In my conference, a congregation is expected to generate $200,000 tithe to qualify for a full-time pastor. Many congregations and districts (groups of congregations served by a solo pastor) generate less than that, but $200,000 per pastor is the norm.

If a church wants to hire an additional pastor, it needs an annual tithe of $350,000 to $400,000 before its request will be seriously considered. Some church members wonder where all that tithe goes. They are pretty sure their pastor isn’t receiving it (though few realize the full cost of a pastor’s salary and benefit package).

A year ago I visited a four-year-old church that the laity had planted, and there they did all the organizing, preaching, visiting, evangelism, and counseling themselves. So their conferenceassigned pastor, who was the senior pastor of another congregation, met with their board only once a month, preached in their church only once a year, and was otherwise on call for counsel and encouragement. This group was sending $50,000 tithe per year to the conference and calculated that the pastor was giving them about 60 hours a year, at a cost to them of about $833 per hour. They liked him but had a hard time justifying his cost. Several members began quietly redirecting their tithe to local ministry.

I argued that their church was receiving additional benefits from their denominational “dues.” While this congregation had an effective outreach to unchurched people, nearly all its key leaders had long histories in Adventist schools and congregations. This congregation depended heavily on a knowledge base gained elsewhere in the Adventist system. These member-shared experiences of Adventist schools and Adventist camps provided some of the social glue in their church. This may not be very “spiritual,” but running a congregation without any of this glue can be much more labor intensive. Being part of the denomination gave them access to specialized Bible study and outreach materials. It had given them a special opening to unchurched people who had some distant connection with the Adventist Church. I don’t know if I persuaded anyone, but I did sense that some in the group had a new understanding of how interconnected our Church system is.

This group is just one example of something happening all across North America. Increasingly members who are used to making financial decisions are choosing to give their tithe dollars outside regular tithe channels. They do so because they are not convinced that giving “tithe” in the conventional manner is the way to make the greatest impact with their dollars. These members do not give out of trust or out of loyalty to an institution. They give out of a sense of participation and personal interest.

Whatever the actual benefits of our present financial structure, if we as a denomination are going to recover Boomers and their children as systematic, generous givers, we have to make our system more transparent. We must show our members the benefits congregations receive from supporting all the clergy and real estate used for administrative functions in the Church. We should openly present the cost of the denomination’s retirement system and employee health and education benefits. We must justify the high cost of our denominational administration. Finally, we must give our members some real voice in what is paid for with tithe dollars. (Tell me once again, why it is that secretaries serving administrative clergy can be paid with tithe, but secretaries serving pastoral clergy cannot?)

The continued health of the church depends on our ability to show members and visitors just how our church system adds value to their lives. In the past, we might have been able to address the issue of people making alternative decisions about their tithe dollars by ordering them to do their duty. That no longer works. We who represent the Church can no longer command. We must sell.