasn't sure how he was going to pay for it, as the church really didn't have the money yet.  Without us knowing, he almost sold his few pigs, which is equivalent to his savings, in order to pay for the outreach to local kids. Simultaneously, the church in India gave one whole year's offering to help pay for the outreach in the Philippines.  I imagine the believers in India and the Philippines will soon be sending their own missionaries and leaders to wherever God calls them, possibly to Japan and Seattle.

I realized that every one of the friends churches are "giving churches" where the leadership and the people give until it hurts to give, and then give some more to the people around us and to the world at large in the name of Christ. We realize that the riches of heaven are better than the temporary riches of earth, and like Jesus said in Luke 12:33, we should sell our possessions and give to the needy, and we will have treasure in heaven.