Hopefully you’re now spreading Bitcoin with love to the right person, so what exactly is the message you’re spreading?
Check your heart first
Before we get into specifics, remember to check your heart and ask yourself some questions:
- Have you adopted a posture of listening, service, and humility?
- Are you sure you really know the most pressing problems that your church is struggling with, and that Bitcoin is the answer?
- Is spending your time and energy on this cause how you can best serve your church right now?
- Is your excitement and dedication to Bitcoin detracting from other areas that your church is explicitly asking you to serve in?
Take heed of Proverbs 15:22, which says:
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22
If you are confident about the answers to these questions — especially if you’ve prayed, fasted, and sought wise counsel from other trusted brothers and sisters in Christ, and you are sure the LORD is putting it on your heart to act now — then proceed with all humility and caution.
Lead with a reason to care
We recommend that you lead with a reason to care, and you need to be wise about presenting the best reason for your church given the circumstances.
It would be amazing to lead with reasons like the glory of God, the spread of the kingdom, or faithful stewardship for Christ, and if your church is in a healthy place with lots of bandwidth, by all means go for it.
If instead your church is in a struggle to keep the lights on and needs your tithes to operate on a monthly basis, it might be better to focus more on ways to help get your church to a stronger financial position. Bitcoin may be part of the solution, but more than likely it’s not the first step.
There are many faithful churches in situations like this, and forcing Bitcoin into the conversation too early can be unhelpful or tone-deaf in these cases.
But if your church does have the bandwidth, one of the best ways to start the conversation is if you or another Bitcoiner are ready to give tithes or other gifts in Bitcoin. The key aspect to focus on is whether your church is ready to receive and hold the Bitcoin, or if they plan to liquidate it immediately.
If they are unwilling to receive it at all, you can still help them by using a donor advised fund, but this is a topic we will discuss in a later video.
So if your church has plenty of operating capital and would still prefer to liquidate the Bitcoin, you may need to ask more questions to better understand the current financial goals and thinking of your leaders. Be humble and remember: you don’t know what you don’t know.
Your leaders may be all about prudent and careful saving, but have a different understanding of investment, risk, and volatility. Addressing these types of concerns will be the focus of the next part.
In the end, it’s okay to donate Bitcoin, even if your church immediately liquidates it. You can still receive tax advantages, and you can always top off your stack with the fiat you would have donated instead.
From receiving, to holding, to preserving savings
Once your church gets used to accepting Bitcoin, they may become more open to holding it, at which point you can talk about how all capital is in a struggle with inflation. Of course, this will only apply to churches that have capital to preserve, but if this is the case for your church, most people will intuitively understand this point by experience.
For example, most churches know how it has become harder and harder to pay pastors enough for them to focus solely on ministry, and many churches have given up on the dream of owning a building, or even running mercy ministries that give to the poor and missions. Sadly, inflation has crept into nearly every aspect of our lives.
But even if people understand inflation, conventional wisdom — from people like Dave Ramsey — says that you should use bonds or the stock market as a savings vehicle.
Using investments as savings betrays a misunderstanding of risk, and these instruments don’t beat inflation anyway — at least not real inflation, which is more accurately seen in the money supply growth rate, not the government-published CPI rate.
Be careful, however: the idea that the government would intentionally misrepresent inflation can be offensive to some people. You should definitely tread lightly when discussing these types of subjects, even if you have the facts to back it up.
For more information on investment performance and inflation, check out Tim’s talk called What Does the Bible Say About Bitcoin, and for more information on the money supply and inflation in general, read Lyn Alden’s book, Broken Money, or watch her summary video on the book.
Addressing the heart, not just the money
As the conversation with your church continues to evolve, you may find your leaders becoming more and more interested in longer-term reasons to care about Bitcoin. A great example here is the fact that, as older generations pass away, they are replaced by younger generations with declining church attendance and lower giving rates.
Of course, we shouldn’t just accept these trends as inevitable. Instead, before we tout Bitcoin as the solution, we should work to address the heart issues.
On attendance, Hebrews 10:24–25 says:
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:24–25
On giving, 2 Corinthians 9:7 says:
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7
So as churches feel the squeeze from inflation and a trend towards declining income, we can and should be working to address both the spiritual and material realities that we face over the coming decades. Bitcoin can never solve issues of the heart, so it cannot be a solution in itself.
A generational inheritance
But what about reasons to care about Bitcoin with even longer time horizons — like multiple generations? Well, this is where things get really exciting.
Proverbs 13:22 says:
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.
Proverbs 13:22
In many ways, our faith is a grand inheritance left to us by the saints of the past, and we continue to pass down the faith as an inheritance for the saints to come after us, each of us doing our own small part in God’s history of salvation.
Our hope is that when a church thrives on a Bitcoin standard for decades, it will unlock a generational mindset that harkens back to the church of centuries past, where grand projects like the cathedrals of medieval Europe could be funded and constructed by generations of dedicated saints working for hundreds of years.
While I don’t necessarily agree with all the reasons to build cathedrals in particular, I think the idea that the church could dare to dream big for God’s kingdom — and make plans that require centuries to unfold — is exciting to hope for.
After all, this is part of what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Money that aligns with Christian ethics
We think it’s good and right to strive to use monetary systems that promote more justice and peaceful cooperation in the world. In short, we believe money that aligns with Christian ethics and morals can and will help God’s kingdom come.
But the media and many in traditional finance, government, and education would have you believe that Bitcoin is on the wrong side of morality — that it’s only used by criminals, or that it destroys the environment. We know this couldn’t be further from the truth, but it isn’t always obvious to outsiders.
Bitcoin can help to shine a light on the fiat system and the theft and corruption that it promotes. And if you are looking for more specific examples or details to share about this topic, read Alex Gladstein’s book, Check Your Financial Privilege.
If you want a message that hits a little closer to home, look no further than the funding of the unjust and never-ending wars in the last century — since the founding of the Federal Reserve, and later the ending of the gold standard.
If the military-industrial complex isn’t the best subject to broach at your church, then you can always fall back to how inflation disproportionately helps some at the expense of others. This is known as the Cantillon Effect, which describes the uneven effect inflation has on goods and assets in an economy. River has a great short video describing this effect in more detail.
If you are looking for other examples of how the fiat system distorts and corrupts entire sectors of the economy, check out The Fiat Standard by Saifedean Ammous.
To summarize
You need to approach your church with a posture of listening, service, and humility. Once you understand what issues matter most to your church, be prepared to serve in the way that makes the most sense — which may not include Bitcoin.
Over time, if and when you start to get traction with the Bitcoin conversation, there will probably be a slow and natural progression from receiving it, to holding it, and finally to converting some or all of any existing savings into Bitcoin once an appropriate level of conviction has been achieved.
Achieving this final bit — that is, converting the treasury — can be catastrophic without conviction, so please be very careful if you find yourself in this position.
As Bitcoiners, we can get excited when people are ready to smash buy, but it isn’t always the most prudent course of action, even if it might result in the best outcome. Keep in mind that we are all working towards a generational mindset, and our attitudes should reflect that in our patience.
Up next, we’ll address those concerns about investment, risk, and volatility — the difference between saving and investing.