I served my vicarage at Hope Lutheran Church, Aurora, Colorado, when Pastor Walter Kirk was there. Pastor Kirk taught a lesson in tithing to one of the members of Hope and I was privileged to learn it from that member.
Vicars, as do pastors, occasionally find themselves serving in unusual capacities. One day, shortly after Christmas, a member of the church and I were installing a drop ceiling in the basement fellowship area. We had stretched out a fairly large section of track and I was on a ladder, installing tiles as the member handed them to me. Somehow, we got into a conversation about giving or tithing.
The man told me that he had become a member as an adult about five years earlier. At the time he had asked Pastor Kirk how much he should contribute. Pastor Kirk talked to him about tithing and he balked a little at the idea. The pastor said that it might be a big "bite" to take all at one time and suggested he might want to start at some percentage and work his way up to 10 percent by adding another percentage each year.
The man said he liked that idea and decided to start at five percent. He went on to tell me that he was starting the new year at 10 percent and had already decided to continue adding a percent the following year. He said he would go on to 15 percent and then evaluate it again at that time.
All of this was interesting to me and I was storing up Pastor Kirk's advice to share with members of my own congregation some day. My parents had raised me as a tither. It was something I had always done from the day I earned my first dollar. Consequently, I had never experienced the jolt of giving away something I had previously kept.
The event became indelibly burned into my memory, however, as a result of the man's continuing thought. He said, "I just couldn't see myself doing this five years ago...it may only be 10 percent, but $500 a month is still a lot of money."
I literally almost fell down from the ladder! This was in 1967 and my entire income...salary, housing and car allowances...came to less than $400 per month. The man was giving more to the church than I earned. And he thought $500 a month was a lot of money!
Thanks, Pastor Kirk, for a good lesson! I also thank a dedicated layman, whose face lit up with joy at the thought of continuing his increases until he reached 15 percent. I learned much from both of these saints of God.
(Pastor Feddersen serves as the manager of donor internet communications with Ministries Support in the LCMS Foundation. His most pressing job is to get a working model of the "giving catalog" up and running so that individuals can select a mission or ministry project and give online. He is also the author of "Edit-O-Earl," a weekly devotion sent by e-mail and posted on the LCMS World Mission home page.)