Go Fund Me

[HeDied4U]

Yes.  God will take care of us.  If you are expecting money to fall from they sky, why not the cloud?  Your daughter's premise is that God will magically send us money.  And, he can.  God can also use the good will of others to meet that need.  Let's be honest - the church has abandoned it's purpose of benevolence.  Since the church won't do what it is supposed to do, can God not use the desires of others to share their own wealth to provide for needs?

Let's go a little further.  Quit your job.  You shouldn't depend on your employer or yourself - you should depend on God.  Quit your job and just pray and tell me how it goes.

God has stated that man should work for a living, and that it is the man's job to provide for his family.  Quitting my job to have God provide would be arrogant presumption, much like throwing oneself off of a building and trusting God to save one from the effects of gravity.

I'm not opposed to helping people; I'm not opposed to pleas for help from fellow believers.

I agree with you.  But, what about when tragedy strikes?  What about when a baby is murdered by an intruder and the family doesn't have money in savings to care for the funeral?  What about when a lay-off happens and the family was struggling to begin with and now they can't pay the electric bill?  Can a Christian not appeal to his fellow man for assistance?  Yes, God will provide, but He most often provides through the good will of other humans who cannot provide unless they know there is a need.

Apparently, I'm alone in this, but I do feel bothered by the thought of Christians posting needs/wants on GoFundMe...

If someone wants to go on his senior class trip, should he just post something on GoFundMe?  As a teen, we had to work for the money, not just ask people in the cloud to give it to us.

We started collecting money for a class trip or missions trip or our first car by asking family and friends first.  This is the model of GoFundMe and the rest.  A request is sent to people you know.  They may or may not contribute.  Your hope is that they will pass on the request to others they know who would want to support you.  It truly is simply an easy way for people who know you to make a contribution.  The number of absolute strangers supporting GoFundMe's is an incredibly low percentage.

Well said!!

 

[Bruh]

Yes.  God will take care of us.  If you are expecting money to fall from they sky, why not the cloud?  Your daughter's premise is that God will magically send us money.  And, he can.  God can also use the good will of others to meet that need.  Let's be honest - the church has abandoned it's purpose of benevolence.  Since the church won't do what it is supposed to do, can God not use the desires of others to share their own wealth to provide for needs?

Let's go a little further.  Quit your job.  You shouldn't depend on your employer or yourself - you should depend on God.  Quit your job and just pray and tell me how it goes.

God has stated that man should work for a living, and that it is the man's job to provide for his family.  Quitting my job to have God provide would be arrogant presumption, much like throwing oneself off of a building and trusting God to save one from the effects of gravity.

I'm not opposed to helping people; I'm not opposed to pleas for help from fellow believers.

I agree with you.  But, what about when tragedy strikes?  What about when a baby is murdered by an intruder and the family doesn't have money in savings to care for the funeral?  What about when a lay-off happens and the family was struggling to begin with and now they can't pay the electric bill?  Can a Christian not appeal to his fellow man for assistance?  Yes, God will provide, but He most often provides through the good will of other humans who cannot provide unless they know there is a need.

Apparently, I'm alone in this, but I do feel bothered by the thought of Christians posting needs/wants on GoFundMe...

If someone wants to go on his senior class trip, should he just post something on GoFundMe?  As a teen, we had to work for the money, not just ask people in the cloud to give it to us.

We started collecting money for a class trip or missions trip or our first car by asking family and friends first.  This is the model of GoFundMe and the rest.  A request is sent to people you know.  They may or may not contribute.  Your hope is that they will pass on the request to others they know who would want to support you.  It truly is simply an easy way for people who know you to make a contribution.  The number of absolute strangers supporting GoFundMe's is an incredibly low percentage.

Well said!!

I'm not sure if they did it on purpose or not but my family, aunts or uncles probably would have laughed at me and said go get a job to buy your first car. We knew better then to even bring this up to my parents.

Are my wife and I able to buy our children there first vehicle? Probably. But I don't know if we will.

Looking back on my teen years, we learned if we wanted it we had to go out and make it happen.

When my wife and I were first married, maybe 2 months, I mentioned to her that we eventually will need new tires for our vehicle. Unbeknownst to me she calls her mom and tells her this. I get home from work and she said her mom said, that if we wanted to borrow them money from them we could, as long as we pay them back.

I told my wife, tell her thanks but I'm not gonna do that. My wife tells me, you know you're gonna have to learn to allow people to help you. A few weeks later we go out and buy 4 new tires. When we get home she says, thanks for buying those tires and not borrowing from my parents, because my brothers would have borrowed that in a heart beat. I said, I guess I was just raised different. Of course I've learned not to say things quite like that at least to her.

