Plan to Be Generous

How We Manage Our Resources – Part 2

We wanted to provide more of an introduction to this section, but since we have so much content to cover, we felt the need to jump right in and skip a lengthy introduction.  In your life (your family, your home), finances, money and your available resources play a huge role.  For our readers, I know this topic is of vital importance because we find this to be an area of stress, lack and (more commonly) problems.  The purpose of today’s post is to help you prioritize your giving and make a plan to be generous that works for you.

You might not be aware of how generous you already are because you don’t measure it.  Do you have a list of all the places that you provide donations  and contributions?  Do you track where you give?  There might be places that you give to recurringly.  It wasn’t until Pamela and I started reviewing our giving that it helped us see where we were and what we should/could do to get to where we desired to be.  

Everything works against you when you don’t give.

What Christians Call A “Tither”
I’ve learned from various sources that giving is one reason for life to go well in the area of (your) finances.  If you study it, people who aren’t givers experience more hardships and money problems than those who are givers (generous).  As Christians, Pamela and I believe what the Bible says about the subject of generosity not what people try to get us to believe.  We are what Christians call “tithers”.  That means we give intentionally a minimum of 10% of our income back to God through our church.  This subject opens the door to many questions such as where should you give, do you give 10% of gross or net, and when do you give the 10%?  I would love to answer these questions, but not in today’s blog post.  For those responses, just email me.  For the sake of today’s post, simply note that we have a plan for giving which tithing is a priority on that list.  Our Family Plan illustrates this with great importance and we track it to make certain we hit our goal and even beyond.  I can say, without a doubt, that it has been the best decision we’ve made for almost a decade.  

What About More?
Most people stop at tithing and I can’t blame the thinking behind that, but what if you had a passion to do more? Pamela and I certainly don’t want to stop at tithing or 10%.  We feel that we can do a whole lot more; we can do more good.  If we put life-our business, in a position to give more, then this also allows us to have our remaining finances in excellent shape.  I’m sure you’re wondering how.  For starters, you need a plan.  Since we knew we would give our entire tithe to our local church, we decided to up our giving.  [I feel a question in there, click here.]  We made a plan.  Most normal people wouldn’t think about giving more than 10% of their income away and that’s simply for 2 reasons: 1) they’ve never given 10% and 2) they’ve not learned to be generous which simply means to do good.  

The Family Plan Binder is available soon.  Our team is working hard putting the finishing touches on our Family Plan binder that we’re making available to you.  We designed it to help you and your family move the needle forward making your life your business.  Find out more about the Family plan here.

Each year in the month of December, Pamela and I review our annual budget.  We close our books on November 30 and review our fiscal year (12/1 – 11/30) during the month of December.  This review allows us to compare our percentage of giving year over year.  With such a comparison, we are able to see how much better our lives are because we’ve become intentional givers.  Honestly [if I can go to the left a little], I can’t understand how a Christian can be a serious tither without tracking and evaluating how they’re doing.  In every other area of life, we track and grade our progress, why aren’t we serious enough about the things that are important to God and our family’s well being?  Get serious; create a giving plan.

Today is Friday!
Next week we continue with places you can give and how to deal with tax-breaks for being generous.

If I haven’t convinced you of the need to be a “giver”, I don’t know what else I can do.  If your family isn’t where you’d like it to be, have you considered becoming more generous?  You know what not being generous does already, what would being more generous make happen for you?  Share your thoughts with us below.