And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Corinthians 8:1
“Another study looked at how generosity can be propagated through a workplace. This study of Coca-Cola employees in Spain assigned some employees to be givers who selected five acts of kindness (such as bringing someone a drink or emailing a thank you note) for a receiver they selected from a subset of their coworkers.
Meanwhile, other employees were designated observers who neither gave nor received the acts of kindness. Social network analysis showed that closer social proximity to givers was associated with a boost in observers’ well-being, while closer social proximity to receivers had a nonsignificant trend toward decreased well-being.
Importantly, social proximity to both givers and receivers predicted increased prosocial acts among observers, suggesting that acts of kindness can spread across the social networks within a workplace and increase employee well-being.”
Summer Allen in “The Science of Generosity” White Paper produced by the Greater Good Science Center.
Our time wrapped up program work beyond all expectations in Costa Rica. Reply if you want a copy of the trip report. We are safely in Bogotá, Colombia. Appreciate your prayers for a great onsite teaching event today.
As I continued reading the international research on generosity, these comments about the impact of “closer social proximity” surfaced as significant and led me back to this famous text of Paul regarding giving.
If we ask ourselves why he might use the example of the Macedonians in encouraging Corinthian giving, this research might hold the answer. Paul started his collection work in Galatia, moved to Ephesus and now mentions Macedonians.
A simple look at a map shows that he’s moving geographically closer. I never noticed this before. He likely used the Macedonians as examples as they were neighbors to Greeks compared to Ephesus or the region of Galatia.
So, when to help people grow in the grace of giving, we should tell stories of those they know or people close to them. The closer they are in social proximity to the givers, the more likely to respond with generous acts.