My parents had the money, looking back I know they did. 15 20 years later I'm glad they didn't give us a dime.

There may come a time when we will need to ask for help financially, and in my mind when and if we ask, to me they will say, yeah they need help, they didn't just blow their money.

I don't know, we were taught to go get it.

My dad has gone home for eternity and I appreciate him more now than I did when he was here.

 

[ALAYMAN]

Like many complex topics, there's no one size fits all answer.  I watched an ESPN sports story recently about a youth athlete that was a budding phenom.  He used Go Fund Me to raise dollars that would go towards hi-tech advanced sports training that would allow him to excel and reach his potential asap so that he could realize his dream of going to a major professional sport.  My first thought was, are you kidding me?  Go work a job or earn the money the old fashioned way.  I still pretty much feel that way, but as PT Barnum said, there's a fool born every second and two to take 'em. 

On the other hand, as with many social media outlet tools, a family in crises can quickly be sponsored in a tragedy, for things like funeral expenses and such.  My mom was dirt poor as a kid.  Her dad, even in that poverty, would give you the shirt off his back if you truly needed it.  But with that generation came a sense of individual responsibility and accountability that they would NEVER take a handout if their life depended on it.  That sort of grit is gone, and entitlement reigns.  And Go Fund Me is a source of abuse, as are many other charities.

 

[Walt]

Yes.  God will take care of us.  If you are expecting money to fall from they sky, why not the cloud?  Your daughter's premise is that God will magically send us money.  And, he can.  God can also use the good will of others to meet that need.  Let's be honest - the church has abandoned it's purpose of benevolence.  Since the church won't do what it is supposed to do, can God not use the desires of others to share their own wealth to provide for needs?

Let's go a little further.  Quit your job.  You shouldn't depend on your employer or yourself - you should depend on God.  Quit your job and just pray and tell me how it goes.

God has stated that man should work for a living, and that it is the man's job to provide for his family.  Quitting my job to have God provide would be arrogant presumption, much like throwing oneself off of a building and trusting God to save one from the effects of gravity.

I'm not opposed to helping people; I'm not opposed to pleas for help from fellow believers.

I agree with you.  But, what about when tragedy strikes?  What about when a baby is murdered by an intruder and the family doesn't have money in savings to care for the funeral?  What about when a lay-off happens and the family was struggling to begin with and now they can't pay the electric bill?  Can a Christian not appeal to his fellow man for assistance?  Yes, God will provide, but He most often provides through the good will of other humans who cannot provide unless they know there is a need.

Apparently, I'm alone in this, but I do feel bothered by the thought of Christians posting needs/wants on GoFundMe...

If someone wants to go on his senior class trip, should he just post something on GoFundMe?  As a teen, we had to work for the money, not just ask people in the cloud to give it to us.

We started collecting money for a class trip or missions trip or our first car by asking family and friends first.  This is the model of GoFundMe and the rest.  A request is sent to people you know.  They may or may not contribute.  Your hope is that they will pass on the request to others they know who would want to support you.  It truly is simply an easy way for people who know you to make a contribution.  The number of absolute strangers supporting GoFundMe's is an incredibly low percentage.

I confess to not knowing much about GoFundMe - facebook friends from churches I have been a member of seem to be using it more and more for anything they want to do, from raise money for medical bills, for a missions trip, for funeral expenses, for the cost of having a child...

The ones I've looked at seem to be written in the most sob-story kind of way, and seem to be geared toward strangers.

 

[Walt]

I have no issue with helping someone with a financial need. If I know there back ground or there story I will decide from there. If I don't and its s stranger I'm more apt not to help. I will help a stranger and have if I'm really prompted by the Lord.

The church we use to attend had a man that lost his job. He never hit the pavement and went knocking on businesses for s job. He just sat at home. There was another older couple that would take the wife grocery shopping every week. The husband didn't go the wife went. God bless this older couple that's their business.

The husband without a job was not willing to get his hands dirty for work or do laborious type work. I approached him about a company I knew was hiring and he said, not my type of work. I said, ok.

A week or two later my wife asked if we could give them something, I turned to her and said, is he willing to dig ditches to support his family? She said, probably not. I said, he doesn't get a dime from us unless the Lord says otherwise.

Before he lost his job he was criticizing me because I travel a lot for work at the time. He looses his job I'm still traveling and have a job and allowing my wife to stay home and not worry about grocery money.

