Urban Thought Collective

On the Sundays that I attend church, particularly First Sundays, the minister encourages attendees to tithe, i.e., give 10% of your income for the use and upkeep of the church. I’ve known about tithing for as long as I can remember—my parents have always tithed and when I was little my parents encouraged me to give 10% of my allowance to the church (as you can imagine at age seven I was not happy about having to give away any of “my allowance”!). Maybe it’s just me but as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to question the concept of tithing and started to wonder–are those tithes being used towards alleviate the problems in my community, for me that means downtown Brooklyn.

African-Americans give to our families and our schools but especially to our churches. In fact, most of our charitable giving has been to religious organizations– approximately 90% of African-American charitable giving is to churches and religious institutions.
But how much of those funds are going to help the communities in which those churches are based and solve the larger crises facing the black community such as lack of healthcare, the school to prison pipeline affecting young black men and the education achievement gap among disadvantaged students?

This is the question we should all be asking.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am a strong believer in the importance of churches and religious institutions in general but especially the Black Church. Where else but the black church do you see a collective group of African-Americans organized around a cause, in this case their spiritual well-being. My church is the place where I see the most African-Americans of all income levels at any time during a given week. I don’t question the spiritual importance of the Black Church.

Rather I have another question: is church attendance just filling pews or are churches bringing about social and economic change? We all know that the black church was one of the major institutions that brought about and supported the civil rights movement, but 45 years later is giving to churches enough to solve the many social and economic challenges facing the black community? Is that an outdated model– it shouldn’t be. I really wish that more churches would get back into their tradition of being a leader in the community, speaking out when there are problems and improving the communities where they are located. As one minister has stated, “our Lord came to save the world, not just save the church.”

Some churches believe you can do both. Allen AME and Bennett Chapel Missionary Church are two examples of congregations that couldn’t be more different but are both working to make a difference in their communities. Allen AME in Queens, NY has 20,000 members and a former United States Congressman, Rev. Floyd Flake, as its pastor. It spends approximately $30 million each year on community development and nonprofit activities. It provides Thanksgiving dinner to over 5,000 community members each year, operates a soup kitchen and clothing closet for its community, runs its own school, builds houses and has transformed its neighborhood. I love their model of community involvement and if I lived closer I would probably be a member. Bennett Chapel Missionary Church is in Possum Trot, Texas, a town with 300 families. In 1997 it began its Save A Generation Ministry, through which 27 families in its congregation have adopted 73 children from the Texas foster care system. You shouldn’t have to live in a small town to attend a church that is this involved in their community.

I wish all churches were making the type of commitment to social and economic justice that Allen AME and Bennett Chapel are making but they aren’t. This is why financial support of nonprofit organizations in addition to churches is so important within the black community.

Both the church and we as individuals need to support the nonprofit organizations working on local, national and international problems. We can’t expect the church to fix everything although I wish they would do a better job. But we also cannot direct all of our charitable resources towards our places of worship. In times of economic stagnation, increasing your charitable giving is a hard thing to swallow and in many cases may be considered a luxury. But in times when many nonprofits are being asked to do more with less, giving to charity is more important and necessary than ever.

Here’s What You Can Do.

• Challenge your church to play a more proactive role in the community. Find out if your church has a Mission & Benevolence Fund, what happens when you designate funds to that Fund, and how much of your church’s tithes and offerings go to help the larger community.

• Find out if your church is doing anything to help their congregants and those in the community during this recession. Does your church provide job training, job fairs or food drives for the needy? If you can’t find out the answers to these questions, maybe you need to find another church!

• If you do not give to a church or a nonprofit organization, please start. Consider setting aside a portion of your after-tax income to be put towards a social cause that you believe in. Everyone has a social issue that they feel passionate about. No matter what issue is most important to you there is a nonprofit organization that tries to address that problem. Start giving your money and time to those organizations.

Push yourself to give more. Choose to be a tither-plus. Give 10% to your church or religious institution if you are so inclined but also give 5% to 10% of your income to nonprofit organizations. No matter the amount, large or small, your money can go a long way.

Angelia Dickens is an attorney and author with lots of thoughts and opinions, and now a place to share them (other than with her friends and family). Her blog is a compilation of her musings and commentary on charitable giving, volunteerism and philanthropy from an African-American perspective. Her writings have appeared in the Nonprofit Times and the Root.com. She can be reached at speakyourvoice@gmail.com. Read, comment and circulate.