We are in Week Two of the Generosity Challenge, and already we are hearing incredible stories of God proving that what his word says is truth! Over the course of the 90-days in this challenge, we’ll be sharing stories like these. If you have one to share, email it to pastor@onelifeknox.com.

Check this one out that I got from a single dad who went WAY out on a limb to trust God. And make sure you are also trusting God with your FIRST ten percent during this challenge! He will blow your mind as he takes care of you just as He promises!

“As I was listening to you teach about sacrifice and the Generosity Challenge, I was squirming in my seat because I have known the principal of tithing and offerings for a long time and have felt like I couldn’t do it. Over the past year and a half I have experienced financial famine. Bills stacking up, payments getting behind and wondering when things are going to get better, all the while tithing only when I think I have the money to do so.

Thanks for shepherding me.”

This is an awesome reminder that when we do what God says, he will do what He promises! Take some time right now to evaluate your generosity. Have you been giving God what is his – first?! My prayer is that our church will grow like crazy to become more like our generous Father!

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Visit onelifeknox.com/give to give your first ten percent online today.

So now that you’ve budgeted for giving God your FIRST ten percent, and you automated it so that it is given whether you remember your checkbook or not and whether you are at church or not, what’s next?!

The easiest – yet hardest – step. That’s what! Trust.

Jesus talked about money and possessions more than heaven and hell combined. He told a rich, young, successful leader that he would have to sell everything he had to follow Jesus. Jesus praised an old widow for giving her last two pennies to the offering. He even purposelly sent his disciples out on mission without any money in their pockets. Why did he teach all of this and more?

Jesus wanted these people – and he wants you and me – to trust him more than our money. And he promised that if we did, he would take care of our needs. He said, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

If you have a problem giving to God what he asks of you financially, Jesus teaches that it boils down to an issue of trust. It’s as if you are saying, “God, you can’t really have all of me because I don’t trust you enough to take care of me.” Or for many of us, what we’re really saying is, “I’m not willing to sacrifice my wants for what you ask of me, Jesus. Thanks for sacrificing for me – but I’m just not willing to do the same for you.”

As we take this Generosity Challenge together, I am praying for you like crazy to take this big step of trust. Because I know what you will see is God take care of you like never before, and grow you like never before.

If you haven’t officially signed up for the Generosity Challenge, go here and do it now! From this point forward you’ll receive weekly encouragement, updates, and info about how your sacrifical giving is changing lives. The next 90 days are going to change our church and your life! I can’t wait to see it happen.

On Monday, the Generosity Challenge kicked-off with an honest discussion of why it’s so important to put God first in the area of finances. As God Himself said, we are robbing him when we don’t give back at least a tenth of what he gives to us first! (Malachi 3:8-10)

So today we take the most practical approach yet to the Generosity Challenge. One of the greatest hurdles to people being committed to giving God a tenth first is simple discipline. So in step two, we help you make that much simpler!

Step Two

It’s happened to all of us. It’s 2012, which means the only time you have cash is that lucky day you find a $20 bill in your coat pocket from last winter, and the only time you have a checkbook is when you need to level out the wobbly kitchen table. Then Sunday rolls around, it’s time to give God my tithes, and all I have is a debit card and some crinkled up receipts. And – if you’re like me – even if I did carry a checkbook or a wallet full of Benjamins, missing Sundays would make it hard to keep up. You know how it is: The kids get sick right after vacation, which also fell right after Aunt Bessie’s funeral, so we’ve now missed church three weeks in a row. And we’re three weeks behind on our giving.

So what’s the best solution? We call it “Automate the Important”. The best way to stay disciplined and guarantee God gets my first ten percent, is to treat it like I do my mortgage payment, gym membership, or utilities bills: make it automatic. If I’m willing to automate those other things, shouldn’t I automate what is most important?

As you take this Generosity Challenge seriously, I encourage each of you to Automate the Important. Once you’ve determined how much ten percent of your family’s income is and how often you will give (once a week, two times each month, or once a month), go to onelifeknox.com/give and set it up to be automated. My family made this our method of giving over two years ago, and we love knowing that God get’s our best and our first without having to remember our checkbook each week, and even if we are out of town or sick and don’t make it to church.

There’s only one step left after this one, so I’m trusting and praying that you have budgeted to give your ten percent and that you’ll now take the next step of Automating the Important! I’ll keep praying for you until you get the third and final step on Friday.

An overwhelming majority of our church committed to joining the Generosity Challenge this past Sunday – a 90 day “test” to see if God will really take care of us when tithing. The rules are simple: give God your FIRST ten percent over the next 90 days and if he doesn’t provide all your needs, OneLife will give every penny back to you. No questions asked.

We all committed together saying, “I’m all in!” and committing to take this chance in response to the idea that Jesus sacrificed for us and called us to do the same. Sacrifice is giving up something we love for something we love even more. We all love our money and stuff, but we love seeing lives changed through the Church even more! It is this kind of sacrifice that will allow us to start our second campus, other future campuses, and partner with church planting around the world.

