Book Notes: Faith and Money by Michael Reeves and Jennifer Tyler


Faith and Money

I was blessed with the gift of spending 3 days with Michael Reeves, one of the authors of this book this past week. The training was outstanding and if you ever have the opportunity you should take advantage of it. Money is a topic that many churches sweep under the rug and honestly they do that to their detriment. The way we use and handle and give money says volumes about out understand of the teaching of the Bible and further, our relationship with Christ.

The book covers everything we learned in the training and would be a great place for churches, especially pastors and finance committees to read together and explore some new ways to teach our congregations the truth about money and faith.

Here are some of the nuggets that I took from the book, there is a wealth of information here so I will just hit the highlights.

#1 Idea I came away with is that many pastors do not know who the givers are in their church. There are several arguments for this but none of them are valid. Some are afraid if the pastor knows the giving trends of their members that people will be treated differently, this is probably the number one argument. Think with me for just a moment, the pastor knows about your marital issues, ethical dilemmas, moral failures, addictions, and sometimes criminal acts. But these same people believe the pastor cannot be trusted with their giving information.

If that doesn’t convince you maybe this will.

One of every 16 verses in the bible deals with the matter of money and or stewardship. Jesus taught a lot about money and giving. There is great emphasis from God that He gets the first part of all of our increase. Finances are a spiritual issue and no different than any other teaching in the bible. It is incredible that anyone would make a church their home and follow the pastor’s teaching while not trusting them to know what they give.

“Logic would suggest that those most easily offended would likely be those who give the least proportionally.”

By the way, it’s not about the amount that is given is about the fact that the level of giving is the same for every person who ever walked the earth, 10% or the first part of your increase.

Only the kingdom of God is discussed more by Jesus than the matter of finances, giving and stewardship.

#2. Those have the most tend to give the least.

#3. The starting point for understanding biblical stewardship is that God owns everything and what we have is given to us to steward.

#4. It is common to find people of modest resources included in the top levels of giving.

#5. God’s work waits upon the faithfulness of God’s people.

#6. Almost every time the Bible commands us to give it is followed by a promise of reward to the giver.

#7. Leaders of the church have to lead the way in giving.

#8. God expects us to give the first of our materials possessions and not the dregs.

#9. There needs to be a narrative budget to show the congregation how the money is spent and how lives are changed..

#10. Gimmicks do not grow givers hearts, teaching biblical stewardship does.

#11. A selfish church is a shrinking church.

#12. In 2013 people need more ways to give because we live in a cashless society. No one carries cash anymore nor do we write checks.

#13. People are willing to give when they believe their giving is making a difference.

#14. Churches need to focus on the mission and not the need.

#15. When a church is doing extraordinary things for Christ, they can expect spiritual warfare.

#16. In our time we have multiplied our possessions and reduced our values.

God’s Economy Is Different From Ours.

Haggai 1: 5-6 NLT

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!

no perfect people allowed (3)

Leave a Reply