THE RISE AND FALL

Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations:

EXTRAVAGANT GENEROSITY

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

Extravagance is a sign of excellence.

A sermon preached by

Dr. William O. (Bud) Reeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot Springs, Arkansas

February 15, 2009

Just two weeks ago, quarterback Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals led his team into the Super Bowl. They were defeated by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it was a great game, and Warner, who has appeared in three Super Bowls, now holds the record for pass yardage in the Super Bowl.

Throughout his eleven-year career in the NFL, Kurt Warner has also been known as a man of faith and generosity. He started a family tradition he calls The Restaurant Game. The night before he heads out for a road game, Kurt and his wife take their seven children out to eat a family dinner. Once the Warner family is seated, one of the children will scan the dining area like a quarterback looking for potential receivers. When the Warner child picks a table, Kurt asks the waiter to add that table's dinner tab to his own—anonymously.

The idea for The Restaurant Game came to Warner and his wife after Warner led the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl victory in 2000. They remember the days before Warner's NFL career—when Kurt was working a night shift at a grocery store, and they only had food stamps to feed their family. With that in mind, giving is a joyful family tradition for the Warners. "We want our kids to grow up knowing that because of football we are blessed," Warner said. "We never want them to lose sight of what it's really about. Our circumstances are not the most important thing. It's what we do with those circumstances."[1]

Today, we are wrapping up this series on the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. We have talked about Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, and Risk-Taking Mission and Service. I hope it has been a fruitful discussion of what makes a church excellent in ministry. I love to cast a great vision for a church, because I believe that’s where God calls us to go. I hope you have also seen as we have discussed these five practices that we are already on our way. We are already excellent in many respects. But we are still on the journey to grow and get better.

Today we want to end with extravagant generosity. Fruitful congregations practice extravagant generosity. Excellent disciples of Christ give extravagantly to the work of the Kingdom.

Maybe you’re already thinking, “I don’t think Bro. Bud has seen the news lately. Maybe extravagant generosity would work in times of prosperity. But hasn’t he heard? We are in a recession, an economic downturn, a financial crisis.” So we are. I’m not talking about being extravagant with our church finances. We will not be flying any corporate jets to Congressional bailout hearings! As a church we are trying to practice extremely good stewardship and radical frugality. We are watching every dollar and pinching every penny. We are focusing on the priorities as outlined in our strategic plan, and trying to put our resources where they will be most effective. We are not going to be extravagant with your money.

However, the other side of the coin is developing our personal stewardship. We want you to continue to grow in your giving. Fruitful congregations are made up of disciples who are extravagantly generous in their support of ministry. Excellent churches develop a culture of giving that enables the ministry to grow. Fruitful congregations have four key words for stewardship:

· Priority. Our giving to God is our first gift, the “first fruits” of our income, a commitment made before anything else is considered.

· Proportion. God doesn’t care how much we give, but how much of ourselves we give to him. The dollar amount doesn’t matter, but the proportion of income does. The Biblical norm for proportional giving is the tithe, or 10%. Bishop Schnase says in his book, “Vibrant, fruitful, growing congregations practice Extravagant Generosity. These churches teach, preach, and practice proportional giving with a goal toward tithing.”[2]

· Consistency. Giving is done on a regular basis, because the church needs support day by day, week by week, month by month. Consistent support allows us to be better stewards of our resources and more effective in our programming.

· Joy. Giving is a spiritual pleasure, an opportunity to please God, to help the church we love, and to express our faith. Our Scripture text reminds us, “God loves a cheerful giver.”[3] Giving is one of the joys of being a disciple of Jesus.

How do we generate the spirit of Extravagant Generosity in our lives? How can we approach this practice that will make our congregation more fruitful?

Extravagant generosity is a response to the goodness of God. Before we ever thought about being generous, God poured out his generous love, grace, and mercy on us. He created the world; he made covenant to be our God; he loved the world so much he gave his only Son; he forgives our sins, and he makes a way for us to inherit eternal life. How could any act of generosity on our part approach the generosity of God? Simply put, it won’t. We can’t outgive God. But we can respond to the extravagance he has already shown us by giving with extravagant generosity.

Mike Erre and his wife refinanced their house a few months ago and were able to cash out what for them was a large sum of money. It was coming up on Christmas, and Mike had been studying the birth of Christ and the gift God gave to the world in Bethlehem. In his heart he began to have a desire to do something extraordinary in response to this gift. When he talked to his wife about it, he discovered that she had been thinking the same thing. They decided they would give the proceeds from their refinancing to help other people, and they felt great joy and freedom deciding who would receive their gifts. Mike said, “We had a blast giving it away and living the revolution of Christmas as we celebrated the giving of God's Son."[4] Such extravagant generosity is a response to the goodness and generosity of God.

Extravagant generosity requires a belief in the abundance of God. If God is limited in his resources to bless his people, then it would be wise to hang on to what we have. It would be stupid to give it away because there might not be enough. But if our God is truly an infinite, unlimited, omnipotent Creator God of the universe, then we don’t have to worry about God running out of resources. There will always be enough. God has plenty to meet our needs. And if he needs more of anything, he can make more.

