By Dr. John E. Morgan
Pastor - Collinsville Baptist Church
My mother used offering envelopes to teach me a lot about giving and church. But I had to teach myself the main lesson I learned from them.
Dalewood Baptist in Nashville used offering envelopes with a weekly report card at the bottom. As I remember it, the bottom had seven squares with different percentages on them. Present 20%. On Time 10%. Lesson Studied 30%. Bible Brought 10%. Read Bible Daily 10%. Attending Preaching 20%. If you marked them all, you were 100% for the day.
My mother taught me about giving with that envelope. I got an allowance each week. $1.00. A fortune. My mother would come to me each week and hand me 90 cents in one hand. And my offering envelope in the other hand. The offering envelope had a dime sealed in it. Mother expected me to fill out the envelope myself. But she made sure that I understood that I needed to give God a dime of my allowance every week. For you non-church goers, that made me a tither.
Mother wanted me to grow up to be a tither. So she pushed me a little down the path. I could do what I wanted with the 90 cents. But not the dime. And to this day I tithe. Thank you mother.
My mother also taught me with the rest of the envelope. I was guaranteed to be present and on time and attending preaching. She also made sure I had my Bible with me. That got me to 60% on the scale before I began the rest of it. My mother taught me that church attendance – Sunday School and Worship – was something a Christian did. We never, ever missed church. Not even on vacation. And I still am at church every Sunday. And I always have my Bible (a friend once told me that he could tell at a interdenominational service which people were Baptists – the ones with their Bibles).
To be sure you understand. She taught me to tithe and be in church because she wanted me to understand that is what a Christian does. And I do it today because I want to do it. Not because I have to do it.
Mother also wanted us to do our best in church or school. So she pushed us during the week to study our lesson and read our Bible. That meant that pretty much every Sunday of my life when I turned in my offering envelope, I was 100%. And today I live the importance of being in church, tithing and reading my Bible. How thankful I am to my mother for teaching about living a Christian life.
But there was one more lesson from the offering envelope. I was 100% each week. The other ten or so boys in my class came from families that taught them the same lessons. So they were often 100%. As was the teacher. Everybody was 100%. We worked at it. Our whole class. Except for Jimmy.
Jimmy went to school with me and was my friend. We would sit together at lunch. Play on the playground together. Jimmy’s and his family were members at our church. But Jimmy seldom came.
I kept the class attendance book. Each week I counted up the offering and marked each member in the book. 100%. 100%. Etc. Until I got to Jimmy’s page in the book. Jimmy – 0%. Not present again.
I would ask him each week to come. He would smile. Knowing he was not coming. Knowing it frustrated me.
You see, I wanted our whole class to be 100%. And we couldn’t do that if Jimmy did not come. If we were a 100% class we might even get mentioned in front of the whole church. Oh, the glory.
I asked my teacher if we could just drop Jimmy off the class list. He did not think that was a good idea. So I continued in frustration.
Until one day in my teens. When I realized that Jimmy was more important than our class being 100%. That our class attendance book would be gone some day. But Jimmy would not. So I continued to invite him, encourage him. But not because I was worried about 100%. Because I was worried about Jimmy. Because being a Christian means you care about people. That was the final lesson I learned from the offering envelope. Jesus loves people. And so should we.
