RE: [Blog] Thoughts from the Front Lines: The Business of Being Churched
The gift economy is better in my opinion than these top down type structures. Once you subscribed to a 50- anything, you're subscribing to a bunch of rules and regulations that if you want to keep operating "Freely" you must abide by. It's a shackle.
When do we get to the point where we can collectively do the right thing amongst each other, freely giving what we can to others (read, what we can, not everything all the time; take what you need, *pay the rest forward) and trust that the "spirit of the gift" ( See the book Sacred-Economy available for free on the internet) will come back around and get you again?
When you start trusting it and truly trusting it, it starts working. What's amazing about it? Most of it can't be taxed.
--That would be my favorite part about it.
This would be ideal, but I suspect it's not going to be until Jesus comes back that we will see anything like this. Human nature being what it is, I doubt we're going to see selflessness until we have a God's-commands-written-on-our-hearts situation being widespread. You need a widespread filling of God's spirit before you will see actions in keeping with God's ways.