tithing and offering

a friend recently asked me the following:

I would like to ask u a question. For the Chinese,whenever we visit a temple, we will donate money so that they will maintain the place or buy more papers and joss sticks. How about the Christian? I understand that your give contribution too, but what do they do to the money?

there are 2 forms of 'contribution' that Christian give for their home church. 1 is called tithing and the other is called offering.

tithing was mentioned in the Bible and recorded in the existance of mankind as early as in Genesis, by the sons of Adam and Eve. tithing is 10% of our total income, 'returned' to the God. why do i say 'returned' leh? cuz we believe that everything that we have is a blessing from God. it is God that had given us the opportunity/blessing to be in the job and draw that sort of income (regardless of amount). so this 10% is our act of thanksgiving. my mom is always very upset abt the 10% that i 'give' to the church (but that is another story to tell). actually giving 10% back to God is very little, imagine we have the other 90% for ourselves leh! of cuz if u r earning only $100 every single $ counts. but but... its amazing how God 'top up/ return' that 10% back to our lives! it might not be monetary returns but the blessing of God never fail to turn up in our lives! God always love a cheerful giver. =)

offering is any amount, on top of our tithing. its just like an act of love for our God. hmm... like every month we will give our parents money, right? that amount of money in my view is an expression of thanking them for their effort in giving birth to me and raising me up (its up to them on how they want to use it, lah). on top of that when i would give them 'extra' for the things that they might want to buy or when we go out for makan/ movies, i will pay. that is the extra. and that is the sort of offering that i am talking about.

but what does the church do with the money? hmm... the money that was collected from the church members are normally used to pay our pastors and other church staff, to maintain the church (bills and such), help the charity arm of the church (those needy pple) and others things that i may not had mentioned here.

of cuz there are cases or possibility of people in the church mis-using the money. but honestly in my views... the money that we 'contribute' to the church is between me and God. i am clear of my conscious. but if the person dealing with the money mis-used it, that is between him/her with God. afterall such people exist everywhere, in corporations, temples, etc; right? but would such incidents make us lost faith and stop contributing? hmm... i would answer that question with another question:
"WHO DO WE PLACE OUR TRUST AND FAITH IN LEH? IN GOD OR IN THE PEOPLE?"

wow... long blog entry sia... =)