Early on Checkpoint Church was faced with the challenging question: how do we practice generosity in this space? When we are in the traditional church context, it's fairly straightforward. Pass around an offering plate for financial givers. Offer up time and space for mission events for physical and time-based givers. Offer up classes and small groups for leadership-based givers. With Checkpoint, none of that existed at that time. Not to mention that introducing any of those things wouldn't feel authentic to the community we're forging.
So, we decided to try something that is common in the gaming space: a charity stream. We launched our first ever Check-A-Thon and planned for an 8-hour stream devoted to raising funds on Tiltify for AbleGamers and the rest is history. We reached our goal and had a blast doing it. And we're going to keep doing it.
On April 8th we will be doing our FOURTH charity stream. Given that these events are quarterly, this means that we will have officially practiced the extravagant generosity of the charity stream for a full year. We have already raised over $4000 dollars for charity and will be adding upon that in our final Check-A-Thon with a goal of an even $1000 to make it a total of $5000 raised over the course of a year. Whether we reach our goal or not - this is exceptional. I can't express how proud I am of this community for it's honoring of this practice in our first year of trying to figure out the best way to be generous.
Perhaps it's the incentivization that keeps people supporting these kinds of events - but I'm not so sure. Hearing my bad celeb impressions or pages from my book is fun, however I think something different is going on here. Fun aside - we are striving to do good, to do no harm, and to grow in this space. Whenever we gather together and raise money as a community for a cause that matters, it means something to who is there. We are a part of something greater than ourselves and it inspires something in us. Maybe it's just me - but I'm honored to be generous alongside all of you. We are better together.