The Heart of Money
Join financial counselor, Christ follower, and founder of the Center for Financial Discipleship, Courtney Markley as she takes on tough money questions and delivers actionable guidance. Courtney's gentle but straightforward approach creates a safe, nonjudgmental space for people to talk about their money challenges. After coaching for several years, Courtney understands that money stress is usually a symptom of a deeper problem. Her approach to money will expand your understanding of how to succeed financially. You will gain tools needed to improve your money mindset while becoming someone who can have deeper, Christ-centered money discussions. Join Courtney in her mission to change the way we talk about money, one conversation at a time.
The Heart of Money
Can I give to charity instead of my church?
What does faithful generosity look like?
In this episode we tackle the honest question so many believers face: can I give to a charity instead of giving to my church? Rather than chasing a quick yes or no, we slow down to name the real motives, bring scripture into view, and outline practical next steps that honor both your calling and the Church.
Welcome to the Heart of Money Podcast. This is the place to go for deep, Christ-centered, 20-minute or less money conversations that lead to heart change and generosity. I'm your host, Courtney Markley, and as a certified Christian financial counselor, I have helped hundreds of people transform their finances and grow closer to Jesus in the process. So let's get started. Welcome everyone and thank you for joining me. Alright, today we are diving into the question: can I give to charity instead of giving to my church? Oof. Alright, we're going just right diving deep. I'm glad you're here with me. Now, as a financial counselor, I get to hold a lot of people's money questions. Now that doesn't mean I necessarily have to answer them or it's my place to answer them, but I do get to come alongside people and help them discern what questions maybe lie beneath those questions and how might God be leading them. So the same is true when we're leaning into today's topic. Can I give to charity instead of giving to my church? You know, I've received this question a lot over the years, and if you're a financial advisor or a ministry leader listening in, you have no doubt encountered this question as well. Before we begin, I want you to choose how you'd like to listen to this particular episode. I think there's one of two ways that you can listen in. The first way is receiving answers for yourself. You may be someone who is asking this very question right now. And the second way is to listen for others. Again, you may be someone who regularly is asked this question, so you're gonna listen in to gain guidance on how to help other people with this question. If you're someone who is currently wrestling with this question, today I want to create some space for you to examine maybe what's underneath or what's motivating you to wonder if you should be giving money to charity instead of your local church. And if you're someone who wants to help others with this question, then I'm gonna encourage you to listen for key questions to ask along the way. Take some notes of some questions or some ideas that are prompted as you're listening in. And remember, for those of us who are given the blessing of helping others with their money questions, we have to remember that our goal is never to win the money conversation. The goal is to help people draw closer to Jesus. And the best way that we can do that is really getting curious about them, about who's sitting in front of us and listen with empathy and compassion. Alright, so now that you figured out how you're gonna listen to today, let's lean into this question. Can I give money to charity instead of giving to my church? Now, normally when I hear this question, it's asked by someone who is regularly attending church, give a certain percentage of their income, and is now wondering if they can reallocate some or all of that money to their favorite nonprofit. So, first off, I like to begin by celebrating the fact that this person is giving and they are thinking critically about their giving. It means that they care. They want to participate in the building of God's kingdom, and that is a really beautiful thing. So we always start by celebrating the fact that you're even asking this question. Now, there are often very real tensions that exist underneath this question. So let's carefully examine what some of those common tensions are. And I'm gonna relay to you four common reasons that are told to me by people who are asking themselves this very thing. Alright, so reason number one. You know, some people go to large churches with multimillion dollar budgets and they compare the affluence of their church with their favorite charities who are struggling to make ends meet. People may come to the conclusion that the charity needs their money more than the church does. So essentially, this first motivation comes down to assessing church needs compared to the needs of a nonprofit. The second thing that I hear is that some people are struggling to feel actively engaged at their church. Now, for one reason or another, it's difficult for them to serve or find community within their local church context. Now, on the other hand, they may feel a huge sense of engagement and ownership when they get involved at their favorite nonprofit. They may delight in the fact that they found a place that cares about a cause that's really important to them. They begin serving and building community within the nonprofit context, and they want to financially