Hey.
It’s Sunday morning.
The worship band just landed on that last sustained chord, the one that makes everyone feel like the roof lifted off for a second and maybe goosebumps have appeared on your arms.
But now, here comes the part nobody asked for on the original tour bus of Christianity: the offering.
The ushers start their slow walk down the aisle.
Baskets. Plates. Little velvet bags on sticks (Our church has the boxes in the back and we give afterwards).
Whatever your tradition calls it, it shows up like clockwork.
And lately, maybe you’ve noticed—like I have—that the plates (or in our case the Offering Box) looks…lighter.
Not dramatically empty, not yet, but definitely not overflowing.
Half empty, maybe even a little less than half.
And here’s the thing: nobody says it out loud, but everybody feels it. The pastor (me, in this case) feels it when the finance report lands in my email inbox before our next board meeting.

The treasurer feels it when the mortgage and other bills are due.
The single mom feels it when she drops in a twenty and wonders if it’s enough.
The guy in the back row feels it when he pretends to check his phone so he can let the plate pass by without anyone noticing.

So let’s just talk about it.

No announcements.
No guilt slides.
No Malachi proof-texts dropped like grenades.
Just us.

The offering plate is half empty—now what?

First, can we admit that tithing can feel like the last surviving relic of rule-based religion?
Ten percent.
The word itself sounds like it was invented by an accountant who moonlights as a Puritan right?!
And somewhere along the way we turned a wild, ancient practice of trust into a spiritual report card.

You didn’t hit 10%?
F minus in faith, see me after class.
No wonder there’s resistance.
No wonder there’s guilt.
No wonder some of us just… pass the plate. I’ve been on both sides of this.
I’ve been the broke twenty-something who genuinely had $11 in the bank and felt like a failure when the plate came.
I’ve been the pastor who stood up front and said “God loves a cheerful giver” while secretly scanning the room to see who looked cheerful and who just looked constipated.

Here’s what I’m learning—slowly, painfully, wonderfully: The goal was never to fill the plate.
The goal was to free the heart.

In the Old Testament, people brought crops, animals, oil, flour—stuff they actually lived on.
Handing it over was a way of saying out loud, “I can’t make the sun come up tomorrow, but You can.
Here’s my trust, in grain form.”

Jesus sits down opposite the treasury one day and watches the river of coins clinking in.
Rich people tossing in heavy bags—impressive, loud, tax-deductible.
Then a widow drops in two tiny coins worth almost nothing.
And Jesus loses His mind (in a good way).
He calls His disciples over like He just saw the Grand Canyon of faith.
“She put in more than all the rest.” Not because the budget was suddenly balanced.
But because her heart was suddenly free.

If I’m honest – that story wrecks me, because I want my giving to be about freedom, not fear.
I don’t want to give because I’m afraid God will take something if I don’t.
I don’t want to give because I’m afraid the church lights will go out.
I don’t want to give because I’m afraid of what people think when the plate passes by my row (or I pass by the box in the back).

I want to give because I’m stunned again that everything I have is borrowed anyway.
I want to give because I walked into this building carrying wounds and walked out carrying hope, and somebody paid for that hope.
I want to give the way I want my kids to see their dad give—eyes wide open, grinning, no arm-twisting required.

So if the plate is half empty right now, maybe it’s not a crisis.
Maybe it’s just an invitation.
An invitation to ask better questions than “Am I hitting 10%?”

Questions like:
What would it look like to move from guilt to gratitude?
From obligation to overflow?
From resistance to release?

Start anywhere.
Five bucks. Fifty. Five hundred. Zero.
Just make it honest.
Make it a moment where you look up—literally or figuratively—and say,
“This is me trusting You with what feels impossible to let go of.”

Because here’s the secret nobody tells you in stewardship season: the plate is not a tax.
It’s a testimony. Every coin, every crumpled bill, every direct deposit, or online payment is a little postcard that says,
“I was afraid, but I did it anyway.”
“I was broke, but I’m not broken.”
“I thought I needed this more than God did… turns out I was wrong.”

So yeah.

The offering plate is half empty.
Maybe that just means there’s room for something new to be poured in.

Your move.

-Grace and peace,
Pastor Scott

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