If you signed up for the Generosity Challenge, you’ll be receiving a series of practical emails and encouragement over the next 90 days, along with healthy accountability so you can track your giving. If you did not sign up or were not at church yesterday to do so, go to www.onelifeknox.com/generosity to sign up today!

Step One

The first step toward completing the Generosity Challenge is to budget for it! Believe it or not, you don’t have to pray long for God to tell you how much you should give. It’s all throughout His Word! The first tenth of everything he gives to us is to be given back to him. If you’re like me – that sounds like a lot. And it is! Because he wants us to depend on HIM, not our stuff. So here are some practical steps to budget for giving God your 10%.

1. Determine needs versus wants. Nearly every American family has “fat” in their budget. These are things we really don’t need, even if we might think we do. For example: we don’t need cable TV, smart phones, internet at home, meals at restaurants, vacations, sports tickets, multiple cars, new clothes, Dollywood trips, hair and nails done up just right, and the list goes on and on. Are these things bad? NO! God wants us to enjoy life and his creation! But they become bad when our first tenth goes to pay for them instead of going back to God. In fact, God says it even harsher. “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings.” Malachi 3:8. By paying for other things with God’s 10%, he says we are robbing him.

2. Give to God FIRST. Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God” and THEN all the other things will be added to you. If you take the Generosity Challenge seriously, you will give FIRST instead of paying bills, buying things, or investing. Then you’ll do everything else with the 90% that’s left over and watch God take care of you like never before!

For so many people, this is a radical idea. That’s why we are giving you the opportunity to test God and see if he doesn’t take care of you. I know he will, and I can’t WAIT to hear your stories of how he does!

This morning was another packed out day at the Jubilee Center as nearly 500 people showed up to OneLife Church. It was a reminder that we are running out of room and need to do something to allow for more people to come discover God and how their one life can make a difference!

As I talked about this morning, our solution is one of sacrifice and creativity. On August 19 it will happen in the form of a second campus launching in the Halls/Fountain City community! There are naturally a lot of questions surrounding such a major step for us, so here’s a quick attempt to answer some of the most obvious.

1. What will Sundays at the second campus be like?
Exactly like they are now! Our goal is for the Halls Campus – and future campuses – to have the exact same DNA as our current location. The same worship, the same Kidz ministry, the same stage set, the same volunteer teams. We will literally duplicate everything we do now at the second location.

2. So then who will preach?
The same guy that does now! 40 weeks per year I’ll continue preaching. Thanks to technology, on many of those Sundays I will be in person at one campus and live video at the other, bouncing back and forth from week to week. We’ll also use a teaching team for the other Sundays so that each campus has plenty of in-person preaching. Live video preaching is the one aspect that will have some people a little unsure. But research shows that when done well, the effectiveness is no different than in-person. And remember – we’re willing to sacrifice: giving up something we love for something we love more!

3. Who will lead the new campus?
We will have a campus pastor at each location to oversee the day-to-day and week-to-week ministry of each campus. Kydon Bowen will become campus pastor of the Powell location while Dylan Martin will be campus pastor of the new location in Halls. These guys will become the main point person for volunteer teams, small groups, outreach, and pastoral care for those at each campus. This will allow us to care for more people even better while strategically reaching each specific community with their unique needs and personalities.

4. How much will this cost and how will we pay for it?
The buildout of the facility will cost $70,000 while production equipment and furnishings will cost around $50,000. That’s a lot of money – but a far cry from the $2.5 million to buy land and build a large building! We’ve been given one anonymous donation for $30,000, which is a great start, while two of our supporting organizations have agreed to loan us the other funds with extremely low interest rates. But then we’ll all have to step up to the plate and sacrifice to make this campus – and the possibility of future campuses – happen! We’ll have to pay those loans off and support the ministry of the second location so we can reach an entirely new part of our city. That’s one reason we introduced the Generosity Challenge this morning. More on that tomorrow!

5. Who will start the new campus?
We are praying for 100 current OneLifers who live in that community or who may be interested to help us get this started! That will give us instant “critical mass” at this location while freeing up seats for future growth at our current location.

The addition of this campus is going to double our seating capacity, extend our reach into new communities of Knoxville, free up seats at our Powell location for even more growth there, and give more opportunities for leaders to rise up among our volunteer teams. Best of all – more lives will be changed, families restored, addictions kicked, and kids raised to follow Jesus with all they have. For these reasons and more, I can’t wait for August 19 to get here!

Check out this website for more FAQs about multi-site church in general, and check out this video to see the future Halls/Fountain City Campus facility up-close and personal!

What other questions do you have?! Leave them in the comments below or email them to natalie@onelifeknox.com and we’ll answer those on the blog or at our first interest meeting in May!