The Law of Generosity can be miss-understood and applied in a way that actually hurts people rather than helping them.

 This text is in Extreme Rough draft and will be edited in the near future.

           Hello, my name is Gary Shotton, and I am here as a part of Inspiring Better Business and today we are going to talk about one of the laws of God for doing business and we are on a passion here, seeking out God’s best plan so we can help people be financially stable and empowered to do that. And through this entrepreneurship, Godly business entrepreneurship. Well, we are going to talk about the law of generosity.

          We are going to talk about it in a way that is directed primarily from a developing nation to an underdeveloped nation, how money can flow to them and maybe some mistakes we have made or I have seen being made, and how we can make things better. We hope and the law of generosity is as focused around in this case about goers, the people that moved or left this land and went overseas to help another people group and so there is actually two or three people involved. So the the person that went ,the person that we are trying to help and then of course, the giver, the person that is here to help financially. And in those regards, we are not talking about just those three people. We are talking about their spouses and their families and how important it is for us to look at this as a multi generational endeavor and how to break this pattern that sometimes happens. That the children are so disillusioned that they leave even the church or even God’s plan for their life.

          Well, the story goes this way that a couple, our family, with some small children were just destined to be missionaries to go to a foreign land and by the way, it sounded like somebody you know, I am not talking about any one person. This is about eight or 10 people that follow this same pattern that I personally know. There has got to be hundreds of others that did this same process. Usually the money is not very abundant, and so money is tight and when we get to the foreign land, we start becoming unsure about how to use that money. Now when I give money to a missionary, I want to first take care of my troops. I want to take care of my American missionaries, and I do not expect them to fund everything that is happening. Under their arena there. In other words, I am not expecting them to take my money and make them feed hundreds of people or to build buildings or to buy tambourines or buy drum sets or become the source for all the money.

          I am believing that our missionaries are going to go there and teach the lessons that are needed for those people to identify God in all aspects of their life. And we teach about different things that praise and worship and they have great praise and worship teams. And we teach about other ministry aspects, but sometimes we skip that, and we do not teach about how business and money and finance ought to be handled. And you know, the money is just a tool to help those other things happen. We can create a dependency that is unhealthy. So as this couple, our family is involved in a foreign land. If they are not careful, they are stretching the money too thin. They are being overly generous with the causes of changing the culture and people in that land and an” A not generous enough” with their own family.

          And this can create a lot of long term hardship within the family relation. I have seen at least 7 if not 10 families that we knew, left to change the world and came back with a family totally destroyed. And that is never the intention of God in us going overseas. And the issue is that issue of generosity, if I am not careful, I am more generous to a foreign land than my own children and my own spouse. And in that process, there are wedges being drawn, wedge between and our mission statement includes that our purpose is to change lives for generations to come. While the first generation is mine and that is the one I want to reach for sure. Before I reach into the rest of the world.

          What we are doing is, we are training people, it is not what I tell people, it is the way I handle things. So I can talk about faith from God that God is supplying here, but if I am not careful about money in a way, that is the right balance. Then I am telling my own children, that God is a poor God, that if you are going to follow God, then you are going to have lack, you are never going to have the things other people would have considered even normal for children to have. They are going to feel resentful, and that has happened. I have seen that happen. And then if we are not careful, we are telling the people in the foreign land, the Nationals in the foreign land, that this is the way it works. You have got to find somebody from a developed nation. Not just America. There is Australia. You are up there Netherlands, there are people that are here wanting to help. And if you can latch on to one of those, there will be your protect your perpetual funding method. And so that is not healthy.

          That is not God’s plan, because eventually those people that are funding that panel apart process, that it’s increasing and increasing and pretty soon, we are overly dependent on money from overseas, and that money has a way of disappearing very quickly if you’re not careful. So the goal here is to not create a dependency on others outside of God. We are giving an avenue and a channel for them, to the people to understand that God is more than enough, more sufficient he is not going to run out of funds. He is not going to run out of blessings.

          And if a person can learn how God works with money and finances, and teach that to a foreign group, and they really understand that they should become the givers. You see, when we are just giving and they are consuming and we are not teaching them that they can create revenue, income and provision to the point that they are actually giving faith to help others in their own community. Why would we go into a community and be the sole provider to them. The major provider of the money necessary to do a project. By the way, when we start a project, we start a process. We should have an exit plan, that if we say let us help in this manner, but next year, realize I am not going to give nearly as much as I did on the first year. That is not uncommon, because if we are not careful, the people receiving the money are now ramping up to a bigger, bigger process here and then expecting more money.

          Now there is a difference between earn money and gift money. So we as a ministry, I actually pay people to a fair wage, and they are producing a fair return for that wage. And we are not being hard in this and we help with the expenses. And those expenses are related to us doing what we are doing in helping in our minute Ministry of inspiring better business. So there is a difference between earned and donations. And so we handle those appropriately, that earned money is for those people to use and it should be of sufficiency to match their culture and their environment there.

          So as we proceed forward, we are trying to create this process, this methodology that we can create financial stability for generations to come. We really mean that we want that we are desiring that and we ask that you do and join with us in that idea. Pray for us and and consider being a part of that is not not to support me. I am not this is not a play for money at all. This is a plea to  how can you help us money wisely? And we believe we are doing that and we are open to your assistance if you should choose. Well, thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.