Feedback loops in a culture of generosity

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34)

So is your treasure behind a fence or on a table? I’m starting to think about the stewardship season, and the relationships between all of our collective wealth and our individual wealth, and what that has to do with the purposes of God.  The church is a funny community.  Part of our business is inspiring generosity so that more people are inspired to be generous.  That is, it’s the church’s job to call people to faith in Jesus Christ, so that we will be able to live more and more like Jesus, and give ourselves away.  Seems like a circular kind of purpose.

And so it is. We gather money and resources in order to give them away and in the process transform ourselves and others into better givers.  It’s a feedback loop: more generous people mean more and more life to share around more and more (or longer and longer) tables.  In the classic feedback loop, every pass through the loop amplifies the signal being fed back. When you want to short circuit the feedback loop, you put up a barrier so the signal stops.  The signal eventually dies.  If we want the message about a generous life style to die down, we can hoard our wealth.  If we want to call people to follow Jesus, we can practice generosity.

I read something from a person who was teaching about stewardship in order to inspire participation in the PCUSA’s campaign for starting “1,001 New Churches.” This is right on the money (pardon the pun):

“The church does not teach stewardship in order to float its budget for ministry that has not yet happened. The church teaches stewardship as a way of life. ... in communities awakening or re-awakening to God, almost nothing can be more important than realizing that your life, and all its assets, are a gift [and so are to be given away in order to fulfill their purpose! Ed.].

The feedback loop effect is well-documented in communication theory. Jesus taught about giving oneself away as the way to live in order to find true life: "If you try to save your life, you'll loose it, but if you loose your life for my sake (that is, for the right reasons), you'll find it."