is "Time Tithing" a new way for us to make our contribution?

Tithing is an ancient tradition that is still practised today. Tithe or one tenth is now more commonly associated with religion and is paid with cash as a contribution or donation. In earlier times it might have been paid in kind with produce from agricultural endeavours. The concept of tithing (giving money) can be found throughout the world.

Tithing in the UK was widespread and related to the church in a time when the church had far larger congregations than it does today. The church handled much more of the education, welfare and even some aspects of health as well as spirituality. Today the church covers a much narrower spectrum and attendance at church is pretty low somewhere in the region of 2 or 3 percent, maybe even lower than that. Why this is the case is not the subject of this blog post, but clearly financial tithing linked to the church no longer appeals to the majority.

To give freely and willingly to others who are in need is a good thing, I believe most people would agree with this idea. How then can we create a much more inclusive way of being able to help others? Could we also do this in such a way that is not dependent on someone's wealth, status, background or education? Where everyone no matter who they are could 'join in' and make a valuable contribution at whatever level they wanted to.

Welcome to the concept of 'Time Tithing'. No rules about the 1/10 of your time, but just an analogy that people can easily understand. What if though? ... we all gave to a good cause, charity, or even just the community in some capacity 4 hours of our time out of (or in addition to) a 40 hour traditional work week. What if 8 million of us did this? ... That would be 32 million hours a week... Or 128 million hours a month... Over 1.5 billion hours a year! ... What if we only gave an hour a week, it would still be amazing! ... It just needs organising!

How could we possibly organise such a thing? Well the good news is we don't have to police this or set up rules, all we need to do is create a framework that enables it to happen. Shall we re-establish the idea of community? ... and recognise that together we not only have all the skills people might need, but collectively we also know who needs the skills and knowledge we have. So it's about making the connections; bringing the need and solution together. The great thing about this is we can all offer a service, we are all good at something and there is a need out there for us and what we're good at, we just need to be signposted. It might only need an hour a week, or maybe 30 minutes, it doesn't matter, the point is, being in the community, participating and making yourself available to give something.

So let me introduce Link4Growth. Currently in the UK, but not destined to remain just there for long. Link4Growth is a community building organisation, not political, nor religious but humanistic. We are all humans first, what we believe in after that, well that's our own business. Most people are good people, I genuinely do believe that, and if only there was a framework that provided us with the conduit to be able to give easily at whatever level was right for us, however we wanted, how brilliant would that be?

Link4Growth is this conduit; bringing together everyone in the community. We are all connected in some shape or form, we all know everyone else through the 6 (or is it 5 now?) degrees of separation, it's all about just about recreating those connections, first locally, then nationally, then globally.

So how does it happen? Link4Growth rebuilds connections by bringing people together physically at events. These events are where local people can come and meet other local people and get to know them. Everyone is welcome from any background, council workers, people in education, health, charities, social organisations / clubs, those unemployed, people in work, entrepreneurs, carers... Anyone in the community. We meet, talk, listen, learn and make connections to others. We also do this connecting work online through all the social media sites, find us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Through the underpinning ethics of Link4Growth which include focus on people and relationships, taking action, and giving... And through connecting we begin to unearth things that need doing in our community, and also organisations and charities that might be struggling under the cloak of invisibility. As we grow our local communities once again so we discover people amongst us who can help with just about anything... All we have to do then is make a connection, give a bit of time (time tithing), apply our skills and take action on a task that needs doing.

So as Link4Growth expands it opens up this conduit for all of us to play a part in rebuilding our communities and re shaping our future. It is down to us after all, and each one of us is important, all of us can play a part equally, we all have value, we can all have a voice, and all be respected.

If playing your part is of interest and you'd like to know more about Link4Growth and how possibly you might pick up on some of the above, then please check out the Link4Growth book... Available here in Paperback or click the image for the Kindle version.