122: Should Christians Give to Charities?

In this episode, Kenny responds to a regular listener asking about giving to charities. Kenny opens the episode by making it clear that Christians should be extremely generous; God has given us so much, we ought to demonstrate His generosity by choosing to be generous to others. There is no set amount that we ought to give, but we should seek to be sacrificial in how we give. There are no shortage of options when it comes to organizations that are in need of money, so where should we give our money? Kenny gives us three primary places where we ought to consider giving: 1- Your local church. 2- Missionaries that you know personally or missions organizations that you trust. 3- Any cause or campaign focusing on social justice that reflects well on the Gospel. Kenny’s encouragement and advice to believers: Determine a vision for what types of causes that you want to give towards, based on your personal passions and the specific arenas that grab your heart, and then seek to give as much as possible to those types of causes and organizations. This also allows you to develop a clear strategy as to when you ought to say “yes” and when you ought to say “no.” Eventually, many of us will end up giving money to non-profit organizations and charities. Kenny closes the episode by giving us the parameters he uses when determining which organizations to give to, and he also encourages us to vet the organizations, as best as we can, before giving them money, and he gives us some resources to help us in our quest to determine which charities are the best to consider giving our money towards. Recommended Helps When Vetting Charities: Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) CharityWatch.org CharityNavigator.org