By Dr. Greg Cochran, ICC Fellow

In the days of Richard the Lionheart and colorful tales of Medieval romance amid crusader adventures, a Christian ruler dwelling well beyond the borders of Europe and the Middle East initiated a vision he believed was given to him by God. King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia executed plans to make his seemingly impossible vision a reality. What was this vision?   

The vision promised an alternative pilgrimage site for Christians. King Lalibela intended to build a site so magnificent — and so holy to the Lord — that Christians would desire to trek to it. Furthermore, the vision included security features that would make it possible for Christians to actually arrive at the location with the ability to rest there safely. The result?  

Remarkably, King Lalibela achieved his goals by building what are now called the Churches of Lalibela. Eleven of these churches sit in the mountains of Ethiopia. The churches have not been built in the mountains, say, the way ski lodges are built in the mountain areas of Colorado or the Swiss Alps. King Lalibela built these churches “in” the mountains themselves — carving the entire church structures directly from the stone of the mountains, making the churches monoliths. Akin to an artist’s granite statue, these churches remain hidden from untrained eyes by maintaining their original locations, while preserving the slope lines of the mountains. 

Why such a vision? Why such security and such tedious labor to carve large structures into and out of mountainous rock? One church alone required the removal of 3,400 cubic meters of rock to clear the outside of the building, with the removal of another 450 cubic meters of rock to shape the interior of the structure. 

King Lalibela and those who sacrificed time and money to make the vision a reality believed the effort was worth it. Lalibela’s vision happened just about the time Saladin conquered Jerusalem for the Muslim world in 1187. Lalibela constructed a pilgrimage site for Christians in the wake of the loss of Jerusalem. Christians were being expelled from Jerusalem and needed a place to go. Christians from Ethiopia would no longer have access to Jerusalem, but they would have access to Lalibela, which sits on the Jordan River. Christians have visited and occupied these churches continuously for the past nine centuries.   

The Lalibela churches represent radically distinct forms when contrasted with Protestant evangelical churches in the U.S. today. Being Coptic Orthodox churches, they look different from the earliest churches of the New Testament as well. But in at least one way, the Churches of Lalibela look much like the New Testament: the offering.  

The churches of Lalibela originated as an offering in response to Christians suffering in Jerusalem. Much of their original time, money, skills, and resources were given to fulfill King Lalibela’s vision. In this, the churches reflect a similar impulse to that voiced by Paul in his correspondence to the Corinthians. Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians form the basis on which even evangelical churches in the U.S. today feel compelled to take a regular offering.  

As one Ethiopian Church explains, “God loves a giver who is happy to offer. The Apostle Saint Paul teaches us to let ‘each one give ‘as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Corinthians 9:7).”  

Few Christians anywhere at any time would dispute the Christian priority of giving cheerfully and regularly. While Christian churches vary greatly in how they give week by week — with some putting offerings in plates, others using boxes in the back, or digital apps on iPhones — the standard practice of nearly every Christian church congregation continues to be weekly giving of tithes and offerings. While the form varies, the certainty of a weekly offering does not. Here is a point of Christian consistency regardless of denominational affiliation. There will be a weekly offering!   

As noted, this weekly practice enjoys a long history, rooted in the churches of the New Testament, specifically the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul writes, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.” The longstanding practice of Christian churches has been to set aside — that is, to give — funds each week at the gathered service.  

Of particular note in this correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians is the prioritized usage of this collection. Paul was not writing specifically about the Corinthian church budget. Instead, he was writing about his concern for the saints who were suffering in Jerusalem. At least part of the saints’ impoverishment derived from their suffering persecution. As Acts details, Christian saints in Jerusalem were beaten, imprisoned, and, beginning with Stephen, killed for their allegiance to Christ. So, Paul, who about seven years prior had pledged to the Jerusalem Apostles that he would always “remember the poor,” proved true to his word by prioritizing a collection for saints suffering persecution.  

The earliest Christian churches prioritized offerings to serve persecuted Christians in Jerusalem. Coptic Christians in Ethiopia built a refuge for saints suffering after the fall of Jerusalem to Muslims in 1187. Christians have a long history of collecting and making offerings for saints suffering in Jerusalem.   

Perhaps it isn’t necessary to specify the location of Jerusalem, although there probably remain Christians there who suffer. The priority, Paul explained, is simply to supply what is needed for suffering saints and to produce much thanksgiving to God.   

“You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you (2 Corinthians 9:11-14).”  

This double priority takes precedence over the place where the saints are suffering. To say it differently, Paul emphasized that Christians with enough, or more than enough, to give ought to share gladly with those suffering need on account of their being called by the name of Christ. These offerings should produce thanksgiving all around.   

To make a pointed application, how well do our churches today reflect this priority of meeting the needs of suffering saints, thereby producing much thanksgiving? In the U.S., the following budgetary breakdown represents the standard expectation for spending the weekly collection of tithes and offerings:  

• Salaries: 40%-50%  
• Facilities: 20%-30%  
• Ministries/Outreach: 10%-15%  
• Savings/Debt Repayment: 5%-10%  

Most congregations will follow this formula. This formula, however, is a description of how churches spend money.  

What if how churches spend money is not the same as how churches ought to spend money? Perhaps the “ought to” opens an avenue for further thought. How ought Christians budget the funds collected? The principled answer, as noted above, would be that Christians ought to spend the given funds in accordance with Christ and his priorities: meeting the needs of suffering saints to produce thanksgiving.   

This principled approach does not rule out any of the categories on the standard budget breakdown. But it does beg the question, how much are we giving to help saints suffering persecution? The biblical priority of the first collection in the New Testament is most notable today for its absence in church budgets. How many people reading this article would be able to find a ministry to the persecuted church in a line item on their church budgets? Not too many if the statistics are accurate.  

According to Jim Morgan, only one-half of 1% of tithes and offerings from U.S. churches end up going to persecuted and suffering saints outside of the U.S. In his survey, Morgan stated that out of 150 of the largest churches in the U.S., only three stated that they considered ministry to the persecuted a “high priority.” Of those three, only one gave significant funds to serve the persecuted. Likewise, out of 20 Christian denominations, only two agreed that ministry to the persecuted was a high priority.   

While times have changed and Christians in each era will adapt to their own contexts, there will always be a need to reexamine the New Testament priorities for giving. Has the church wandered off the priorities of the New Testament? Does church spending reflect New Testament priorities or American cultural priorities? Is there a way to be both relevant in the American context and faithful to New Testament ministry priorities? How much of our giving produces thanksgiving? These are questions worth exploring further.  

Churches need not carve a new vision of ministry out of mountainous stone. An old vision is already in place, the vision Paul outlined in the Corinthian letters, the vision of the first collection. The vision is thanksgiving. This thanksgiving vision simply asks that those who have what they need share with those who don’t so that thanksgiving abounds to God. Christian church budgets don’t need to be radically reoriented toward sculpting new pilgrimage sites. They simply need a slight shift in funding priority so that schools might be built for suffering saints in Muslim countries or farms might be developed for those saints in severe need in Nigeria. 

To read more stories, visit the ICC Newsroom. For interviews, please email press@persecution.org.