SYSTEMATIC GIVING by I. H. Evans

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 26, 1901

SYSTEMATIC GIVING

By I. H. Evans

No PEOPLE ever believed in organized effort more than do Seventh-day Adventists. From the local church to the General Conference, we are an organized army of aggressive workers. Any plan for the furtherance of the Third Angel’s Message, which has within it the promise of success, needs only to be suggested, to be generally adopted. What millions of pages of literature bearing the Third Angel’s Message have been distributed through this co-operation! As an army is stronger and more efficient than the same number of men unorganized, because it utilizes the combined energy of the many by centralizing the strength of all upon a specific object, so the Church militant manifests its power in God’s service, not by the independent action of the many, but by the combined energy of all. Centralized effort has within it the elements of success. Heaven-approved co-operation by a widely scattered people, means success. Unity, when guided by the Holy Spirit, means victory.

In giving, as in everything else, God’s people have a definiteness unknown to others. The tithing system is an example of how a Bible truth, when applied by a body of people to each individual life, will accomplish wonders in the service of God. Probably more than four hundred thousand dollars is annually raised by less than seventy thousand persons through this simple Bible method of giving.

The ten-cent-a-week plan is another method of giving, which has within it possibilities that can accomplish wonders, if generally adopted. When the seventy thousand Seventh-day Adventists take hold of this, there will be a yearly income of three hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars for work in other lands: this means more than four times the amount now raised for spreading the truth in the regions beyond.

The coming year the Foreign Mission Board should have not less than two hundred thousand dollars. It can not be that God wants us to stay our hands in carrying the gospel to the heathen. To us the command is, Go into all the world. We are charged to “preach the glad tidings to every creature.” The missions already established must be strengthened. In nearly every station are needed as many new recruits as there are workers on the grounds. Besides this doubling of our working force, in every country there are a hundred places demanding help.

Nor is that all: twenty-two thousand dollars should be added to this to meet the semiannual payments at Christiania; eleven thousand dollars must be raised by July 1.

None need be discouraged by these demands. We are abundantly able to go up and possess the goodly land. If all will adopt the ten-cent-a-week plan, we can pay off the Christiania debt in one year, and send two hundred more laborers into the foreign field, AND SUPPORT THEM ALL. This can be done. Only let the whole denomination take hold and pull together; and lo! the task will be accomplished! Let each librarian collect the contributions each week, and forward them to the State secretary monthly.

Shall not each of us at once see to it that we give regularly and systematically and weekly to the cause of foreign missions? We must all certainly begin now, if the General Conference shall have the eleven thousand dollars needed July 1, and the foreign work be not retarded. Let each one who is giving regularly persuade some one who is not, to begin at once. With a united effort, we shall soon see marked results, not only in paying our debts, but in extending the work in other lands.

I. H. EVANS.