IT'S A 3-POCKET WORLD
Lyle E. Schaller
January 1, 1987
What church couldn't use fresh sources of income? Churches ask their people for support; that much is assumed. But sweeping changes during the past thirty-five years have altered other basic assumptions on which most local-church financial programs are based.
One assumption begging alteration goes back to the years of the Great Depression, when it was widely, and usually correctly, thought that most people did not have much money. This stimulated the idea that it would be wise to ask people to commit to the church a portion of their future income, which led to the system of pledging.
This right-hand pocket, where people placed their income, became the source of support for both the operating and capital expenditures of the church. This system was based on the assumption that people's needs exceeded their income, and unless they made an advance commitment to the church, that right-hand pocket might be empty before Sunday. The biblical teaching that the first tithe belonged to the Lord reinforced this system.
After World War II, the wave of church building programs gave a big boost to this system. Thousands of congregations asked their members to pledge a portion of their future income to pay for a proposed building. And church members responded.
The period from 1950 to 1970 brought a big change, however, as personal income in the United States increased at an unprecedented pace. Even allowing for inflation, the median family income in the United States rose 86 percent between 1950 and 1970. In contrast, between 1970 and 1985 that income increased only 3 percent. The fifties and sixties were an era of extraordinary prosperity!
One result was a great many people, especially those born before 1925 who had been taught a depression ...
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