"There are no money problems, only idea problems." Dr. Robert Schuller

Increasing Contributions

Ideas for increasing contributions from the congregation may be found in the two links below, as well as in the following stories. We will be putting in more materials on this page in future.

Increasing Giving Ideas

Membership Manual

Stories Illustrating Tithing

Two Seas

There are two seas in Palestine. One is fresh and fish are in it. Splashes of green adorn its banks. Trees spread their branches over it, and stretch out their thirsty roots to sip of its healing waters. Along its shores the children play, as children played when Jesus was there. He loved it. He could look across its silver surface when He spoke His parables. And on a rolling plain not far away He fed 5,000 people. The river Jordan makes this sea with sparkling water from the hills. Men build their houses near to it, and birds build their nests; and every kind of life is happier because it is there. 
The river Jordan flows on south into another sea. Here is no splash of fish, no fluttering leaf, no song of birds, no children's laughter. Travelers choose another route, unless on urgent business. The air hangs heavy above its waters, and neither man nor beast nor fowl will drink. 

What makes up this difference in these neighbor seas? Not the river Jordan. It empties the same good water into both. Not the soil in which they lie, not the country round about. This is the difference. The sea of Galilee receives but does not keep the Jordan. For every drop of water that flows into it, another drop flows out. The other sea is shrewder, hoarding its income jealously. It will not be tempted into any generous impulse. The sea of Galilee gives and lives. This other sea gives nothing. It is named the Dead Sea. 

There are two seas in Palestine. There are two kinds of people in this world.

Caution!
To be read only if 
you are really ready to grow!
(The following is excerpted from 
The Intelligent Heart, by David McArthur)

“While many experiences exist of individuals testing tithing as a tool for expanding their abundance, there was a very objective test that was conducted by a group of people in Michigan around 1940. They conducted their experiment in a public manner and kept careful records.

"In their experiment they started with one cubic inch of wheat containing 360 kernels. They blessed the wheat and made the commitment to tithe ten percent of the harvest to their church. They then planted the wheat in a little plot behind the church.

"From the first year's growth they harvested fifty cubic inches and tithed five cubic inches to the church which they fixed for the minister's breakfast. They planted the remaining nine-tenths which was forty-five cubic inches.

"From the second year's growth they harvested seventy pounds of wheat. Their tithe to the church that year was seven pounds. By this time more and more people were interested in their experiment and over 350 people, including Henry Ford (who was himself a proponent of tithing), came to the dedication ceremony.

"By the third year the public interest had really expanded with over 1,000 people, including the press, attending the event. The fourth year the governor of the state was in attendance, and the results were carried in the newsreels of the day. When they reached the sixth and final year of the experiment they did not have enough land to plant the wheat in. They sold the wheat to local farmers who agreed to keep careful records and to give a tenth of the harvest from the wheat to the church of their choice. 

“The final harvest after six years of planting nine-tenths of each year's harvest was 72,150 bushels of wheat. The tithe was 7,215 bushels.

"At the start of the experiment, the people had arranged with a local miller not only to keep track of their harvest but also to compare their yields with the yield of other wheat farmers in that area. Using the state average for each year's production, the miller computed that if they had not tithed but had utilized the full ten-tenths of their crop, they would have received a yield of 5,297 bushels.

"Planting ten-tenths = 5,297 bushels
"Planting nine-tenths (one-tenth to God) = 72,150 bushels
"Their tithe was greater than the entire harvest they would have received if they had not tithed.

"The stunning result of this study comes not from what they did receive, but from what the miller's figures showed if they had continued to run their experiment for another six years. In the sixth year (the twelfth of the experiment), there would not have been enough land mass on the planet Earth to receive the nine-tenths for another planting.


"In the biblical book of Malachi, there is a promise made that if we tithed, God would ‘… pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.’ These people showed that promise to be literally true.

"This experiment demonstrates that tithing is an effective way of expanding our experience of abundance. It shows also that a different level of law must be at work in order to produce a result of such significant difference from that produced through the normal use of physical laws. The presence of the greater creative power of the spiritual at work in the physical realm is not unnatural. It is the natural result of balance between these differing creative levels being established through right use of the Universal Laws."



Astounding Results
Yes, taking the step to tithe can be frightening even when one feels guided to do so. And, yet, the inner and outer positive changes that happen in one's life when one does practice the principle of tithing are truly astounding. No less astounding than the story above!