“I Told Some People NOT To Give” (SHOCKER: God Still Provided)
Generosity Trumps Tithing: Prioritize Spirit-led generosity over old covenant tithing. God's interested in the heart first.
Trust Jesus to Lead: Leaders must trust congregants to follow the Holy Spirit's leading.
New Covenant Giving: The New Testament teaches voluntary giving based on personal conviction, not a set percentage.
Pastors Set the Tone: A pastor's attitude towards money influences the church's culture and the congregation's giving behavior.
Picture this for a second:
A couple asks to meet with you; they're drowning in bills, and his business is struggling, so he's looking for work in a tough job market. She's home with young kids and doing the best she can with a super tight budget.
So, How Much Should They Give?
NOTE: This scenario happened to me... and I told them they were under NO obligation to give to the church. I told them that if they prayed and felt Jesus leading them to give, then to follow that leading. But that they had complete freedom NOT to give.
Want more from The Lead Pastor?
Sign up for a free membership to complete reading this article:
Have an account? Log In
Many pastors would struggle with that stance, I think. After all, budget pressure is real. Staff need to get paid. And we've all been handed the same playbook: when the bank account gets low, it's time for a sermon series on tithing.
I grew up in that tradition myself. It wasn't until a mentor asked me a pointed question that it started to unravel.
When you preach tithing, is your motive about faithfulness to Scripture, or is it about ensuring your church's financial well-being?
That question deserves more than a quick answer.
Jesus Replaced Tithing (Old Covenant) With Something More Difficult.
The tithe was a mandatory tax — ten percent of gross income, no exceptions — designed to fund the Levitical priesthood. When God divided the promised land, the tribe of Levi received no inheritance. No land. Their job was to serve as priests scattered throughout Israel, and the tithe from the other eleven tribes was how they survived; this was a structural economic solution, built for a specific priestly system.
That system is gone.
The priesthood it funded is gone.
There is no command anywhere in the New Testament to tithe. Not one.
The mandatory tithe is replaced with something simpler and more demanding: Spirit-led, free-will generosity.
Paul says it plainly in 2 Corinthians 9:7: "Each one must give as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
So, now the question shifts from "What percentage does God require?" to "What is the Holy Spirit prompting in me?"
Pastors Need to Trust Jesus with Money.
You cannot preach generosity from a place of anxiety and expect it to produce anything but more anxiety in your people. Ross Gilbert, my fellow pastor at New Life Fellowship, names the old approach directly:
Anytime you reach into Scripture and pick a law that you like that also pushes people to do what you want them to do, it’s control. That’s it.
Pastors Need to Trust Their People to Follow Jesus's Leading.
The posture you carry behind the pulpit shapes the culture in the room. If you're white-knuckling the budget, your people will feel it — whether you name it or not.
Ryan Johnson, who pastors Church Untitled in downtown Vancouver, is honest about how easily it leaks:
We must not impart that anxiety onto other people. ‘If you guys don’t give, then I’m gonna look like a fool’ We’d never out and out say that, but sometimes that comes out in the way we communicate.
Ross Gilbert takes it further:
God doesn't need your money. And you know what that means? We here at New Life don't need your money either.
That's not negligence. That's confidence in God's ability to provide (without the need for our coercion)
We need to trust our people's willingness to follow Jesus's leading. Going first means giving personally before asking publicly. It means absorbing the risk rather than distributing it. It means being genuinely okay with the Spirit prompting someone to give less than 10% this month — or nothing at all.
That's not a small ask. It's probably the biggest one.
God IS Faithful.
We planted New Life Fellowship in 2019. In every year since, we've fully funded our budget — without tithing language, without obligation, without pressure.
Pastor Ryan Johnson's story looks different, but runs on the same thread. A few years ago, his team felt God leading them into a major building project — a 10,000-square-foot space in the heart of Vancouver.
The projected cost was $1.2 million.
They tried the conventional routes: sat down with influential people, looked into grants, pursued every channel their own wisdom could find. Doors closed everywhere. They told their congregation:
This is where we sense God leading. If you see it too, come follow. Don't do it on our word, do it because the Spirit is speaking to you.
In January, with construction nearly finished and roughly $250,000 still needed, Ryan stood up and told his church they were not going to the bank for a bridge loan. He woke up the next morning with, in his words, "the biggest vulnerability hangover."
Then Wednesday came. $130,000 unexpectedly dropped into their account. A few months later, within an hour of receiving occupancy on the new space, an anonymous donor called to cover the remaining balance in full.
God showed me that it's not about the money, Ryan says. He can snap his fingers in a second and make this happen. It's about formation.
Two churches. Two cities. Two very different circumstances. The same thread runs through both.
Money has a way of exposing what we actually believe about God and His faithfulness to us. We must trust Jesus with our budgets before we ask our people to trust Him with theirs.