On Monday, I wrote about my ongoing struggle with tithing. Another big question around tithing is where<\/em> to give? At the DC church that I attended in my 20s, where a 10 percent tithe was a minimum requirement, all of my contributions went directly to the church. I struggled with that. Our church occupied a coffee house space that was open for lunch on weekdays and for music and poetry on Friday nights. It also housed a Christian bookstore. While there was much about the coffee house ministry that I loved, I wasn\u2019t sure I wanted to give sacrificially mostly to keep the doors of a struggling coffee house open, particularly given the raw human need that was evident any time I walked through the neighborhood in which the coffee house was located, and that financial management was not our church\u2019s strong suit.<\/p>\n Now I worship in a traditional mainline church, so I can at least rest assured that the money I give to the church not only supports the church itself, but also supports our diverse outreach ministries, including a school in Haiti, a local feeding program, and regular contributions to various social service organizations. There is an additional spiritual benefit of tithing primarily to one\u2019s worshipping community, as we give up control over our money and hand it over to a community of people whom we trust.<\/p>\n That said, however, I also like to give to other nonprofit organizations. I need to feel that our family is doing something, no matter how small, to combat the misery that stares out from the New York Times<\/em> front page every weekend. But to whom should we give? Despite my efforts to keep us off of mailing lists, we still receive solicitations from about a dozen different groups\u2014all worthy, all in need of our support.<\/p>\n This is the system I\u2019ve worked out, which is far from perfect but works well enough. We pledge to our church, with the goal of giving higher and higher percentages of our income each year. In addition, I\u2019ve chosen a single organization\u2014the World Food Program (USA)\u2014to receive an additional monthly pledge. Beyond that, I try to give a couple of times a year to three or four organizations that we either have a personal connection to or whose mission is particularly compelling, including our alma maters, the Connecticut Children\u2019s Medical Center<\/a>, and the Carter Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why the World Food Program for our secondary monthly pledge?<\/p>\n Because few things scare me more than the idea of being unable to feed my children when they are hungry.<\/p>\n It can be easy for moms like me to forget what a privilege it is to be able to feed our kids. Feeding my kids actually becomes an annoyance<\/em> to me much of the time. I get so tired of the constant requests for snacks, of how the kids and their neighborhood playmates hang around the kitchen, preparing to decimate the grocery haul that I\u2019ve just spent several hours purchasing, of their rejection of perfectly normal foods like eggs and steak. Plus I feel like this:<\/p>\n Food can be such a focus of angst and even anger in wealthy families like ours, where we have more than enough and we all, adults and kids, become far too used to such abundance. But then I imagine how it would feel to have one of my kids say, \u201cMom, I\u2019m hungry!\u201d and have nothing to give in response. Nothing. How do moms stand it? Their hearts must be crazed with cracks, a new one appearing each time they have to say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t have anything for you.\u201d<\/p>\n So I give monthly to the United Nations\u2019 World Food Program (via the World Food Program USA<\/a>). The World Food Program is the largest humanitarian agency addressing hunger worldwide. In addition to providing emergency food for areas facing famine, the WFP has special programs to address long-term hunger and malnutrition, including school feeding and women\u2019s initiatives. And they make it easy for me to give regularly by setting up monthly deductions from my bank account, and providing excellent year-end records of all gifts. Having my gifts happen automatically has that same spiritual benefit of my having to give up some control over my money\u2014my gift goes to WFP every month, no matter what, whether we have extra Christmas or vacation expenses or not.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for a place that makes it easy for you to give regularly to people in need, I recommend the WFP. Also, this week fellow Christian blogger Alise Wright is hosting a month-long birthday celebration for herself, which is not nearly as self-serving as it sounds, because her celebration consists of matching donations that readers make to Nuru International<\/a>, a group that gives micro-loans to people living in extreme poverty. Go check out Alise\u2019s blog<\/a>, wish her happy birthday, and make a donation to Nuru while you\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n And if you have anything to add to this conversation\u2014about tithing, charitable giving, or your family\u2019s annoying need to insist on dinner every night\u2014please chime in!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is the final post in a series of five posts exploring money and faith. The series title comes from this scripture verse: \u201cAgain I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.\u201d (Matthew 19:23 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":424,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[131,44,14,138,49,139,137],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-uncategorized","tag-charitable-giving","tag-christianity","tag-food","tag-hunger","tag-poverty","tag-tithe","tag-world-food-program"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/118\/2012\/06\/1329851648404_327005.png\" "\\"1329851648404_327005\\"")
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