Generosity-minded Christians want their family to be the picture of harmonious giving. But that rarely happens without navigating some obstacles along the way. One of the biggest is figuring out how to give with loved ones who don’t share your faith, values, or interests.
Since 2019, I’ve had the honor of leading The Gathering, a community of families who are pursuing biblical wisdom in the stewardship of wealth. Together, we facilitate peer-to-peer conversations among Christian families learning how to give, invest, and volunteer effectively and faithfully. We seek to join God’s work with all the resources entrusted to our care. A frequent source of pain in these conversations is the struggle of wanting to give together as a family, but not being unified in faith.
How can we give with loved ones who don’t share the same beliefs or values?
Each family’s circumstances are unique, so each family’s solution for giving together will be unique. And because discordance about beliefs and values is often personal and hurtful, the journey through the disagreement can be anxiety-provoking and curdle otherwise close relationships.
It’s not easy, but beauty can emerge from taking on the challenge, from committing to work through conflicts, and from not giving up on the dream of shared generosity. I have seen many families work through disagreements for the reward of experiencing generosity with those they love. The result can be a divine, hard-earned, and unexpected gift.
To find your way toward the joyful act of giving together, ask yourself these three questions:
1. What are my ultimate priorities?
What is your ultimate priority in your desire to give together? Maybe it’s preserving family relationships or maximizing impact on the world. Maybe what you care most about is training the next generation to have generous hearts. Or maybe you believe giving together can help bridge a gap and reach nonbelievers in your family.
By starting with this question about priorities, you’ll quickly realize the act of giving carries a cascade of effects far beyond the grant. You’ll have more clarity and conviction about what matters most to you. And you’ll make decisions, develop giving patterns, and elevate certain aspects of your giving process. You’ll also be faced with the reality of what you would be willing to compromise, or even relinquish, in order to achieve what’s dearest to you.
2. What are my nonnegotiables?
Once you determine your ultimate priorities, decide on your nonnegotiables and keep them to a bare minimum. It’s hard to remove nonnegotiables once you stake them out, and the longer the list, the less space you leave available for finding common cause and shared action.
If something is truly nonnegotiable, set it in cement. If you have a family foundation, consider writing it into the bylaws or legal documents. Build structures and moats to protect the nonnegotiables, especially if you’re seeking to fund explicitly Christ-centered ministries.
If your priorities are ranked to highlight the importance of, say, family relationships and Christ-centered organizations, then it’s easier to give way on issues of lesser importance. Perhaps that means widening your scope of interest to welcome the philanthropic passions of your loved ones, even if it means picking up a cause that may not stir your own curiosity.
Some families accommodate these divergent interests by allocating money for individuals to give on their own and reserving the bulk of the giving to be done together. Other families take the inverse position: A matriarch might decide the majority of giving on her own and set aside a meaningful chunk for the entire family to give together.
Remember to communicate with clarity and act with consistency. Providing clarity and removing uncertainty are gifts in communicating your values so your family knows where you stand – and why you cherish those values.
Your communication must be reinforced by your actions. Do your attitudes and interactions with your family express the values you espouse? Your transparency and your integrity will go a long way in getting everyone on the same page, even if they don’t all agree with your values and your faith.
3. Where might I act more sacrificially?
What are some ways you could be more generous and Christlike in your attitudes, your rules, and your posture toward family members who don’t agree with you? Some of us hold very strongly to political positions, policy views, or economic worldviews. The question is, How much do those views weigh in comparison to our relationships with loved ones?
What is the best way to have a sacrificial approach to loving the people who disagree with you?
What is the distinction between stubbornness and having a true conviction that comes from a place of humility and obedience to God? How do you tell those things apart? It will only come through prayer and discernment and by inviting wise and trusted outside voices into your life.
Giving together sometimes feels binary. Either you’re helping give money away or you’re not involved at all. But there may be ways for family members to give input, even if they disagree about what organizations you ultimately support. Where might you be using this money as a “carrot” to sway your family members’ beliefs? Is there an inherent imbalance of power in the ways you hold the purse strings? How might you find ways to share power in a meaningful way?
Start early and never give up
You can never start the generosity conversation too early. The earlier you begin with your children or grandchildren, the better they will understand who you are, what you value, and what you believe. Engage them in your giving while they’re young, when they behave with childlike enchantment toward discovering the world and cherish spending time with you.
If you already struggle with difficult family relationships, you’re not alone. Remember, we worship a God who loves us in incredible ways beyond our understanding. His timing is perfect. Be patient. Don’t give up. Keep an open door, an open heart, and an open invitation for your family to join you in the practice of giving.
Connect with your local NCF team today.
