Generosity and the Gospel

One of the little things I have noticed in darkening the dozens (am I up to hundreds, yet?) of church doors in Europe and North America is the way in which food and hospitality are approached. There are some churches I have been to which have put on completely open, hugely generous potluck dinners for their communities. Others have put on fancy catered dinners (at prices almost always beyond my means). Still others have carefully arranged "bring and share" dinners, often accompanied by much stress and attempts to "control" what comes.

At a different level, I have witnessed the churches with a stingy cup of coffee after the service accompanied by a begging bowl all the way through to churches who lay on a spread of nibbles, juice, tea (herbal/regular/decaf) and coffee, and pass around a basket full of chocolates for all to take instead of asking for contributions during the offering.

I think if we want to make a difference in the postmodern world, then one of our hallmarks needs to be that of generosity. It is my opinion that without a generous spirit, there is little to attract someone towards us. Lets face it, the secular world is talking about gift economies. Software programmers contribute hundreds and thousands of hours each year to developing open source (free!) software. The following is a quote from the sqlite website in place of the usual long list of licensing rules that most software comes attached with:

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

The concept of gift economies is being explored in some of the alternative cultures in North America, including the Burning Man Festival.

I think we have to seriously consider the importance of generosity to the authenticity of our message, if we are to be effective in evangelism. I think we need to consider it in two different ways:

1. The direction of our generosity. For years we have been told to "give 10% to the church", but I would have a hard time disagreeing with the person who said that giving to the church was the same as giving to yourself. A truly generous act is one that you do not expect to be repaid to you.
   
2. The attitude in which we give. Giving out of compulsion is not the same as giving freely. I am reminded of the chorus we sang when I was little:

   God forgave my sins, in Jesus name / I've been born again, in Jesus name / And in Jesus name, I come to you / To share his love, as He told me to. / He said, "freely, freely you have received, / Freely, freely give. / Go in my name and because you believe / Others will know that I live." by Carol Owens

   
   It may be a cheerful chorus from the 70's, but I think it has something worth remembering hidden within it. Our gifts must be completely free of strings attached. If churches are to give out hampers, than they cannot come with an assumption that recipients will attend church on Sunday. If we are to invite people in to our lives, it must be first and foremost filled with a desire to give wholeheartedly to them, regardless of whether they ever express any interest towards giving back to us, or towards a relationship with Christ.
   

Hopefully none of this is revolutionary to you - I just wanted to share what I had been thinking about.