![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sharefaith.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/giving.jpg\" "\\"giving\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Eric Foley knows about money, but not in the way you might be thinking. The ministry of Eric Foley involves how Christians should think about and give away their money. It’s not about fund-raising. It’s about transformational giving. More importantly, it’s about essential Christian discipleship. Eric Foley provides a refreshing antidote to the health and wealth heresy, and a wonderful reprieve from the earn-hoard-save materialism of many in the church today.<\/p>\n
Sharefaith spent some time discussing these concepts with Eric. If you are a pastor or ministry leader, what you read in this interview could revolutionize your ministry. If you are a Christian with a desire to grow in Christlikeness, the material here will provide insights into how Christians should view money, use money, and give it away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Many of our readers may not know you. Tell us, briefly, who you are and what you do.<\/strong><\/p>\n My name is Eric Foley. My wife, Hyun Sook, and I founded Seoul USA ten years ago. Seoul USA serves as a bridge between the Korean church (both North and South) and the church in the rest of the world. We bring the gifts of the Korean church to the church in the West and the gifts of the church in the West to the Korean church. We have a particular focus on mobilizing the church around the world to support the underground church of North Korea. I am one-third of the ministry\u2019s Executive Team, overseeing its .W division. W<\/em> stands for Doers Of The Word. Through .W we consult churches and Christian NGOs on comprehensive discipleship as a robust biblical alternative to secular fundraising practices. We believe secular fundraising practices weaken the generosity of the church and its members and also keep them from reaching full maturity in Christ. This creates dependence on specialized Christian NGOs to fulfill the eternal mission God intends to be undertaken by average Joe Christians in average Joe churches. This is actually bad for Christian NGOs as well, since it completely obscures their invaluable role as a church renewal movement raised up to support the church to grow to full maturity in Christ in all of the causes Christian NGOs serve. Over the past twenty years we\u2019ve consulted and trained roughly 1,500 churches and Christian NGOs in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia.<\/p>\n “Transformational Giving” is a term that you use. Can you explain it? Who’s being transformed? How? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n Transformational Giving is a general term for the growing movement to teach Christians financial giving in the wider context of comprehensive Christian discipleship. Churches and Christian NGOs either talk way too much or way too little about financial giving. Some have the idea that increased financial giving comes as a result of better and more creative tools, techniques, and strategies designed to motivate people to give. But that actually doesn\u2019t work. During the history of modern fundraising\u2014roughly the last fifty years\u2014the percentage that the average Christian donates to charity has remained unchanged. It sits right around 3%, whether the economy is good or bad. And even though churches and Christian NGOs have implemented tons of new tools, techniques, and strategies, the average Christian actually gave away a higher percentage of their income during the Great Depression than they do today. They forget that the one power God never delegates to human beings is the power to change the human heart. So God stands guard at the entrance to the human heart and refuses to grant deep and lasting access to the practitioners of these tools, techniques, and strategies. Because it\u2019s not how he grows Christians to full maturity in Christ.<\/p>\n On the other hand, some churches and Christian NGOs assume that people will give more if we don\u2019t talk about money. They consider it a kind of virtue to not talk about money. But this overlooks the reality that giving, like every other element of discipleship, is learned through explicit teaching and guided practice. God commands us to teach Christians how to do it well. Since many churches don\u2019t talk about giving, it\u2019s no surprise that in the United States, 5% of church attendees account for 60% of the giving, 50% of the attendees account for 1% of the giving, and 20% of attendees give nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cStewardship\u201d is often presented as the answer, but it is pretty weak broth. It looks in the wrong end of the telescope and shrinks biblical discipleship down to the task of making good and generous investments of one\u2019s time, talent, and financial gifts. But in Romans 12:1-2, the focus is not on the transformation of the steward\u2019s resources. The focus is on the presentation of the Christian\u2019s whole life as an offering. God is less concerned about our donations and more about who we are becoming as we make them. Stewardship is too small a category when what we\u2019re talking about here is being transformed into the likeness of Christ!