Paying your tithes may never be the same again. Although churches have long accepted credit and debit cards as part of the tithing process, one pastor is pioneering a new way of supporting the storehouse beyond the traditional offering plate.
In 2005, Marty Baker, lead pastor of Stevens Creek Church in Augusta, Ga., created the Secure Give system for his local church. Based around an ATM-like machine called a "giving kiosk," Secure Give allows users to give tithes, offerings or other donations with a single swipe of a credit or debit card. Each kiosk can be freestanding, complete with a black pedestal topped with a computer touch screen, numeric keypad and magnetic-strip reader, or it can be a tabletop unit. When a user completes a "transaction," data is immediately sent to a church's central computer system and the donor can receive both an e-mail confirmation and a printed receipt.
Just when the decades-old memories of the PTL and Jimmy Swaggart debacles were finally beginning to fade, along came 2007. In what was one of the most tumultuous periods in recent charismatic-Pentecostal history, last year uncovered scandal after scandal surrounding renowned ministries, churches and universities. Some situations brought needed exposure; others simply added to the disillusionment. Yet at the center of most was one thing: money.
The culmination came in November when Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, requested information from six media-based ministries regarding allegations of "possible misuse of donations." The senator's probe, which still continues, involves such misappropriated expenses as convertibles, mansions, private jet planes, furnishings and excessive compensation.
Every morning in the coastal Dominican Republic city of La Romana, people line up on the sidewalk in front of a church. They are young and old, male and female. A few are members of the congregation. Most are not. A majority of them are poor. All are carrying clear, blue, plastic, five-gallon water jugs.
They're lined up to purchase the simplest of necessities: clean drinking water. Around 10 a.m.—more than 2,000 gallons later—the line of hundreds dissipates. The overwhelming demand has drained the massive water storage tanks housed inside the church. Those still waiting shuffle away, empty bottles in tow. They'll be back tomorrow morning when the tanks have refilled and the distribution point is again open for business.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it--lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, "This man began to build and was not able to finish"'"(Luke 14:28-30, NKJV).
Calvary Assembly of God in Winter Park, Florida, recently celebrated an achievement that reversed a curse on our church. We wept, shouted, laughed and had the time of our lives celebrating becoming free of debt. It was a huge accomplishment for us. Calvary had suffered for years--at times with excruciating pain--because of this mountain of debt. By God's grace, it will never happen again!
God has a low tolerance for mismanagement. He created everything, and He will not have it mismanaged. He will keep it from people if they don't oversee their resources with intelligent oversight. I have discovered that God will only give people what they won't waste—whether it be money, position or some other resource. The following mismanagement principles are eternal. If you don't learn them, the results and the consequences of violating them will be evident.
Misuse of resources produces mismanagement. In the Garden of Eden we see that Adam and Eve abused the fruit on God's one forbidden tree. They did with it what it was not made to do—they ate it. So, they mismanaged it
