What is .W Anyway?

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Pastor Foley

My interview with Sharefaith‘s Daniel Threlfall helped me realize that I’ve never mentioned the philosophy of .W, the organization which I co-founded and through which I consult, on this site. Quel oversight!, as the French say. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the interview.

Many of our readers may not know you. Tell us, briefly, who you are and what you do.

My name is Eric Foley. My wife, Hyun Sook, and I founded Seoul USA ten years ago.

Seoul USA serves as a bridge between the Korean church (both North and South) and the church in the rest of the world. We bring the gifts of the Korean church to the church in the West and the gifts of the church in the West to the Korean church. We have a particular focus on mobilizing the church around the world to support the underground church of North Korea.

I am one-third of the ministry’s Executive Team, overseeing its .W division.

.W stands for Doers Of The Word. Through .W we consult churches and Christian NGOs on comprehensive discipleship as a robust biblical alternative to secular fundraising practices.

We believe secular fundraising practices weaken the generosity of the church and its members and also keep them from reaching full maturity in Christ. This creates dependence on specialized Christian NGOs to fulfill the eternal mission God intends to be undertaken by average Joe Christians in average Joe churches.

This is actually bad for Christian NGOs as well, since it completely obscures their invaluable role as a church renewal movement raised up to support the church to grow to full maturity in Christ in all of the causes Christian NGOs serve.

Over the past twenty years we’ve consulted and trained roughly 1,500 churches and Christian NGOs in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia.

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What is the Best Resource for Advice on Giving?

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Pastor Foley

Daniel Threlfall asked me this question as a part of an interview that will be published soon at Sharefaith. Here is his question in full, along with my reply.

What are some of the best resources you know of for giving advice, help, and instruction in giving?

Is it superfluous to say the Bible?

We need to start there—and stay there, really, daily—in order to learn and learn again that we don’t have a need for new tools, techniques, and strategies. God doesn’t permit those to penetrate deeply or permanently in the human heart. Instead, we need to become more consciously and deeply aware of the philanthropy God pours into us daily. That gives us the joyful confidence to become philanthropists ourselves.

We give comprehensively because giving is a means of grace by which we come to know him more fully and by which others can catch a glimpse of him through us. For now it’s a dim mirror. But the joy will be that when we see him, we’ll have no difficulty recognizing him from what we were permitted to see.

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If You Give Money to God, Will He Give You More in Return?

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Pastor Foley

That’s one of the questions Sharefaith‘s Daniel Threlfall asked me in an interview that will soon be published on their site. Here was his question in full, along with my reply.

I’ve heard that if I start giving my money to God, he’ll start blessing me with more. Is this true?

Well, you’ll be wasting his less, that’s for sure!

The apostle Paul says part of God’s curriculum is learning to be content with a lot and learning to be content with a little. Money is neither the great good nor the focus. The focus is on Christ’s whole life offering to us, and on our whole life offering to others.

The lilies of the field know that their father will give them the right mix of soil and sunshine and water. They don’t worry about stockpiling one more than the other. They just render their lily lives as their reasonable worship to him, and he always comes through in the end.

We always need to remember this: When one undertakes an activity in order to secure eternal reward or avoid eternal punishment, one is acting out of self-preservation. This is the very root that Christ intends to pluck up and discard. As he says in Luke 9:24, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it” (NIV).

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