Author: admin
During this christmas/holiday season there is the normal conservative christian cry to demean those who say happy holidays instead of merry christmas; so, to try to appease this very vocal group we have attempted, in the past four years, to combine christmas/holiday season greetings. i am sure there is a segment of the that far right group who will take issue with anything that resembles compromise, however, we honor all of the faith community, whether it be conservativism, liberalism, jewish, islam, mormon, budhist, catholic, 7 day adventists, others. i believe our founding fathers were wise in making sure the priority was freedom in religion, while some will disagree with that and believe it is only to include their faith.
this year our little community was shaken as our local organization who takes care of the unloved, unworthy (in some minds,) has come under financial strain. during the previous decade that we have lived in this community there has been federal and state budgets to help fund their efforts in providing food, clothing, shelter to those in need. however, with the budget cuts to balance budgets their financial needs has rose quickly to a point where they did not have funds for thanksgiving dinner food gifting.
i have heard comments like, the people who use those services are just taking advantage of the system or they have stories where they have lost faith in those services or worse, blamed those in need.
in a most recent men’s saturday morning bible study we were discussing tithing/church giving and gifting; two totally different areas of sharing with those in need. while the organized church has a responsibility to make sure funds are provided to those in need, who are attending; with wisdom and discernment, the concept of “gifting,” with no criteria around the gift, is not something most of us understand. most of us, in the faith community, can justify tithing/giving to our church and we expect they will use the funds with wisdom and a set of criteria for those receiving the funds to know there is an obligation to receive support.
then there is “gifting,” something that i have not always understood and truly desire to be able to do in the future. gifting is the ability to part with money, in faith, providing to others to use as they are led by faith, the holy spirit or the particular need. it isn’t having a set of criteria to assure the funds are used as i expect, but it is a walk of faith in trusting that i am just the one gifting and trusting others take their obligation correctly.
see, here’s the bottom line, we will always have the needy, the poor, the disadvantaged and even those who con the system to get what they want. those normally aren’t the ones we serve through the church, as most churches will set boundaries, criterias, performance evaluations to assure they can report back to those who tithe that they did their due diligence and those in need were held to a certain standard.
gifting to services that take care of the unloved, the unchurched, those who do not or cannot uphold performance criterias is a whole different ball game. it isn’t a performance/stock market return on investment scheme or set of standards, it is “truly just caring that others are taken care of,” which is hard for some to understand or even risk.
gifting stands above tithing/church or faith support; it takes a certain level of courage that comes in believing in others, not ourselves or performance indicators of investment. very few will understand this, it is my prayer that some day in the future we and the queen anne will be in a place where we can tithe more and gift more, with a full knowledge it is the right thing to do.
may those in need, churched and unchurched, find the support they need, during these periods of the year; may they be accepted as they are, with their odditites; may they be loved upon without conditions and may they see hope for the future.
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to all,
Al
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