Generosity Testimonial 01: Jim and Jan

Rule of Life

Practicing the Way

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 700 Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jim and Jan faithfully tithed over the years, but their vision for generosity was dramatically expanded through a Generous Giving conference. After hearing Jesus’ counterintuitive words on money and listening to testimonials from people who’d given over $100 million over their lifetime, they left with a deep conviction that everything they had was truly God’s, and that stewarding those resources with radical generosity – rather than sinking into “spiraling affluence” – was the pathway to joy.

This podcast accompanies the Generosity Practice, a four-session experience designed to help integrate generosity into your community. Learn more at practicingtheway.org/generosity. Thanks to The Circle and other givers, all our resources are free. To learn more about The Circle, visit practicingtheway.org/give. To run a Practice with your church or small group, visit practicingtheway.org/resources.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Rule of Life podcast.
0:06.7	Today we're going to hear a story of how the practice of generosity shows up in the everyday lives of real people.
0:14.4	Jesus teaches that there's more joy in giving than receiving.
0:18.2	Listen in on what it's like to live that out with our friend Jim and Jan Bacinius.
0:24.4	Hi, we're Jim and Jan Bucinnius, and we've been on a journey of generosity now for about the past 40 years.
0:30.5	My friend Tony gave me a phone call and he asked me, do you tithe? And I said, yeah, I tithe. He said, gross or net. I said, none of your
0:39.3	business. And he said, come on, we know each other. We're friends. And he said to me, I'll never forget it.
0:44.6	He said, I know about how much money I manage, and I know about how much money you manage, and you manage a lot more than I do.
0:51.8	And I give 50%. And I'm like, what? I had never heard of anyone in my life
0:58.9	who gave half of what they make. And he got my attention. I'd been invited generous giving in the
1:04.8	past, but we went to our first generous giving conference following that invitation. The generous giving conference is really around the biblical principles of giving and generosity.
1:18.6	And I was skeptical because at that point I had generated a little wealth and was kind of always expecting an ask.
1:26.6	And they assured me this isn't about people asking you for money.
1:30.3	This is about people trying to bless you, encourage you,
1:34.3	and educate you more on the biblical principles around giving.
1:38.3	And I went, and it was one of the coolest things I have ever been to in my life.
1:43.3	There were two main takeaways from my experience at the first things I have ever been to in my life. There were two main takeaways from
1:45.6	my experience at the first conference I attended. The first one was I heard a man by the name
1:50.6	of Stanley Tam talk about God being his business partner. And I'm listening. He's an older guy
1:56.9	and is probably late 70s, early 80s at that point. And he said that God spoke to me,
2:02.3	but he wanted the other half. And so I gave it to him. And as he finished his talk, which kind of
2:08.5	had left me with a jaw-dropping moment, he said, and do you know, I've given $128 million
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Practicing the Way, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Practicing the Way and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.