The Theology and Joy of Giving

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone. And welcome to the Mark Prater podcast, where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Last week, Mark, we talked about the upcoming Pastors Conference and Council of Elders and how we're thrilled and filled with joy and anticipation for that. But last year at the Council of Elders, you talked about developing a theology of giving in Sovereign Grace. Where are we with that?

Mark Prater:

I'd love to give you an update on that, and maybe the place to start when we talk about a theology of giving is to remind us as pastors, those that are listening and reading, that our labors as pastors, our calling as pastors, is a calling of joy. And it's a joy to serve the church and to labor for the church. It's a joy to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to people. It's a joy to pastor people, whatever they're walking through. And so it's a vocation of joy that we're involved in, but it's not only our joy, it's for those that we serve that we are to cultivate joy. Paul said as much in one of his letters, he said, "I work, I labor for your joy". And so joy is to mark the Christian Church, not only what pastors do, but what members enjoy.

And I think there are a number of ways that we labor for the joy of our people in our churches. I don't know that we would put generosity in giving near the top of that list. And so I think we've gotta have a fresh perspective when it comes to the call to give, to sacrificial giving, because when you give sacrificially people experience a joy, right? That actually can be very contagious and they want to be even more generous as a result. And we don't want to deprive our people of that joy is maybe the way to say it. And so that's really the motivation of writing a theology of giving paper. It's to labor for the joy of our people. It's not primarily, "let's just get more money." It's not about that although ministry requires financial support, right? The motivation is for the joy of our people.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yeah, that's excellent. I mean, what a joy it is to stand before our churches and inform them that on the other side of their generous giving, that has been motivated by the grace of God in Christ; on the other side of that is a harvest of righteousness. There is sowing and reaping. There is treasure in heaven. I mean, as pastors, there are so many things to encourage our folks. So as you start to develop this paper, I understand you're putting together a team of guys to help with it. Tell us about what that looks like.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. I believe it was last week. I pulled together four guys that are helping me write this paper: Brendan Willis, a pastor in Sydney, Australia (with Dave Taylor), Andres Contreras, who's in Guadalajara (with Chobi), Kyle Houlton, who's in Santa Ana, California, and Leo Parris, who's at Covenant Fellowship with me. And so we just met and began to talk through what a paper like this should look like, and who are we writing it for? And what do we want to accomplish? And after a lot of conversation, we haven't completely finalized the plan yet, but most likely we are going to write a biblical theology of generosity or biblical theology of giving. And we want to write a biblical theological approach because it allows it to be inspirational at points. So when we write this, we're not only writing this for the pastors of Sovereign Grace. We think it'll serve them but we want to also write it for the members of our churches.

So we want it to be accessible and inspirational and stir not only giving, but the joy of giving in particular. And I think we're at a time that it's really important for us to do that, especially because we've established, over the last couple of years, these four development funds that people can give to that are making a really huge impact on what we're doing outside of the states. Obviously, we need financial support in the states to continue to do ministry. And so before we just cultivate that, let's step back and think about why are we raising money for ministry and mission? And as I've dropped into a sort-of fundraising world, although it's a wonderful world, I've found it to be much more methodologically driven than theologically driven. And I've benefited from their methodology, but I just thought we've gotta step back as a family of churches and make sure that our methodology is rooted in good theology that ultimately aims at the joy of our people.

So, that's one of the reasons the paper is being written. We hope to write a paper and then from that potentially compose some sort of theological vision when it comes to generosity and giving, which would be shorter and possibly have a little different utility than a paper might. We want to root our giving in the joy of giving. So that's another reason to write the paper.

And a paper like this will set boundaries on how we will fundraise because we'll encounter biblical boundaries about how we go about fundraising. It will also help define some of the terms we might choose to use as we go about raising money or calling people to give. So let me just give you one example: Do we use the term "donor", or do we use a term that I've heard used before, "gospel patron"? Patron is language that's used by Paul in Romans 15. There are wonderful stories throughout history of gospel patrons; John Thornton's financial support behind the scenes of John Newton, as an example.

So it will define the language that we will use. I think it'll also help align our theology of giving with the burdens people in our churches have in terms of their giving. We can match their passions for ministry with things they want to give to. I think the development funds are an example of that. We hope it will serve the pastors of our churches, not just informing them. How do I teach on giving, but how to cultivate a joy, a culture of joy in giving in particular, and possibly pastors may choose to actually give it to the members of their churches. So those are some of the reasons why we think it's good to write the paper and we're going to get to work on it. I don't know quite yet how long it's taken us; I've got a meeting today with Leo to talk through the outline of the paper a bit. And so be praying for us as we put this together, but ultimately that it leads to the joy of our people, and the glory of Christ, and the funding of gospel mission.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes. How grateful I am that we get to be part of a family of churches that for so many years has been marked by joy and generosity. And so I'm grateful that you and the other guys involved are investing time and effort into developing a resource to deepen those wonderful marks of gospel culture that God has given us. So thank you and thank you to all the men involved. We'll be praying for your work and look forward to reading the paper when you're done with it. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We'll be here next week, Lord, willing. Bye for now.