You’ve heard the expression “put up or shut up.”
I had a large banner made for the front of the sanctuary that read: “PUT UP OR SHUT DOWN.” I liked that clever play on words. I built a few sermons around the theme of putting feet to our faith, of getting in or getting out. As our Lord said, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things I say?” (Luke 6:46)
I thought the slogan was an appropriate way of summing up that text and spoke clearly to our situation.
I was the only one who thought that. The chairman of deacons advised me that it sounded negative, that instead of inspiring the people the theme made it appear that we were on the brink of bankruptcy. In private conferences with a few other leaders, I found they agreed.
So, I took it down and did what I should have done in the previous church.
I waited on the Lord.
I told the Lord I would not preach on stewardship/giving until He specifically told me how to do it, the texts to use and when to start.
Two summers later, He provided the answer.
Somewhere at that time I read where a pastor challenged his people to tithe their income to the church for a certain time-period and promised that, if at the end, they had not been blessed financially, the church would refund their money.
Something about that struck a chord within me.
I could not get out of my mind the Lord’s challenge in Malachi 3:10 where He invited Israel to put Him to the test: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse … and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord, if I will not open the windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing there will not be room to contain.”
As I laid that before the Lord, a plan began to emerge.
The plan that took shape and that was eventually approved by our key leadership we called “SUMMER BLESSED: Make this a summer blessed of the Lord.” (We made jokes about it: “Summer blessed and summer not.”)
We would challenge our people to tithe their incomes to the Lord through our church for the three months of that summer. Come the first of September, anyone who would write the pastor a letter informing him that he had not been blessed sufficiently—in whatever way he chose to define that, spiritually, financially, whatever—could ask for and receive his tithes back.
Once again we erected a banner in front of the sanctuary and I brought sermons on giving. We had a few testimonies about stewardship and we undergirded this with a great deal of prayer.
The difference this time was that we had waited on the Lord. This one had His blessing.