<\/p>\n So Transformational Giving contends that comprehensive discipleship is the biblical framework for talking about giving. It recognizes that the giving of Christians parallels their overall maturity in Christ. So if you want to grow giving in a particular area of a Christian\u2019s life, you have to grow their overall maturity in Christ in that area. A Christian\u2019s financial donation will be roughly the same size as their head, their heart, and their hands in relation to a particular cause.<\/p>\n Embarrassingly, secular fundraisers have known this for years. Beginning in 2001, a series of studies have shown that a person who is asked to become comprehensively involved in a cause will be 50% more likely to give financially to the cause than a person who is just asked to support the cause financially. And that\u2019s common sense, really. We give to what we care about. Transformational Giving says, \u201cLet\u2019s work with the Holy Spirit to grow Christians to full maturity in Christ in the causes Christ cares about. Let\u2019s grow them not only financially but holistically.\u201d<\/p>\n We seem to be financially struggling church, as a whole. We hardly have enough money to replace our threadbare carpet, let alone give our money away. Do you have any advice?<\/strong><\/p>\n I would say you don\u2019t have a carpet challenge or a financial challenge. You have a discipleship challenge. I\u2019ve not yet seen a church where comprehensive Christian discipleship was taught where giving was a problem. Unfortunately, much contemporary discipleship training can\u2019t figure out how to integrate giving into the training process, so they break it out and teach it separately as \u201cstewardship\u201d. So they run into the same problems I mentioned earlier, and they end up struggling financially like other churches. So the key is to establish, embrace, and implement a comprehensive program of discipleship that grows Christians to fullness in Christ, where their giving is one part of a much wider pattern of personal involvement they have in the things that God cares about. Financial gifts are nothing more or less than token and pledge that the Christian will be \u201call in\u201d with their time and their passion and their participation in a given cause.<\/p>\n You talk a lot about philanthropy. Is it really a biblical concept, or just something to help millionaires keep their taxes lower?<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely! But not at all the way the word is popularly used today. I write extensively about this in my upcoming book, which should release in early 2011. I\u2019ve been posting excerpts from the book on this subject on my blog, www.ericfoley.com<\/a>. Here\u2019s the ten-second version: The term \u201cphilanthropy\u201d was created not to describe acts of kindness and charity from one human being to another. Instead, it was created in the 5th century B.C. to describe acts of kindness and charity from a god\u2014Prometheus, actually\u2014toward human beings. So the term was first used in Greek mythology, but was soon adopted by the early church\u2014Paul uses it in Titus 3:4, for example\u2014to denote God\u2019s deep love toward humanity in Christ. In other words, philanthropy is not primarily something we give, it is something we receive. It is only after we receive God\u2019s \u201cfriendship-love\u201d\u2014that\u2019s what \u201cphilanthropy\u201d literally means\u2014that we can mirror it into the world, which we do as an offering back to God.<\/p>\n Should I give to a beggar who comes up to me on the street and just asks for money?<\/strong><\/p>\n In Christian discipleship, we can only ever give ourselves. Money given in Jesus\u2019 name is just the token and pledge that the Christian will withhold no good thing from the one to whom the money is given. So if you are giving money to the beggar to make him go away, you have actually robbed him. God expects us to give the beggar far more. Because that\u2019s what he himself does with beggars like us. He gives himself. Having received him, then, our calling is to give ourselves back to him on the altar of the world. That\u2019s our reasonable worship. So offer the beggar Christ\u2019s friendship-love, of which your financial giving is gloriously but the smallest part.<\/p>\n Why should a Christian be motivated to give?