By Amy Clark | September 16, 2021
What is your first memory of generosity? One of mine is helping my dad with his church treasurer books on the dining room table after we had eaten our noon meal on Sundays. It was the 1980s, so this involved paper envelopes, paper checks and an enormous ledger for the bookkeeping. My brother and I would help open the envelopes and divide the cash and checks into piles. Maybe this was an early prompting for me going into finance and banking later in life.
In this bookkeeping experience with my father, as obnoxious middle schoolers, my brother and I would judge people based on the dollar amount they gave. This gave my dad plenty of opportunity to guide us spiritually! A kind older couple in church gave $3 every week. They never missed a Sunday. If you add that up it equals $156 for the year. We would make fun of their $3 because even to middle schoolers in the 1980s that didn’t seem like a lot of money. There were also people who just came on Christmas and Easter, and they would give $20. They dodged our judgement because $20 seemed like a decent amount, and we gave them a pass. It wasn’t until our year-end bookkeeping that I realized that the consistent $3-a-week couple gave far more than the Christmas and Easter people. Consistency trumped the obligatory seasonal giving!
It is now the year 2021, much farther along than the 1980s. My own understanding of giving has grown and matured from when I was a young middle schooler. I now know that we all decide in our heart what to give, and giving is rooted in joy, not obligation, because the Bible says, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Times and technology have also changed in terms of how we can give. Back then the only way to give was to write a check and mail it or give it in person. Now you can give from your phone. You can give automatically. You can give systematically. You can set up an automatic monthly contribution very easily to a church or nonprofit of your choice. You can set up a GoFundMe for a friend. You can set up a Facebook fundraiser for your birthday. You can text a pledge to an organization getting behind a large effort. You can also give directly to another individual through Venmo, Apple Pay, Cash App, PayPal, Banking apps and more! TikTok became a quarantine guilty pleasure of mine, and I have seen TikTok used to promote the Venmo accounts of people on vacations and bachelor and bachelorette parties. People are even donating to other people’s Happy Hours!
These are exciting and creative days for being generous. Let’s go! Let’s give! Let’s give consistently and let’s give generously. And, let’s give joyfully. The battle for generosity isn’t how to give, but rather it’s in our heart. Jesus taught that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. What that means to me is that we better not be sitting on our riches when we can so easily-with a touch of a button on our phones-give to those in need. If we have the means and have the ease, let’s give.
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz
Amy Clark is enthusiastic about making everyone feel like one of the cool kids. She has worked in the finance industry for 20+ years, currently in as a marketing leader with Thrivent, a Fortune 500 financial company. Amy loves staying connected to her family and friends by talking on the phone, FaceTiming and sharing GIFs and memes. She is also one of the last remaining church organists and is a regular church pianist. She is an avid reader of personal and professional development books and likes finding new nature trails for fun, and she currently sits on the Dynamis Ministries Board of Directors and is helping us launch a movement of generosity.