support that nonprofit as well. So the second motivation really comes down to where they're getting community engagement. The third reason that is expressed to me is that some people have been hurt by the church or they find it difficult to trust church leadership. You know, I've spoken to some people who want to, in a word, almost punish their church for doing something they didn't like or approve of. I've also met with people who earnestly want to give to the Lord, but giving to church feels incredibly vulnerable and opens up wounds that haven't been healed yet. So giving to a nonprofit feels a bit safer than giving to their church. So this third motivation comes from a place of hurt within their church or a feeling of mistrust or dissatisfaction. And now the fourth reason I have encountered is that there are some people who are very numbers-driven and goal-oriented. And they may be seeing a really large nonprofit that is connecting with a vast number of people and seemingly making a huge difference within the Christian context. Now, compared to their local church, their local church may be serving a small congregation and their budget is stretching just far enough to keep the lights on. So some people they're motivated to ask this question because they're evaluating it more from an investment standpoint. Where can I give my money that's gonna go the furthest? Now, these reasons are complex, and we could probably list a hundred more, but I'm sure you'll join me in agreeing that asking the question, can I give to a charity instead of my local church reveals that something deeper is happening? You know, beneath each of these motivations lies an emotion that could be discontentment, disappointment, or disapproval. It could be delight or hope. It's important to understand where these emotions stem from and ask yourself questions like, why am I considering this option right now? Is there something that happened recently that prompted me to begin asking where I should be putting my money? Now let me tell you my favorite question to ask when someone comes to me and asks, can I give money to a charity instead of my local church? My favorite question to ask after we start understanding more of the motivations and why they're asking this question now, I like to ask them this: Are you running towards something or away from something? This will really help assess the validity of your question and the spiritual components behind it. Now, after asking yourself this question, you may determine that you're really running from something. It could be a fear or hurt or disagreement, and the best move forward is actually meeting with your church leadership to tell them how you're feeling and working towards a reconciliation. You may recognize a feeling of freedom that you're running towards something. You're excited to engage in ministry work through a specific nonprofit, and you acknowledge that this is an invitation from God. For you, potentially the next step may be determining how best to lean into this opportunity while still honoring God and his church. Whichever place you're coming from, let's bring in a few more things for you to consider. As Christ's followers, we need to hold in high regard God's commitment to his church. Ephesians 5 tells us that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. As Christ's followers, we are then called to also love the church and give ourselves up for her. We are a part of the church body. I like the question that Randy Alcorn poses in his book Money, Possessions, and Eternity. And it's a good question for us to consider as we're wondering whether we should give money to charity instead of our church. Randy asks, if everyone gave like I do, where would the church be? I think this is a really strong question to consider as we start to evaluate where we could be putting money to further advance God's kingdom. Okay. Christ highly regarded his church and we are called to do the same. Now, on the other side of the coin, I also think we can consider the church's responsibility to serve others. In 1 Timothy chapter 5, we read about the great lengths that Paul took to instruct the church on how they were to care for widows. And he gave lots of examples of things that churches were to look for as they were to serve the least of these. The widows would have been considered uh on the margin. They were uh very poor, they didn't have a means to provide for themselves. And so Paul was letting the church know it is your responsibility to care for those in your community who can't care for themselves, who need help? And I was reading 1 Timothy the other day, and the question started to come to my mind: when was the last time the local church said it is our responsibility to care for the least of these in our community? And what can we be doing about it? How can we be deploying our resources? How can we be serving our neighbors better? It's something to consider because what I find is as people are leaning into this question, can I give to charity instead of my local church? Often what starts to come up in this conversation is a desire to see the church be the church. It's a desire to see the church be the hands and feet of Christ and to go serve the local community. And so as we start to ask ourselves this question, can I give to charity instead of a local church? What we may actually be uh experiencing is God prompting us to start to help our church body be the church. Now that could look like partnering with a local nonprofit in your area. I love seeing when churches adopt nonprofits and nonprofits serve the local church really well to equip them uh with training and resources