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, let\u2019s start with what shouldn\u2019t<\/em> motivate them to give. Self-fulfillment should not motivate them to give. We\u2019re to take up our cross daily and empty ourselves into others the way he empties himself into us. So filling ourselves up through giving\u2014because it makes us feel good or because we like to help people, for example\u2014moves us in entirely the wrong direction. We\u2019ll find ourselves not giving more than giving, because one only needs so much giving or helping in order to feel good enough. And the desire to change the world should not motivate Christians to give. Jesus has this maddening habit in the Scriptures of calling people to give everything to things that appear to make no earthly difference. \u201cSuppose you have a hundred sheep and you lose one,\u201d says Jesus. \u201cWouldn\u2019t you abandon the ninety nine and go after the one?\u201d And we want to say, \u201cNo! Of course not! You win some sheep and you lose some sheep! That\u2019s the cost of the sheep business!\u201d So churches and Christian NGOs are like that. They win some members and they lose some members with little grief at all.<\/p>\n So there\u2019s only one biblical motivation to give, and that is because we become every more deeply aware that Christ is pouring his whole life into us, and we are filled to overflowing. We pour our\/his life into others in order to mirror him into the world. This is our reasonable worship. What we do to others in his name we actually do to him as our worship of him.<\/p>\n Jesus told us to “sell all you have” and give it away. Is that wise? Realistic? Or maybe a bit too radical?<\/strong><\/p>\n Wisdom personified, yeah. The rich young ruler thinks in terms of his receiving an inheritance\u2014\u201cGood teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?\u201d–and Jesus responds in terms of his becoming the philanthropy of God dispensed to the world in Christ\u2019s name. As Jesus notes, it is not a one-time act but rather a daily choice one makes. The rich young ruler rightly perceives that this is a threat to his system of personal security which says that he can only care for others once his own wellbeing is secured. But in Christ our wellbeing is never in question. He will always empty himself into us. And the more we become conscious of that deeply, the more we will respond by emptying ourselves into others. The security comes from Christ\u2019s constant self-emptying into us, not from what we don\u2019t empty into others. We can\u2019t take up a cross and a little bit of self-fulfillment daily. We either have to decide that Christ is going to continue to empty himself into us daily or he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n Many Christians may want to give, to be philanthropic, but they don’t know how to give, or who they should give money to. Can you help? What are some worthy gospel causes?<\/strong><\/p>\n Happy to help. We need to develop a plan of comprehensive discipleship that grows us, in the power of the Holy Spirit, into the fullness of Christ. So we don\u2019t build a plan around our interests or passions or around where we think we can make the biggest difference. Instead, throughout the Christian age churches have recognized that Christ pours himself into us through specific works of mercy\u2014he gives us bread to eat; he opens his home to us; he proclaims the gospel to us; and so on. And our calling is to give to others what he has given to us. So different denominations and individuals over the years have identified lists of these works of mercy in which the Holy Spirit grows us to be like Christ. In my new book I identify ten areas. There\u2019s nothing sacrosanct about that\u2014there could be more areas, or less, or they could be sliced and diced differently\u2014but the key recognition is that the Bible outlines specific works of mercy that become means of grace by which we come to know Christ more deeply and by which others can catch a glimpse of Christ in us. Because Christ is not a specialist\u2014he\u2019s a generalist\u2014he doesn\u2019t call us to pick one or two areas and concentrate our giving there. If we did, we\u2019d miss out on coming to know aspects of his personality that you can only ever see if, for example, you are involved in forgiving and reconciling or ransoming the captives with him.<\/p>\n I put it like this: If you want to get to know my wife, don\u2019t just attend a meeting with her. Don\u2019t just watch a movie with her. Cook with her in her own kitchen. You\u2019ll learn things about her that way that you would never know otherwise, because cooking is one of her passions. You don\u2019t earn her favor if you cook with her. You cook with her because you want to learn her fully. Same with God. We don\u2019t do these works of mercy to earn his favor. They\u2019re means of grace that he performs on us every day. By becoming more aware of them, and by letting him train us to do these for others, we come to know him in ways we otherwise never would.<\/p>\n And this is about more than giving. The Bible doesn\u2019t say, \u201cGive to an organization that visits the widows and the prisoners.