If we do not give away our money in remarkable proportions, we have not grasped (or we are not currently remembering) Christ’s generosity in saving us. Let’s put it more starkly: You will always give effortlessly to that which is your salvation, to those things which give your life meaning. If Jesus is the one who saved you, your money flows easily into his work, his people, his causes. If however, your real religion is your appearance or your social status or personal comfort or pleasure, your money flows most easily into those items and symbols.
- Tim Keller
Generosity and The Gospel
Avenues of Giving at Aletheia
Why Give?
Give What?
Give Who?
Generosity & The Gospel
Aletheia Church Richmond desires to be a biblical community that displays to the campus of VCU, the city of Richmond, and the world the surpassing worth of God in the person of Jesus. This is no small task. For this dream to become a reality we must be a people that radically re-orient our lives around the truths of the gospel.
The gospel should begin to inform how we live and reshape what we value. This is particularly true in the sphere of money and possessions. The gospel should compel us to live in such a way that the unbelieving world observes that cars, clothes, and other commodities do not sustain our joy, but rather Jesus alone is the source of ultimate satisfaction.
Positively, in the the gospel we see that God the Father is supremely generous. He gives to rebellious humanity the precious gift of His Son, which ransoms enslaved and poverty stricken sinners back to Himself.
The apostle Paul puts it like this in Ephesians 2:4-7, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
It is uniquely this understanding of God, the gospel, and by extension our role as the church, that causes us to live lives of generosity by leveraging our money, possessions and resources for the furthering of God’s kingdom on earth.
Thank you for partnering with us in this gospel-centered endeavor.
Avenues Of Giving At Aletheia
Serve With Your Gifts
There are many ways for you to utilize the gifts that God has given you here at Aletheia. From the audio/visual team to childcare volunteers, there is always a great need for more servants to serve the needs of our community. Click here to learn more about the volunteer needs at Aletheia. To find out more about how you can use your gifts here at Aletheia, please email josh@aletheiarichmond.com
Give Financially
Give on Sunday Mornings
You can drop your donations into our green boxes during our Sunday Morning gatherings.
Give online:
Give with Online Bill Pay:
Automatic Bill Pay is a great way to give regularly and consistently to the mission of Aletheia Richmond. In addition, it saves Aletheia Richmond transaction and processing fees that comes through PayPal! That means 100% of your donation goes to fund the vision of Aletheia Richmond.
Instructions: How to Setup Online Bill Pay?
Give online through PayPal
You can also give instantly online through PayPal. *Note: 3% of your donation will be given to PayPal because Aletheia Richmond is charged a 3% transaction and processing fee for using this service.
Mail your checks
You can also mail checks (no cash, please) to this address:
Aletheia Richmond
540-543-8596
PO Box 11011
Richmond, VA 23230 – 1011
Why Give?
We Should Give Because the Gospel Has Taken Root in Our Hearts
Generosity springs from the heart that rightly understands the magnitude of God’s unending generosity in Jesus. In the incarnation of Jesus we see the greatest act of generosity the world has ever known.
We read that though Jesus was rich he became poor for us. Thus, the gospel message of God’s grace is the central motivation for giving to the church.
We Should Give in Order to See The Gospel Take Root in Our City
Richmond does not need another social program, but rather it is in need of a generous church. It needs a church that is willing to mobilize people and resources to deal practically with the problems it faces.
The gospel displayed in word and deed through the church is the answer to our city’s plight. Thus, generous giving to the causes of church planting and mercy ministry is a catalyst for the transformation of a city.
We Should Give in Order to See the Gospel Take Root in the World
God’s ultimate desire is to gather a people for His own possession from every tribe, tongue, and people group in the world. The cause of global missions must be a priority to the western church because of the great prosperity God has graced us with in America.
We must mobilize people and resources to take the gospel to where Jesus is yet to be named and where the church is yet to be planted.
Give What?
We Should Give Our Lives
The apostle Paul tells us in, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, that “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” In light of the gracious gift of salvation bestowed to us in Jesus, we are to live lives wholly devoted to the work of God.
Furthermore, the apostles tell us in Philippians 1:20-21 that it was his desire that “Christ would be magnified in his body whether by life or by death.” He stated that for him, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” In other words, Paul saw that the overarching priority of his life was to live in such a way that he would shine a spotlight on the worth of Jesus.
Thus, as a follower of Christ we must understand that God wants us to give all of who we are to him even before we think of giving our money and possessions.
We Should Give Our Gifts
We learn in 1 Corinthians 12 that the church is the body of Jesus and that as a body each one of us play a vital role in the growth of that body. Furthermore, we learn that God has given each and every believer gifts to help the growth of the church.
These gifts are purposefully diverse in function but equal in importance for the building of the body of Jesus. Each follower of Jesus is commanded in Romans 12 to discover and utilize the gifts that have been given to use for the furtherance of the kingdom of God. Additionally, the use of our gifts is not optional but central to the growth of the church.
We are told in Ephesians 4 that God infuses the church with leaders (apostles, prophets, evangelist, and pastor-teachers) to utilize their gifts in the context of local church ministry.
Thus, we must as the people of God respond by grace to God’s command in the pages of Scripture to give our time to develop and exercise our spiritual gifts in the context of the local church.
We Should Give Our Resources
Followers of Jesus are to give “according to their ability” (Acts 11:29). There are seasons to economic life and there are economic responsibilities to our families and to our debts. In many cases, good planning over time will be necessary to move our giving into proportions that reflect our eternal priorities without reneging on legal and personal financial obligations.
When the Bible talks about the “tithe,” it is referring to the followers of Jesus’ regular giving to the church. In the Old Testament, believers were required to give a tenth of their income to the support of the ministry and the needs of the poor.
However, if you were to include what believers were to give for feasts, sacrifices, gleanings for the poor, and special offerings… it would amount to 23%-25% of gross income.
The New Testament does not specifically mention the tithe, but since we are far more blessed and indebted to God than Old Testament believers, we assume that we are held more responsible for generosity, not less. Thus, the tithe (10%) is a kind of minimum guideline for giving.
Give Who?
Give to Your Local Church
It is clear in the pages of scripture that the local church, in submission to biblical authority, living in biblical unity, governed by biblical leadership, and proclaiming the biblical Jesus is God’s ordained vehicle to carry the gospel to the world.
Therefore, every follower of Jesus should be a member of a local church. In addition, we should leverage our resources principally through our local church in order to carry out the unchanging yet unique mission God has given that biblical community according to its cultural context.
Para-church ministries are valuable secondary avenues of giving only when they are closely related to the building of the local church.
Give to the Planting of the Local Church
Since the local church is God’s vehicle to transform the world through the message of Jesus, then multiplication should be one of the primary activities of the local church.
Thus, the local church must mobilize resources to equip and send teams and pastors to plant gospel-centered churches in areas where none exist. Additionally, local churches with a like-minded, gospel-centered mission should network financially, strategically, and missionally to accomplish this end.
Give to Missionaries that are Planting the Local Church
The mandate for the multiplication of the church transcends political borders and ethnolinguistic groups. The planting of the local church where Jesus is not named is the work of global missions.
Global missionaries are God’s instruments to mobilize the indigenous population through the preaching of the gospel to see the church planted.
We must be a church that sees the need to take the gospel to every people group on earth. Thus, we should financially prioritize the work of global church planting through the vehicle of global missions.
