Hello Musicmaster and Nazarene Servant;
After reading your opinions, I have to agree there are churches that operate according to what you present. There are also churches that don't operate according to what you present but I can assure all of us, they are faced with their own set of serious problems, and problems they bring upon themselves.
Unfortunately, there are ministers who have made some huge mistakes and exposed their broken sin.
I tell you the truth. If there is a church that claims they are the perfect role model church in Christ, they are not being truthful. Every church has its problems as you described and again, many of them have brought it upon themselves.
I'd like to share a positive testimony of God's work in His churches.
In our community I meet with 36 Pastors each month to discuss our church family testimonies, prayer requests and encouragement. Each month we give thanks to God for many who have come to Christ during the pandemic, received baptism, solemnized new marriages, reconciled marital problems, gang violence, broken families, substance dependency, reaching out to the poor, and more, have been our key topics.
The 501c3, IRS, building costs, political messages and push for offerings is on the bottom of our priorities, however, we have many other serious issues. This is the life of every church of God, no matter how much money is in their pocket, how organized, if the pews need new cushions or if the choir needs new robes.
In my own testimony our 501c3 has never been on top of our priorities. We have never dealt with them except when we submitted a statement of information. I have met face to face with the IRS and have told them, not asked them, that they are more than welcome to audit our books. What do we have to hide? To date, they have never audited our financials.
It's God's money. If we have a maintenance expense, we run it by the Board. We ask God what does He say about it. If the Board approves or not, I praise God for the good job they are doing for our church family. Getting back to the thread of Tithes vs Giving, my church family has always cheerfully given what they can. Since our church planted in 2011 our debt ratio has always been at 0% while we pass our offerings to our partners in 3rd world countries.
I praise God for my preaching classes when I was at seminary. I don't preach politics, we pray for the issues and our leaders. I only deliver what God puts on my lips to preach, and may share a small testimony that aligns with the message.
I do know people who don't go to church for the reasons you both expressed but I also know that God already knows this. If a minister has swayed, are we to kick them when they are broken and tell God what He doesn't already know?
I would encourage us all to be hopeful, pray and present our arguments to God. He can open the eyes and ears of His churches and servants, and turn them around for His glory. I believe.
Perhaps people's experience with or about the church doesn't give them an optimistic outlook for the future. I can assure you, the problems of the church will always be ongoing. But the turnaround solution will profoundly be God's.
God bless you, brothers MM, NS and your families.
Bob,
Thanks for sharing your testimony and heart in ministry. I always expect that some measure of what I say along this line will be construed as "church-bashing," and I understand why it seems that way, but the reality is far away in the other direction. To me, it's all about Christ, first and foremost, and then the people.
Now...
I'm not sure if it was in this thread, or in another one, where I mentioned a church organization here in this city that has two boxes out front...one for building and staff support and the other for the meeting of needs of the needy believers first, and then the local community. The facility and staff have never had any major short-falls, even though the giving to meet needs always received more of the giving. None of what I said was meant to convey the idea that the institutional model is without its usefulness in the hands of the Lord, and in its contributions to bringing people to Christ. I would never make such a claim.
That's remarkable. No, it's amazing considering that nationwide survey CT did back in the 90's. The attitudes reflected in how money is handled by the vast majority of church organizations is that facilities are a necessity rather than a luxury. That's placing the cart before the horse, therefore, when the facility consumes the largest portion of giving than what's left over for the meeting of needs. We only need to read the NT, and observe how
all that was given went for the meeting of needs of people and for the itinerant apostles, never for communal facilities. Paul was a Jew, Luke was Greek-born, but Luke was instrumental in Paul's endeavors and travels, and so it seems reasonable they both received at least some of their support from what was given, and they were certainly entitled to it as itinerant ministers and Church planters.
Bottom line is that, dare one apply a critical eye to the modern practices in relation to the NT model for money management, one will see that modern practices have historic roots going back to roman catholicism and its pagan practices and focus on facilities. The glaring inconsistencies in monetary handling becomes quite a contrast.
Some have feebly argued that it's no surprise to them that the early church could "afford" handing over all the giving to the meeting of needs since it was house-based. After all, they have said, communal facilities must have support for their "needs" if the people are to have a facility with the "necessary comforts" of heating and air conditioning, indoor plumbing for bathrooms rather than outhouses, etc., etc., etc.
Well, the thing is, all their claims for "needing" the comforts and the facility ignores the scriptures and the priorities therein. The modern model turns the Bible on its head (so to speak) when it comes to money management. The early Church grew in leaps and bounds without communal facilities. The local, non-itinerant elders of the early Church were not "professional staffing" as a perpetual burden upon those to whom they ministered. Those who spent all their time ministering to fellow believers, and especially those who were/are itinerant, are worthy of receiving from those to whom they minister. Christ made that clear when He sent out His disciples in pairs, and taking no extra shoes or tunics. But this is all elementary...and therefore non-issues.
My thrust is to get the focus upon attitudes; onto the organic mindset most professing believer have. The glaring ignorance of the scriptures is the prime reason most professing believers see no problem with having their priorities in giving totally backwards. This should never have happened as it is today if the masses of professing believers had set in motion the priorities of the scriptures. Things would be vastly different today.
But, hey, the Lord can use any thing and any one of His choosing to accomplish His ends. He does so...not
because of how we do things, but
in spite of them. Congregations look at their beautiful facilities and embrace the warm little fuzzy thoughts of, "Oh, what a beautiful building we have. The Lord must be blessing us...and is pleased with our church and our giving." It's never "giving" when the givers directly benefit from what they think is their "giving." If anyone can show me otherwise, I'd like to see it.
Where it's true lightning has not struck and burned down most communal facilities, it's sad that most people gauge God's pleasure or displeasure by such happenings in nature. Scripture is not at all the standard by which most calculate the right and the wrong of what they do. After all, support of a dead building with the largest and primary portion of our giving is said by many a preacher to be akin to "Giving to God." Hmm. That one I never could get to fit the scriptures, but it's the common belief, and thus the paradigm that will not change; even after all the groupings with communal facilities are forced to change their message to one that's acceptable to the state.
Another focus of mine is to alert believers to the fact that the day is likely coming when they will have to cast aside their religious crutches and prepare to walk in the wilderness. Out here where we meet in homes, we all must learn to function as gathered believers rather than to hire it all out to professional staffing. Going underground may soon become the necessity.
I don't mean to sound harsh, but it will always come across that way to those who can't see the problems in how we function today; in how historic practices have established paradigms that have effectively blinded Bible scholars who write teaching content for our Bible Cemeteries and theological universities of higher learning. Some of those institutions are turning out virtual athiests, for crying out loud!
Anyway, you're right. None are perfect, but perfection is not what I'm driving at. That's a non-argument in relation to the thrust of my thesis. We so easily get comfortable with the paradigms that we never think to apply critical thinking to the status quo. Being lulled into such dull apologetics in support of common practices within institutionalism gives ample reason for people like me to look forward to the purification wave that's coming our way...
MM
