May 07, 2007
On the Back of the Missionary
Once upon a time there was a church that gave 50% of its tithes and offerings to missions. Each week members put gifts in offering envelopes, checking off the designation where they wanted the money directed. A new preacher was hired who wanted a larger and more modern looking building. According to one member, “There was a lot of ego in the mix - and it didn’t all belong to the preacher. When the building fund was added as a designation on the offering envelope, money shifted. It wasn’t long before missions dropped to a small fraction of what it had been. We got a new building, but I think it was built on the backs of our missionaries.” Interestingly, attendance has never grown in the new church building. I guess the old church was adequate after all.
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----I don’t know if your anecdote is historical or fictional, but its illustration is real. I would like to treat it as fictional to demonstrate a point about even some mission giving churches. Maybe the old church was not really adequate, although the building may have been. The New Testament is a book of relationships, principles, and attitudes encouraged for addition to the heart. It is about personal development and personal life with the Lord translated into personal actions and responsibilities towards others.
-----But in rendering the volume of the Word down into preach-able sound-bites, the one-on-one nature of life in the Lord vanishes into religious actions as thoroughly as the evil of sin vanished into the Medieval indulgences. The power of living the Christian principles within sight of the neighbor becomes replaced by the gift to the missionary. The exuding of joy in some despicable situation becomes replaced by offering to launder the choir robes. Bringing up the child in the way he should go (especially in constructing the godly, respectful, honoring, loving atmosphere at home) becomes replaced by teaching Sunday School.
-----The church is adequate when it has realized that it is a collection of individuals, just as the new life is adequate when it has realized that it is resulting in a collection of godly actions. And it is a collection of new lives that is the church. Occasionally I will look a brother in the eye and affirm that my mission-field is under my feet and my vision-of-service is the brother I am looking at. Maybe I am a bit overly existential in that way, but I think the collection of saints needs a very tangible connection to its community. And the individual always needs enough space to exercise the gift given him/her by the Spirit, whether that be giving to the mission fund, the building fund, meeting with the inner-city kids down the street, or whatever the Spirit stirs.
-----I think the adequacy of the church walks a tight-rope. That adequacy is lost when men seize control of the church and try to steer it to the left or to the right according to their own personal (albeit genuine) convictions in the Lord. As the new old saying goes: it is not about me -- even if “me” is the leader. An adequate church will be too well grounded in the Word and in the generous exercising of the gifts within its members to allow a “me” leader to steer it into irrelevance. I am not sure that the church of your anecdote was adequate before.
This is a true story Steve. You can’t make this stuff up.
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