A friend recently forwarded this article to me, which raises a question that rarely gets asked: what causes ought we to support?
The answer in the article, based on a book called “The Art of Giving”, is inward focused: “You need to ‘dive into your soul’ to find the topic or topics that are nearest and dearest to your heart”.
I very much like the idea of strategic, intentional giving, and placing the individual’s desire at the heart (or soul) of the strategy seems like a reasonable place to start.
But is it?
This approach may work just fine for children’s charities and animal rights groups protecting baby seals, but it’s hard to imagine many people soul diving to find a deep and abiding passion to advocate for, say, kidney disease research, or any number of other important causes that don’t ring our emotional bells.
And what are we to say to someone who looks into their soul and finds their passion is to replace cracked leather seats on private airplanes, or prevent cat juggling?
Christians have even bigger problems, as most will read this article and conclude that soul-diving in a Christian context involves praying about which causes God would lead us to support, or conversely, to conclude that “I’m a Christian, and I really feel passionate about this cause, therefore God must have put this cause on my heart”.
This approach is Christian-ish, but not Christian. Why? Because it is fundamentally self-centered and not self-less. There are no examples in Scripture where God’s people are encouraged to look to their emotions as a driver of their commitments and behaviors. On the contrary, time and again, God’s people are commanded to raise their sights above and beyond themselves, to meet God’s standards regardless of how they may feel about it, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith”.
Therefore, the Christian ought to be committed to causes that were established—in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ-- outside their own personal set of passions.
So what are these causes? How might we determine what they are and how we are to commit ourselves to them?
These are critical questions that we will explore over time. And remember, “When the pupil is ready, many teachers will appear.”
I’ve heard it said that embracing transformational giving on a personal level can be described as an adventure. As I prepared to lead October and November trainings on biblical planned giving, I reflected for the first time ever on my own biblical planned giving legacy. I had never before been challenged to do this and happily found it to be nothing short of an adventure (once I got past my procrastination)...
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