The local church is critical to faith. From a biblical perspective, it’s impossible to separate participation in Christianity from involvement in a local church.
The Church was created to provide a glimpse of heavenly community. Unfortunately, some churches fall short of this lofty goal, which can lead people to doubt the Church’s overall effectiveness.
Yet the failures of church leaders and church communities do not mean that Christians can reject the fellowship altogether. Jesus calls His followers to a communal relationship with Him—to put faith in a local church for our discipleship.
We therefore choose to trust the church to help steward our expressions of generosity.
While there’s no straightforward scriptural command that we must funnel our generosity through the local church, trusting the church with our gifts is richly implied. In the book of Exodus, we see an example of how God’s people used their shared stewardship to accomplish an amazing project.
God instructed Moses to build a sanctuary to serve as a space for His worship. This was an immense task for people in the wilderness. Supplies were limited. It would take generous offerings from the Israelites in order to make this happen. Moses made a plea to the people, and
“everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting” (Exodus 35:21 NIV).
This sets the stage for one of the more unremarkable remarkable stories in the Old Testament. In Exodus 36:3–7, we read:
“The people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.’ Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: ‘No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.’ And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.”
The call to give was answered in an unexpected way: The people brought more than what was needed. In fact, they had to be restrained from continuing to give.
In this passage, we find inspiration for how God is able to use the resources of the community to accomplish His purposes.
Of course, an individual Christian is able to steward their own gifts to the Lord to make an impact. But when we bring our gifts together with others, we’re able to accomplish much greater tasks. When funds are pooled through the church, even the smallest gift can have mighty Kingdom results.
Make the choice to give to the Lord through His Church. See what happens when you participate in what God is doing through His people.
