GIVERS AND TAKERS

​People tend to self-divide into two major categories in my experience: Givers and Takers. No one is totally one or the other, but it seems to me there is a predisposition to one or the other in each of us. Givers default to a posture of seeking to benefit the “other.” Takers lean the other direction, most often concerned with what benefits them. 

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​I think of the congregant who angrily asked me, “What have you done for me lately?” as he informed me of his intention to go to another church. I knew about the meals delivered to him during an illness, the time I had spent at his hospital bedside, and the prayers offered for him when he was struggling. I knew worship, fellowship, acceptance, and love were always offered and available to him. He had received them with frequency. He could not dispute that the preaching was solid, and the worship faithful and of excellent quality. It just was not enough – and it never would be. Takers keep score – every day.  

I can also think of those who never ask, “What have you done for me lately?” but always inquire, “What can I do to help?” For those who connect with a congregation always evaluating what they like and dislike, what benefits and programs are offered, and how the church fills their needs, joy can be hard to come by. For those who find in a congregation people to love, ways to serve, and opportunities to make life better for someone else, joy comes with frequency.  

Joining a church to get something out of it makes it a vendor of religious/spiritual programs and goods. Since that is not what the Church is, there will be disappointment. Joining a church as an act of giving yourself away, an act of finding ways to love and serve one another and the world, leads to joy. 

Thinking of people as givers and takers is not just a religious thought. Adam M. Grant, who teaches at the Wharton School for Business, has authored a book entitled Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. He carefully lays out the strengths and long-term advantages that come from thinking of others before you think of yourself. “Givers” may appear weak and naïve, but they thrive and succeed in ways that “Takers” do not. He notes: 

“This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”  
― Grant Ph.D., Adam M., Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success  

Grant’s subtitle claims that his approach is “revolutionary,” but he draws on time-tested wisdom for support. He quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”  From Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century writer, poet, and philosopher, Grant notes “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”  

Of course, as Christians, we might go to a deeper source. In his final words to his disciples before his death, Jesus teaches all who would follow him: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:12-13) 

Becoming a Giver seems like it comes from two sources. In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul says that “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” are gifts of the Spirit. They come from God. Part of being a giver flows from the “image of God” that dwells within. On the days, however, when our inner “Taker” moves in and prompts us toward selfishness, disciplines that nurture gratitude and confess our selfishness help. When we find that dissatisfaction, jealousy, fear of missing out, or our need for attention combine to diminish a giving spirit, we can name them and overcome them. 

In the end, maybe it is like the old Native American fable that says that within us there are two wolves that battle. One we can call “Giver,” the other “Taker.” The one we feed is the one that will win. 

Pax Christi,  
Tim Olson – Lead Pastor