Ever wonder where your tithe money goes when you drop it into the collection plate?
Well, this break down below might help you get an idea of where it’s being spent. Of course, not every church is the same. There are a few that might spend a little on the poor or help support missionaries, but even those churches would only give around 3% under that category.
60% of the Tithe goes to:
Pastor Salaries
Health care
House payments (Housing allowance)
Children’s Tuitions
Vacation pay
Cars (Vans, maintenance, registration, etc.)
Utilities
Travel costs
Entertainment (Pastor’s lunch, catered meetings, etc.)
Seminars and conference costs
35% of the Tithe goes to:
Church mortgage
Audio visual equipment
Fellowship food and drink
Music instruments
5% of the Tithe goes to:
Youth group materials
Sunday School curriculum
0% of the Tithe goes to:
The poor
Evangelism
Missions
*Special Offerings are usually taken for these concerns.
Next blog: Where Oh Where Did The New Testament Tithe Come From?
5 comments:
Tithing is NOT a portion of our income. True biblical HOLY tithes were always only food from inside Israel which God had miraculously increased off His HOLY land. Tithes could not come from what man produced, from Gentiles or from outside Israel (Lev 27:30-34).
Tithing is NOT a way of learning to trust God and honor him. It was cold hard Law expected from food producers who lived inside Israel.
Tithing is NOT a command of God upon the Church. It was only commanded to Israel who was commanded NOT to share its covenant with Gentiles. Those who received Levitical tithes were not allowed to inherit or own property in Israel (Num 18:21-28).
Though money was essential for sanctuary vows and poll taxes, money was never tithed (Ex 22:25; 30:13).
Tithes could not be used to buy building material for the Temple or to send out missionaries.
The test of Malachi 3:10 is the test of the whole law. Obey all to be blessed; break one to be cursed (Deut 27:26; Gal 3:10).
Nothing about OT biblical tithing is taught today. NT giving principles are: freewill, generous, sacrificial, joyful, not by commandment and motivated by love for God and lost souls (2 Cor 8 and 9).
What is the source of your information?
A friend sent me a graphic (jpg) with this data a few years ago. I recently ran across it again and rather than post the jpg I re-typed the data from the graph.
I'll have to look at the orginal again (it's on my computer at work) and look for the source of the data later this week.
In general, I think most traditional churches would agree with this breakdown. Some might give more or less to education and/or to evangelism or to the poor, but if you consider how much they receive on a monthly basis and measure that amount against what goes to salaries, building fees, utilities, etc. I think you'll find this is most accurate.
I'd welcome any pastor to challenge this breakdown of where funds are spent, btw.
I wish more people knew this information. I think most assume that these expenses make up a small percentage of the total budget when in fact most of the time when all of these things are paid, there's nothing left over. I was a part of a denomination that had a common practice among many of its churches to give 10%(some more some less)of the church budget to missions (i.e. new churches). The "missions" often did the same. This gave the illusion that a lot of money was involved but in reality the same money was just being passed around from one church to another. Kind of like when the same people move from one church to another year after year and we call it "growth!"
What I don't understand about the majority of people who attend mainstream churches and tithe regularly is why there isn't more pressure for this kind of information to be released by each church.
If I believed in practising old testament tithing now under the new covenant, the least I would expect is some transparency on how the money is spent.
My experience is that not only is old testament tithing often explicitly encouraged and mostly very subtly encouraged but on top of that one is considered an outcast with a bad heart if one were to actually ask for a bit of transparency on how the funds are spent.
This in my opinion is a double disgrace, encouraging an old testament practise and then shrouding the use of those funds in near secrecy.
I spent over a decade in a church where I felt like I could never ask where the tithe went or how much the pastors were paid. Even the worldly governments of our day provide a better example than that when it comes to stewarding public funds.
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