I want to start this entry with the following disclaimer: I am not currently employed by any Christian-affiliated organization but I have been and hope to do so again.
I am grateful for having had the opportunity to do meaningful work with compensation and I am even more grateful when I remember that my paycheck started out in an offering plate. What little income I currently earn as a free-lance writer for Presbyterian-related publications also starts its path toward me as a ten or twenty-dollar bill pulled out of a wallet or a pocket and folded discreetly in someone’s hand as they await the solemn passing of the often decades old offering plate. As a free-lance writer and occasional pulpit supply preacher, I remain aware that my income, meager as it is, is someone else’s sacrificial gift. In these economic times, tithing has become both more important and more potentially sacrificial as jobs disappear, savings dive with the market, and paid hours are cut in the workplace.