{"id":19622,"date":"2017-01-16T21:10:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T02:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/?p=19622"},"modified":"2017-01-16T21:22:55","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T02:22:55","slug":"7-habits-of-highly-generous-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/2017\/01\/16\/7-habits-of-highly-generous-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Habits Of Highly Generous Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If I have my pastor in the car with me and we go through a drive-thru at my local Chick-Fil-A and I purchase lunch for the car behind me, I am classified as \u201cgenerous\u201d. \u00a0It does not matter if I am robbing God with my tithes and offerings, I am now classified as a person practicing a generous lifestyle.<\/p>\n<p>Pastors enjoy preaching on generosity. \u00a0It is an easier message to preach than responsibility giving or the tithe. \u00a0In fact, pastors are now even encouraged to talk about generosity rather than tithing. \u00a0This is because those who give responsibly are at embarrassingly low numbers. Relevant Magazine reported in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.relevantmagazine.com\/god\/church\/what-would-happen-if-church-tithed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">May 8, 2016 article<\/a> that only 5% of professing Christians tithe. \u00a0Furthermore, Christians give only 2.5% per capita compared to 3.3% during the Great Depression. \u00a0Let\u2019s be honest, why make 98% of your church angry with preaching? \u00a0Stick with generosity language.<\/p>\n<p>For those of us in the audience, generosity is an easier message to hear. \u00a0We are left with no measurable form of behavior. We are not called into any form of accountability or standard of giving.<\/p>\n<p>The pastor is happy because everyone said, \u201cGood sermon pastor.\u201d \u00a0The congregation is happy because they were made to feel good because cooking their neighbor a meal took them off the hook from a financial commitment. \u00a0Everyone wins\u2026.except the lives of the poor, under-resourced, diseased, orphaned, widowed and spiritually lost who would have been the beneficiaries of an estimated $165 billion of Kingdom revenue. \u00a0But at least the person in the car behind me got a free lunch and my passenger called me \u201cgenerous\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Generosity, as it is currently being discussed, is completely subjective. \u00a0Stewardship is measurable.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>God is calling leaders to more than just generosity. \u00a0Generosity (as we often define it) is not enough. \u00a0He is calling leaders to sacrifice. \u00a0The following is an easy formula for you to remember:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Responsibility (Tithe) + Generosity = Sacrifice. It is sacrifice that God wants.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But even though many have hijacked the word, God is calling us to generosity. \u00a0So what are the practices of a generous lifestyle? \u00a0One of the best pictures of generosity recorded in all of Scripture is King David just prior to his death. \u00a01 Chronicles 28 and 29 gives us a detailed account of King David transitioning the kingdom to his son Solomon. \u00a0What strikes me about King David\u2019s generosity is it was not just a financial act to help fund the construction of Solomon\u2019s Temple. \u00a0He did provide significant financial support (more later), but he also provided for us a true picture of what a generous life looks like.<\/p>\n<p>The following are\u00a0<strong>7 Habits Of Highly Generous Leaders<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>King David invested in Solomon spiritually.<\/strong> He discipled him. \u00a0In 28:9 he taught him about the importance of knowing, serving, and seeking God.<\/p>\n<p><strong>King David was generous with his praise and encouragement.<\/strong>\u00a0 On multiple occasions he reminded Solomon he was selected by God and therefore, to be strong and do the work he was called to. \u00a0Leaders know encouragement is needed but never enough.<\/p>\n<p>It also needs a plan to be successful. <strong>Inspiration has its reasons.<\/strong> \u00a0Knowing he would not be alive to see it, King David still generously gave Solomon all the plans he had previously made for the Temple\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding being <strong>generous with his personal finances<\/strong>, King David made an estimated $4+ billion investment in today\u2019s money into the Temple\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>King David was also generous with his platform and influence.<\/strong>\u00a0 He praised Solomon in front of the entire nation. A leaders&#8217; personal platform is not for their personal benefit or gain. Leaders should always use their influence and platform for shining the spotlight on others and improving the lives of as many people as possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Finally, King David was generous in the area of pure joy.<\/strong>\u00a0 He celebrated accomplishment. \u00a0A leader who does not know how to celebrate is not a leader worth following. \u00a0It is written that King David \u201crejoiced\u201d when the people gave willingly and the Temple was funded. \u00a0King David teaches us that a leader\u2019s success and true joy is found in the success of others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The model of a generous life is when you invest spiritual truth, intellectual capital, money, praise, encouragement, influence and joy in another person\u2019s life<\/strong>. \u00a0It takes all of these and more to have a generous life.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I have my pastor in the car with me and we go through a drive-thru at my local Chick-Fil-A and I purchase lunch for the car behind me, I am classified as \u201cgenerous\u201d. \u00a0It does not matter if I am robbing God with my tithes and offerings, I am now classified as a person [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","iawp_total_views":1,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[718,303],"class_list":["post-19622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generosity-2","tag-generosity-2","tag-money"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19622"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19627,"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19622\/revisions\/19627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briandoddonleadership.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}