Fuel

This is what I saw when fueling my car yesterday. In Georgia it is $3.55 a gallon (at least it was yesterday). Just under 12 gallons cost more than $42. It wasn't too long ago when 12 gallons would cost $12. I even remember one time fueling up for 66 cents a gallon (and I walked to school in the snow uphill both ways, too!). Very few in the world aren't feeling the financial crunch of rising gas prices. We are having to make adjustments in our budgets and make hard decisions about what we can and cannot afford. Yet, anecdotally at least, we aren't cutting back at the pump. Where did I go with my $42 tank of gas? Some of my destinations were important and necessary, but not all of them. Do I always get a good return on my $42 investment? Not really.

The average Episcopalian gives about $1800 a year to the work of the Church. The biblical tithe is 10% of our income and one would think that the average Episcopalian (or family) earns a little more than $18,000. $1800 a year is about $34 a week, or less than a tank of gas. Tithing is hard at first and most of that difficulty is psychological ("there's no way we can do that!"). Very few people can jump from giving 1% to 10% in one week - it's something we work towards.

But image the investment we make when we 'fuel' the church. By giving a a minimum of a tank of gas a week to the work of the Church, imagine the places the Good News of God can go! Imagine the things that can be done locally and the things that can be done globally. Instead of pain at the pump - this is certainly gain at the pump.