I know another man in that same church that had 5 kids at the time and told me once, I need food stamps look at all the kids I have. I turned to him and said, stop having them. There on there seventh pastoring a church on food stamps and Obamacare, I'm sure.



I'm not working right now because the oil field is dried up around here. I haven't been a helper for a lot of years now. I'm talking to a company right now to hire me to be a helper. I'm thankful God has given me the strength to provide for my wife and kids.

I have no idea how these men feel like men that don't have the manhood to do whatever they have to to provide for their families. I will never understand this.....never.

Do you think I'm gonna enjoy being a helper? No. I've worked long and hard to get to where I am. But I will be thankful for the work.

Very well said -- this is pretty much along the lines that I think.  There are people I feel sorry for, but I just don't feel led to support them, especially when they can't seem to hold a job because he can't show up on time.

 

[Walt]

Like many complex topics, there's no one size fits all answer.  I watched an ESPN sports story recently about a youth athlete that was a budding phenom.  He used Go Fund Me to raise dollars that would go towards hi-tech advanced sports training that would allow him to excel and reach his potential asap so that he could realize his dream of going to a major professional sport.  My first thought was, are you kidding me?  Go work a job or earn the money the old fashioned way.  I still pretty much feel that way, but as PT Barnum said, there's a fool born every second and two to take 'em. 

On the other hand, as with many social media outlet tools, a family in crises can quickly be sponsored in a tragedy, for things like funeral expenses and such.  My mom was dirt poor as a kid.  Her dad, even in that poverty, would give you the shirt off his back if you truly needed it.  But with that generation came a sense of individual responsibility and accountability that they would NEVER take a handout if their life depended on it.  That sort of grit is gone, and entitlement reigns.  And Go Fund Me is a source of abuse, as are many other charities.

I don't know if Go Fund Me can be abused or not; I just know that I am seeing more and more of "church people" turning to it to raise all sorts of funds.  I'm just a wee bit bothered by it.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

We could definitely benefit from something like go fund me (some of you can probably guess why), but I couldn't bring myself to post a sob story in order to get money.  There's just something that feels wrong about that on many levels. 

 

[Bruh]

We could definitely benefit from something like go fund me (some of you can probably guess why), but I couldn't bring myself to post a sob story in order to get money.  There's just something that feels wrong about that on many levels.

I'm with ya on this one, Big Red!

 

[Binaca Chugger]

We could definitely benefit from something like go fund me (some of you can probably guess why), but I couldn't bring myself to post a sob story in order to get money.  There's just something that feels wrong about that on many levels.

I don't believe that sob stories get the most attention.  People want to invest in something that is going somewhere and doing something.  Has to be a real tragedy, normally involving kids, to get the sympathetic dollar.  Again, this thing is designed to be shared through social media, so your campaign will only be as successful as your marketing.

I have never done one of these.  I sure could stand to gain some help, but God has always provided just enough for us.  Normally, His provision is through employment, sometimes through benevolence, sometimes through the gardens of laymen and sometimes through state programs.  Whatever method He chooses, He does provide. 

 

[Bob H]

I haven't seen a topic about this, so I thought I would start one.

Should a Christian participate in Go Fund Me?  Should be fund people on there, if he so wishes?  Should he post his own needs there?

I've been seeing more self-declaring IFB friends and colleagues post various requests for money on gofundme, and it has always bothered me a bit, but I really didn't know why.

After discussing it in our family, our daughter hit the nail on the head: "The preaching we've heard all of our lives is that God is able to meet our needs; by posting a request for help from strangers is effectively saying that it's not true.... that God is not big enough to meet our need."

(that's not her exact quote; I just took the thought and rephrased it).

How is this any different that begging on a street corner?

I haven't heard any preaching about it one way or the other, but was curious as to what people on this forum think.

George Mueller thought it wrong to ask for money for support of his/a ministry and yet D L Moody thought it ok to ask others to support his/a ministry......


...just sayin'

 

[Bruh]

If you wanna ask for money or call churches/pastors for speaking engagements that's fine.............just don't word it like there're contacting you.

I know someone that does this.........and God has helped me to keep my mouth shut for the sake of relationship.

 

[subllibrm]

I have no Go Fund Me account or page or whatever it is called. I have given to a few of them where it was appropriate (house fire, death, medical needs ... ) but have  not found myself in a position where such was personally needed.

I do have a "need" that I have no problem sharing. My wife and I are on the deputation trail raising support to go into a full-time position with a ministry we have volunteered at for two decades. We are not asking for money, we are asking for opportunities to tell our story.

If you are interested in hearing our story PM me.

End of promotional interlude.