Grace Blog
Creative Ways to Give Sacrificially to Greater Things
Below is a list of various ways you can save and give sacrificially to the Greater Things Initiative. Some of them are simple and common sense while others are quite creative. I encourage you to consider them as you are diligently seeking leverage your resources for impacting eternity!
1. Commit to drink only water at a restaurant. On average, one person could save $5 per week or more. That’s a minimum of $260 a year, just for drinking water!
2. Be a coupon clipper. By taking the time to use coupons, you could save as much as $30 per week. Thirty dollars a week is $1560 in one year!
3. Give up a habit. For example, gourmet coffee, plus tax, each day, costs nearly $1,000 a year.
4. Reduce or cancel cable or satellite TV service. Depending on your current service, this could save as much as $110 per month, totally $1,320 per year.
5. Skip a meal each week as a family for prayer and fasting. Skipping one meal a week at an average of $20 per family to devote to prayer and fasting is $1,040 a year.
6. Continue a bill payment. If you will be paying off a car, school loan, or other large purchase in the next three years, commitment continue to “pay the bill” by redirecting the money to the Greater Things Initiative. A $100 payment per month over one year’s time is $1,200.
7. Give a gift of stock. When you make a gift of stock, there are two main advantages: 1) you can write off the current value of the gift (current stock value) as a charitable deduction on your income tax, and 2) and you don’t have to pay the tax on the appreciation that built up while you owned it. The church receives more than if you had sold the securities and donated the after-tax proceeds.
8. Commit any income tax refund you receive to the Lord.
9. Commit an estimated raise in salary to the Lord.
10. Adjust your vacations. For one or more years, do something close and inexpensive like day trips, picnics, or take a three-day vacation instead of a week to save on airfare and hotel costs. This can easily save between $1,000-2,000.
11. Wait for a movie to come out on DVD instead of seeing it at the theater. One trip to the theater can cost over $25 with popcorn and candy for two. If you cut out two movies per month, that’s almost $500 annually. You can also save money by picking up DVDs from the library rather than renting or purchasing them.
12. Put off a discretionary major purchase, such as a car or new carpeting for your home, and redirect the money to the Greater Things Initiative.
13. Sell items that are going unused around your house—like jewelry, gold, silver or furniture.
14. Find out if your employer has a matching gifts program. Typically, if a company has a program, for every dollar an employee donates to a charity, the company also donates a dollar to the same organization. Matching gift programs are a wonderful way for employees to make their charitable dollars stretch farther at no additional cost to themselves. Simply ask your company’s human resources office or benefits administrator for a matching gift form and instructions. You may be able to effectively double your contribution.
15. If overtime pay is possible in your job, consider working an extra 5 or 10 hours per month and give the earnings for the Greater Things Initiative.
Labels: Cape Coral, Giving, Grace Baptist Church, Greater Things, Stewardship | posted by TimBrister at 9:32 am | Categories: Greater Things |
Stewardship of Speech: Every Word Counts
Last night, I briefly mentioned on my Twitter that the average person speaks approximately 16,000 words a day. Over a year’s time, that comes to 5,840,000 words a year. Now, that is an interesting perspective to take on the year-in-review, should all those words be put on a scale. Consider this short clip of Paul Tripp speaking about our every word in relation to what Christ has spoken over us. Here is the passage he is speaking about:
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Matthew 12:33-37
[Source: Desiring God "The Power of Words and the Wonder of God" Conference]
Labels: Christ, Speech, Stewardship, Tongue | posted by TimBrister at 8:18 am | Categories: Sunday School Stuff |