and tools that maybe the church didn't have before. We're seeing this right now uh locally. There is a beautiful organization that's helping the local church help parents who might be in a moment of crisis and need someone to look after their children. Normally those kids would go straight into the foster system, but this particular nonprofit is coming alongside churches to say, when a single mom needs surgery and there's no one to watch her child, could you do that for her? And so what this nonprofit is doing is they are really serving the church. They're serving the church by helping the church be the hands and feet of Jesus. They're equipping them, they're getting them in touch with people in their community who need help, who need served. And what I love, I was speaking to the leader of this nonprofit not too long ago, and she said, you know, if someone individually comes up to us and says, we would love to get involved with your nonprofit, we encourage them and we say, Hey, that's great, but we want you to do that within your church context. We don't want you to be siloed in your ministry work. We you have to do this within a community of believers because that is when it thrives. That is when God's church thrives, is when we work and collaborate together. So this is just one example of how nonprofits and churches can come together and support one another. Uh, and that might be the prompting that God is putting on your heart right now. A few years ago, I got an opportunity to visit a Romanian church and see the amazing response that they were having to just the local needs around them. This particular Romanian church was very close to the Ukraine border, and so when the war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, they naturally started getting a lot of people coming in from Ukraine who were fleeing the war. And this local church, they started to see the needs that were coming in. They were seeing kids who were hungry and they were seeing moms who were scared. They were seeing people who needed places to stay and food to eat, and the church rallied around these people. Uh, one of my friends at this church, he felt compelled to start a free store. He wanted to start gathering supplies, food, clothing, anything people needed to live. And he went to his church leadership and asked if they would help him, and they said yes. And it became an entire church-wide project of helping this free store grow and thrive and be a blessing to their community. And not only did they have the free store, but members of the church started opening up their homes and they let families who were escaping the war come and stay with them. And they had community meals once a week at their church so that people could start to make friends and uh have a safe place to come and hear the gospel, and it was just a beautiful expression of how one person in particular was really uh just compelled by a local need. And he went to his church leadership and asked for support, and they said yes. So, as you're debating this question, you know, should I give money to charity or should I give money to my local church? Perhaps there's a both and question here. Perhaps there's a way for you to bring in the causes that are really important to you into your local church context, whether that be starting a ministry at your church or maybe uh having your church adopt a local nonprofit, but it could be a both and instead of an either-or. And let us not forget that God may be calling you to give to both. Again, it may not be give to this and not to this. And if you're looking at your budget and you're saying, Okay, that sounds great, Courtney, but I'm not sure I have the resources to give to both. Well, I'm reminded of the invitation of the widow and her two mites or her two coins, where Jesus watched person after person give out of their abundance. But this woman gave out of sacrifice, and perhaps the calling for you that God has put on your heart is for you to experience a greater level of sacrifice within your giving. Through all of this, everything that we have discussed, I hope you have gotten some form of clarity, something to hang on to, whether that be first and foremost, evaluating your motivations, what is really behind the question that I'm asking, and then starting to pray through is this something that I am running towards or something that I'm running from? What might be beneath that? And then evaluating what's the true invitation that God is giving me? How can I best lean into the opportunities that God has set before me while honoring him and his church? And I want to end on a personal note. Friends, it is okay to wrestle with this question. It is okay to wrestle with church. My family spent the majority of 2025 looking for a new church home, and it was really hard and it wasn't fun, but I will tell you that it was worth it. Christ is worth pursuing, and his church is worth pursuing. Thank you, friends, so much for listening. I pray that this conversation has blessed you today. Be sure to share this podcast episode with a friend, someone who you know might be wrestling with this very question. And don't forget, if you have your own money question that you would like to hear answered on the Heart of Money podcast, email me at Courtney at Financial Discipleship. Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed the conversation today, then share it with a friend and be sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. And again, thank you so much for joining us on our mission to change the way we talk about money one conversation at a time. I'm your host, Courtney Markley, and this has been The Heart of Money.