According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, those who earn less, give a higher percentage of their income to charity. The article in which this information was found also said...
Women are more generous than men, studies have shown. Older people give more than younger donors with equal incomes. The working poor, disproportionate numbers of which are recent immigrants, are America's most generous group, according to Arthur Brooks, the author of the book "Who Really Cares," an analysis of U.S. generosity.
Faith probably matters most, Brooks — who's the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington policy-research organization — said in an interview. That's partly because above-average numbers of poor people go to church, and church attenders give more money than non-attenders to secular and religious charities, Brooks found.
The bigger question for us as leaders is, "What are you doing to inspire faith in God that will help those you lead be free from the power of money?" Don't let the offerings be the issue. The issue is the condition of people's hearts. Is your motivation larger offerings, or seeing people free from the deception that money has over them? Yes, financial contributions are an indication of where people's treasures are, (Luke 12:34). But let's make sure we don't supplant the importance of people's lives being transformed by the Gospel for the fruit of that transformation. You can have larger offerings and not have transformed lives. But if people's lives are transformed, the money will follow.
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