October 20, 2010
Interest Income
I listened to a presentation from a community foundation which partners with nonprofit organizations to provide investment management services. For a percentage the foundation manages endowment funds. According to their media ad, “This allows the organization to focus on their mission while the endowed funds generate income to sustain their charitable purpose.” I understand how the partnership can work for some organizations, but I was taken back when the testimony and endorsement in the ad was from a local mainstream church. I had visions of the disciples taking up a collection for believers in Jerusalem and rather than sending the offering on to the saints, the church hung on to it to ‘generate income to sustain their charitable purpose.'
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Gail;
-----Church has become an independent and identifiable entity. People become members of it, some of whom become directors of it, and regardless of who comes into and leaves from its membership, it carries on towards its own purposes through specific programs. Then, because it must have assets committed to its purposes, the assets must be safeguarded, maintained, and utilized. Cash is an asset. Just as the local auto service center assists in the maintenance of the church buses, banks, investment houses, and this community foundation assist in the maintenance of cash.
-----I do not care for the degree that churches have become identifiable entities; I believe the Bible intimates the church is simply a body of believers. But even at that, there is some need for assets, because as a body of believers there are purposes and programs that, just by the nature of the matter, would emanate from the aspirations of the believers forming the body. Jesus and His apostles formed a body of such, and behold, there was cash in Judas’ care.
-----But how much cash pools up in the body varies according to the body’s objectives. The collection Paul took up was for the objective of distribution to ailing saints. In I Timothy he writes about elders who serve well being worthy of a double honor, that is, pay. This indicates a different objective. And since the middle of the second century there have been church buildings, literature (quite expensive in those days), and furnishings added as church assets in addition to contributions toward the saints, mission support, and double honors to the worthy elders. If a church believes its objectives require a substantial pool of assets, then a certain level of cash must be amongst them.
-----I think we may be saying the same thing, only I am stepping a bit further into the matter’s background in order to demonstrate that the problem of needing sophisticated services for cash management is not that cash management is an impropriety. Rather, the church in becoming an entity in and of itself has added a layer of objective for self maintenance upon the objectives the Bible lays out for it in directions given to its members.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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