Consider Giving Ten Percent of Your Time
Some churches talk a lot about tithing, of the need for us to give them ten percent of our income. In addition, I’ve heard a sermon or two about applying this ten percent guideline to volunteering at church, to tithe your time.
It’s an interesting concept that we should give more attention to.
I’ve written a lot about financial tithing, including “Should We Tithe or Not,” “Be Careful If You Tithe,” and “Consider Moses’s Triennial Tithe.” I also addressed tithing in “What Should Our Pastors Expect from Us?”
Give Ten Percent of Our Time
But I’ve not posted about giving God ten percent of our time. I’ve not encouraged you to tithe your time. Yet this is something we should consider, just as much as financial tithing or perhaps even more.
In my post “Pulpit or Pews?” I talk about today’s church having paid staff when we should be giving more attention to the New Testament idea of the priesthood of believers.
Instead, we pay our staff to do much of the work that we should do but can’t because we’re too busy. Yet this wouldn’t be an issue if we gave God ten percent of our time.
Then the church would have plenty of volunteer hours to get the work done. They would rely less on paid staff. They may not even need to hire any compensated employees at all.
Since over half of a church’s budget—up to ninety percent for smaller congregations—goes to staffing, replacing those hours with volunteer time would free up a lot of money that could be reallocated to missions and outreach.
Our churches would be a much different place if attendees caught the vision to tithe their time.
How Much Time Are We Talking About?
In discussions about financial tithing, people sometimes ask if we’re to tithe on our gross pay or net, that is, our take-home pay. Others wonder if the ten percent rule applies only to earned income or also includes investment income.
We can wonder the same thing about tithing our time.
Would it apply to the 168 hours in each week? If so, the tithed time would become 16.8 hours each week. That’s a lot of time that few people could donate.
Or would it apply to our waking hours? This would be about 112 hours a week, with an 11.2-hour time tithe.
Another consideration would be to tithe our discretionary time. This would be the time we’re not sleeping and not working. Here the number goes even lower, down to roughly 72 hours a week, which equates to a 7.2-hour time tithe.
A fourth option would be to focus our time tithe on the amount of time we work. Therefore, if we work forty hours a week and tithe ten percent of it, that calculates to four hours of volunteer time.
For someone who works more than forty hours a week, consider volunteering more. Alternately, adjust your income expectations lower, moving your work week down to forty hours.
What about those who don’t work or work part time? Perhaps tithe your time as if you did work forty hours a week, finding four hours each week to volunteer.
Build Up to a Time Tithe
These goals of time tithing—anywhere between16.8 hours and 4 hours a week—may seem overwhelming to someone who has never tithed their time.
Yet these are admirable goals we can work up to, just as when a person moves from giving none of their income to giving ten percent. They seldom begin tithing all at once and often build up to it over months or years.
The same can apply when we tithe our time.
What Counts as a Time Tithe?
Just as we consider where our ten percent monetary giving goes to, we have the same discretion over where we allocate our volunteer hours. It might be all to the church, partially so, or even none.
There are many worthwhile areas that can benefit from our volunteer activity.
The main goal is to make sure that the causes we give our volunteer time too are ones that help advance the kingdom of God. These are the best places to invest our time, as well as our money.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.
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