By Allie Martin
May 29, 2003
(AgapePress) - A sluggish economy and various church scandals are being blamed for a drop in tithing and a decrease in donations to Christian ministries.
A report by Barna Research Group found that only 3% of adults donated at least one-tenth of their income to churches last year. Christian ministries are also reporting sharp declines in donations.
Steve Moore is the director of broadcasting for Crown Financial Ministries and co-host of Money Matters with Christian financial planner Larry Burkett. He says the survey results showing a steep drop in tithing among American church members are not surprising.
Most Christians, he observes, do not practice sacrificial giving -- and he says it is evidenced in the lack of priority they place on giving or tithing.
"Many Christians today are giving as an afterthought or out of their abundance," Moore says. "Now that's been fine over the last decade -- we've had a very, very great situation in our economy where a lot of people had an abundance. But now, people are not seeing as much abundance, so their giving has almost ceased."
Moore adds that giving in the evangelical church is decreasing significantly. He believes that is already creating problems for ministries -- problems that could last for the next 10 to 15 years.
"A lot of ministries are being affected, and at Crown Financial Ministries we've had to take a step back," he says. "It's forced us to look at what we're doing [and] to pray more about what we're doing. We do everything on a cash-only basis."
Moore recognizes that not all ministries can operate the same way as Crown, but stresses the need for both ministries and families to have an emergency account "in preparation for things that are going to come up that are unexpected [in order] to be the kind of good stewards that God expects us to be personally."
In addition to having an emergency account, Moore encourages Christians to eliminate credit card debt and establish a household budget.
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