\u201d Goats do that, too. He wants us to go visit the widows and the prisoners. The word \u201cvisit\u201d means \u201clook in on with one\u2019s own eyes\u201d. You can\u2019t do that just by making a tax-deductible gift to an organization that looks in on people. It won\u2019t change your own eyes at all. John Wesley said this is why people are largely uncharitable: Because their own eyes have not seen in person what God sees in person.<\/p>\n Tell us a little bit about your first book (I can provide a link to it, if that would help you out). Tell us about your upcoming book.<\/strong><\/p>\n My first book, titled Coach Your Champions<\/a>, is a \u201cministry fable\u201d about an inner-city ministry and how it learned to identify real \u201cmajor donors\u201d by their overall involvement in the cause rather than the size of their bank account. And it shows how the ministry goes from trying to get churches and Christians to support them to them actually supporting churches and Christians to grow to fullness in Christ in their ministry\u2019s cause. It\u2019s a primer in Transformational Giving for churches and Christian NGOs. My second book, The Whole Life Offering: Christianity as Philanthropy, is written not only for church and Christian NGO leaders but also for average Joe Christians. It aspires to be a modest but woefully insufficient \u201cdiscipleship companion manual\u201d to the Scripture! I talk about Christ\u2019s ministry as his \u201cwhole life offering\u201d to God that he pours into us, and how we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit and a Scripture-centered plan, develop our own \u201cwhole life offering\u201d as our reasonable worship of him. So it\u2019s about moving beyond thinking about giving donations and into the biblical territory of giving ourselves as a donation to him as we are poured out like a drink offering on others\u2019 faith, to use the apostle Paul\u2019s words. I go over the works of mercy and review the Scripture related to each one, showing how to root our whole-life giving in practices of preparation that the church has historically called \u201cworks of piety\u201d\u2014searching the Scripture, prayer, self-denial, those kinds of things. It is written with the goal of equipping individual Christians, pastors, and ministries with a thoroughly Biblical perspective on philanthropy focusing on the receiving of God\u2019s grace as the necessary pre-requisite to doing good unto others. Lord willing, it\u2019s due for release in early 2011.<\/p>\n I’m a Christian, but I don’t have much money. Should I be giving?<\/strong><\/p>\n Have you received from Christ? Only give what you have received from him.<\/p>\n I’ve heard that if I start giving my money to God, he’ll start blessing me with more. Is this true?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, you\u2019ll be wasting his less, that\u2019s for sure! The apostle Paul says part of God\u2019s curriculum is learning to be content with a lot and learning to be content with a little. Money is neither the great good nor the focus. The focus is on Christ\u2019s whole life offering to us, and on our whole life offering to others. The lilies of the field know that their father will give them the right mix of soil and sunshine and water. They don\u2019t worry about stockpiling one more than the other. They just render their lily lives as their reasonable worship to him, and he always comes through in the end.<\/p>\n We always need to remember this: When one undertakes an activity in order to secure eternal reward or avoid eternal punishment, one is acting out of self-preservation. This is the very root that Christ intends to pluck up and discard. As he says in Luke 9:24, \u201cFor whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it\u201d (NIV).<\/p>\n What are some of the best resources you know of for giving advice, help, and instruction in giving?<\/strong><\/p>\n Is it superfluous to say the Bible? We need to start there\u2014and stay there, really, daily\u2014in order to learn and learn again that we don\u2019t have a need for new tools, techniques, and strategies. God doesn\u2019t permit those to penetrate deeply or permanently in the human heart. Instead, we need to become more consciously and deeply aware of the philanthropy God pours into us daily. That gives us the joyful confidence to become philanthropists ourselves. We give comprehensively because giving is a means of grace by which we come to know him more fully and by which others can catch a glimpse of him through us. For now it\u2019s a dim mirror. But the joy will be that when we see him, we\u2019ll have no difficulty recognizing him from what we were permitted to see.<\/p>\n Be sure to visit Eric’s blog<\/a> to read more helpful information on fund raising, Christian giving, discipleship, and donating.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sharefaith.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Eric-Bio-Pic1.jpg\" "\\"Eric")
<\/a><\/p>\n