a good reminder

since moving back to alabama, we have gotten to visit several different churches in addition to going back to our home church. this has been a neat experience for us...i think before we moved, we didn't really feel the freedom to visit elsewhere, nor did we really even have a desire to anyway. but after being a part of a different church tradition in colorado, we have felt the Lord stretching us and leading us in different ways now that we are back home. not to say that we are leaving our home church, but we have enjoyed being a part of some different types of services here in birmingham.

one of the churches we have visited a few times now is an anglican church. it is the same denomination as the church we attended in colorado, which is on of the things that drew us to it. plus, we just kept hearing about it from here and there, and decided that maybe the Lord was leading us to visit. and so, we have. one of the big questions for us in visiting different churches has to do with titheing. should we only tithe at our home church? since ryan gets paid bi-monthly, if we aren't at Southcrest that sunday, should we wait until the next time we are there to tithe? or should we tithe wherever we are. after giving this subject much thought, we decided that a tithe is really unto the Lord, not necessarily unto a church...and since we are following his leading as we visit here and there (or we think we are, at least), then maybe it'd be okay to tithe wherever we are. this decision was affirmed for me when i was writing out our tithe check this last week. we were visiting the anglican church...which is named Christ the King, so in the "pay to the order" box, i wrote "Christ the King." i smiled to myself as i thought about how strange that looked, me writing a check out, seemingly straight to the Lord. but it was a good reminder that He is really the one we give our offerings to...the church is merely the handler of the funds. :)