A Story of Generosity

I'm pretty passionate about teaching our kids to be wise financial stewards.  We celebrate "giving back to God" every week as a part of our large group experience.  See I think money is probably the biggest cultural obstacle to discipleship for American Christians.  Sure there are lots of other things different ones of us struggle with, but money tends to be something all of us struggle with on some level.  What if we can teach kids to be wise stewards before they even have a significant financial income?  Could that set a pattern of generosity in their lives?  Could it help them avoid the pitfalls of this discipleship struggle?

Like I said, I'm pretty passionate about teaching our kids to be wise financial stewards.  That's why stories like this one from Jen Ripsch, our Yorkville Kids' City Campus Director, make me smile:

Had a big moment of generosity this past Sunday during the giving back to God moment in Kids' City that I thought I'd share... 

The story actually begins on Saturday at my son's birthday party that we had at Chuck E. Cheese.  One of the girls, who is 9, was standing in front of the token machine with money in her hand, just staring at the machine.  She was there for a minute or so when I went up to her to ask her what was the matter, also telling her that I had tokens for her and the other kids.  She said she was trying to decide if cashing in the money for tokens was a good idea or if the money could be put to use better somewhere else.  At that point I thought she was thinking about buying herself something with her money, not for what came next.  I asked her where she got the money from and she said from doing chores around the house and from Christmas.  She forgot her purse there when they left and made her parents call me to ask me to pick it up and bring it to her on Sunday.

On Sunday during the giving back to God time, she stood up and went to give a $10 for the offering, saying she wanted it to be split in half over two projects [Note: We usually have our Kids' City offering go to tangible "projects" to help the kids understand how their giving is making a difference].  As she stood over the offering box, she said that that wasn't enough, so she took out a $20, asking if anyone had change so that there would be two $10's.  She inspired the KC Tech and the Communicator to also give money to the cause since she inspired them, as well as her father, who is the leader in that room (he was the KC leader on the video at the end of service who "mistakenly" signed up for KC).  I can only imagine how proud he much feel about his daughter's generosity.  They ended up gathering $50 between the three of them for our offering this week.  She feels really good about her decision to give the money to kids who are less fortunate.  That's generosity at its best!

Comments

[Kathryn Egly]

Great story. Thanks for sharing it with us!