March 05, 2008
Your Treasure at Work
The church kitchen has needed refurbishing for years and it looks like it’s finally going to be a reality. A note in the recent newsletter says, “The elders have set up a designated fund for the kitchen remodel. If you would like to donate to this fund, make your check to XYZ Church and put kitchen fund on the memo line.” Sounds like a worthy cause…unless you know that the leaders have an enormous stockpile of funds for other dreams and visions. Since members get only limited accounting reports - what comes in, what is budgeted, what is spent - most of us are not privy to where the church stands financially. However, well over a year ago we had more than a quarter of a million dollars in a California lending institution earning interest…unsecured no less. I’m no accountant, but it just seems to me that if we can afford to store up treasures on earth we certainly should be able to do a kitchen remodel without having to ask members to contribute to a designated fund.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Yah. I know. I was treasurer at XYZ Church only two years ago. I knew how much these church leaders had buried in the field. I also knew how little they were telling the congregation. Your blog is right on the money.
-----But to the credit of your leaders, the unsecured, uninsured investment they have made with this money is in the building of Christian facilities around the country. I thought that was laudable. So when I say, “…buried in the field…” I am being tongue in cheek about what their decision looks like on the surface. Additional facts show it is really buried in the Lord’s work.
-----That was not the problem from my perspective. What I was uncomfortable with was the suffocating silence about the matter itself. I was at a finance committee meeting with one of the elders before I was booted from the church for disclosing the truth about this, among other issues. Of course, the issue of the unsecured position in a $275,000 investment came up, again. At an appropriate time, I seized the floor and stated, “As far as I am concerned, I am not that worried about the investment being totally unsecured and uninsured. If the Christian lending institution bellies up and we loose our money, then we must be prepared in our hearts, from right now forward, to consider the non-return of all lost funds as a contribution to the Lord’s work, rather than a loss. To be honest, then, we must also communicate that to the congregation, clearly. If we are not willing to do all of that, then we must withdraw the investment.”
-----I remain booted, the money remains invested, unsecured, uninsured, and the congregation remains uninformed. It is a good thing I am not the Lord, because each XYZ Church leader would be writing out Eph 4:15 on a chalk board during worship services a thousand times for as many weeks as it would take.
Then again, if I were Lord mercy would be in short supply.
Love one another passionately from the heart (I or II Peter or so)
Steve Corey
Post a Comment