In The Upper Room several months ago, Bruce Blumer of South Dakota told about attending a minor-league baseball game while he was traveling. In the third inning, it was announced that his ticket number had won a free oil change at a local garage. Not being local, Bruce gave his ticket to the man sitting next to him. After the sixth inning, there was a mascot’s race, and everyone in Bruce’s section won a coupon for a restaurant in the town. Again, just passing through, Bruce gave that coupon away, too. Then in the eighth inning, a young lady handed Bruce an envelope containing a coupon for a free dinner for two at another local restaurant. Bruce turned to a couple sitting behind him and said, “Have a nice dinner,” and gave them the envelope.

Bruce reflected on that experience: “I was given three gifts in one evening, and it made no sense to keep any of them. I was on my way home and had no plans to return to this town. It occurred to me that many people see everything, all that they have, as a gift from heaven—not just what is easy to give away, but all that they have. If I see everything I have as a gift from God, wouldn't it be easier for me to give back to God what already belongs to God anyway?”[5] When we see our lives as a gift of God, and we are on our way to a better home anyway, God’s supplies are always abundant.

Stephen Covey, the business guru, explained this principle in his landmark book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He contrasted the mentalities of scarcity and abundance. Scarcity mentality is always thinking that our resources and supplies are limited. Therefore, we keep, we hoard, we are reluctant to share, because we are not sure that we will have enough to meet our own needs. On the other hand, an abundance mentality sees the world as an unlimited source of life. There is always enough and more for everyone to prosper, especially if your source is an infinite God. Living with an abundance mentality is a more effective way to live.[6]

It’s also a more Biblical way to live. Our Scripture text today says, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”[7] We can practice extravagant generosity because the resources of God—which supply our lives—are abundant beyond measure. We believe in that.

We can practice extravagant generosity because we trust in the providence of God. Not only are the resources of God abundant, but in his love for us, he wants us to have them. He wants to bless us. He wants to meet our needs. Our Scripture says, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us.”[8] God will take care of you when you give of yourself to him; trust it.

One of the most extravagantly generous disciples I have ever known was a sweet little lady named Zelia Thames. She died a few years ago, and I was privileged to be her pastor. She was a former church organist and a strong steward, although she was a person of limited means. Her income was minimal, and she lived in a house that had seen its better days decades before. But her check for $125 dollars came in at the first of every month regardless. During one of our church building campaigns, she came in with a check for $3,000, and I asked her where she got it. She said she had just sold the last piece of her ancestral property in Mississippi, and that was her tithe off of it. Her timing was not accidental.

One day Zelia asked me to come see her, so I went over to her house. I sat in her neat-as-a-pin living room that hadn’t seen any new furniture since Eisenhower was president, and she told me with tears in her eyes that she was going to have to reduce her giving to $100 a month. She felt so bad. I had a hunch, so I asked Zelia what her annual income was. She said about $10,000. She was living off less than $1,000 a month, yet she was feeling bad about giving more than a tithe to the church. I reassured her that she was still doing more than God’s minimum, and she assured me, “God has always provided for me, and I want to do what I can to provide for my church.”

Practicing extravagant generosity puts us in a position to receive the abundant providence of God. And the practice of extravagant generosity on a church-wide level positions a church for greatness. Bishop Schnase says, “The practice of Extravagant Generosity also changes churches. Churches that nurture proportional giving and tithing among their members thrive. They accomplish great things for Christ, offer robust and confident ministry, and have the resources to carry out ever new and helpful missions. They escape the debilitating effects of conflict and anxiety that are the fruit of a scarcity mentality. They prosper for the purposes of Christ and make a difference in the lives of people.”[9] Extravagant generosity helps create a culture of excellence in the church.

Let me close with a story about the great missionary to Africa in the 19^th century, Dr. David Livingstone. Livingstone travelled into the uncharted lands of Central Africa to preach the gospel. On one occasion, he arrived at the edge of a large territory that was ruled by a tribal chieftain. According to tradition, the chief would come out to meet him, and Livingstone could go forward only after an exchange was made. The chief would choose any item of Livingstone's personal property that caught his fancy and keep it for himself, while giving the missionary something of his own in return.

Livingstone had few possessions with him, but at their encounter he obediently spread them all out on the ground—his clothes, his books, his watch, and even the goat that provided him with milk (since chronic stomach problems kept him from drinking the local water). To his dismay, the chief took his goat. In return, the chief gave him a carved stick, shaped like a walking stick.

Livingstone was upset. What could a stupid walking cane do for him compared to the goat that kept him well? Then one of the local men explained, "That's not a walking cane. It's the king's very own scepter, and with it you will find entrance to every village in our country. The king has honored you greatly." Wherever Livingstone went from that time on, the doors were open to his party—and to the Gospel.[10]

Extravagant generosity opens up the Kingdom for our exploration. If you respond to the goodness of God, if you believe in the abundance of God, if you trust in the providence of God, you can practice extravagant generosity. It will make you a faithful Christian. It will make us a fruitful congregation. Amen!