Three Modes of Giving

As a believer in Jesus Christ, the whole financial giving aspect of our discipleship can often be an anxiety-eliciting prospect. Maybe you can relate? I can still recall early on in my Christian life when I sensed God speaking to me about this and saying, “Brian, if I never have your pocketbook, I will never have your heart.” Wow! Needless to say, that was one of the first great challenges I faced in being obedient to God’s written Word as a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.  As we’re all a work in progress, even though my family and I have been committed to acting in obedience to this call, there are still times when I do not act as generously as I should. But, after 33 years of being his disciple, Jesus has repeatedly shown me his abounding faithfulness in being a steward over his provision.

For me, when I decided to give God my “pocketbook” one of the greatest challenges was reframing my thinking that God was the owner of everything, and I was merely a steward. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” By God’s grace, he has given me, and all of us, various resources, giftings, abilities and passions that he entrusts us to use to help those around us and to build up his Church. However, part of being a good steward is exercising wisdom when deciding how to direct our generosity.

There is a landmark book that God has used in helping me discern how to steward the resources he has entrusted to my care. The book is When Helping Hurts – How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself written by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. In this book, the authors describe 3 modes of giving:

1. Relief, which is the temporary provision of emergency aid.
2. Rehabilitation, which seeks to restore people to their pre-crisis condition.
3. Development, which is the process of ongoing change that moves all people involved – both the “helper” and the “helped” – closer to being in right relationship with God, self, others and the rest of creation.

The thesis of the book is that the situations that people are in determine their type of giving. When we give it’s common to focus on the symptoms, but our giving should rather address an underlying disease. For example, the authors point out that “One of the biggest mistakes that North American churches make by far is applying relief in situations in which rehabilitation or development is the appropriate intervention.” Consider the clean water crisis many villages in Africa face. Many people give with good intentions to help dig wells and bring clean water to these regions; however, other aspects, such as training the village people to maintain the wells, are neglected, which does not set up the people to be self-sustaining in the long run, thus bringing them no closer to rehabilitation or development.

Seeing giving from this perspective has helped me assess my own generosity, and maybe it can help you too. When we give, we should not only consider how our giving is bringing temporary relief but, perhaps more importantly, how our giving is moving people to restoration and development. As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to help bring people into a right relationship with God, self, others, and creation, and the ways we steward our resources can help restore this wholeness in our homes, neighborhoods, communities, nation, and the world!

Bio:

Dr. Brian Oswald graduated from Optometry School in 1981 and continued in private practice for 29 years.  Sensing a call to full-time ministry, Brian graduated from Moody Graduate School in 2008 with an MA in Urban Ministry. He then worked as a pastor for Parkview Christian Church for 13 years in pastoral care ministry. He helped lead over 20 ministries with a total of 250 volunteers. He has a passion for holistic ministry, which includes the development of the spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural, physical, moral, judicial, and educational aspects of each person. Brian is currently involved in ministry for Missions of Hope International (MOHI) which is based in Nairobi, Kenya.