Last year I attended a church "mortgage burning" event. It was a big deal...people who were charter members were there, former pastors, conference officials, etc. The current pastor had a few words to say about how they had gotten to that point; how there had been some serious sacrificial giving along the way in order to retire the debt on the building. Some very good points were made...but...
As with most churches (not all, but most) this is a building that is used approximately 10 hours a week. Wednesday nights for a few hours and on the weekend for classes and worship service. Maybe more if there is a special event going on. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, millions of dollars, for a meeting place that is not utilized to it's fullest potential...this is a waste and very poor stewardship of monetary blessings.
I think about times when I was growing up that my family experienced some hard times financially...the church was strangely absent in our time of need. But when there was a new building program,everyone (including those who had very little) was encouraged to give "sacrificially" under the guise that it was for "God's glory" that we get a new kitchen or new classrooms. I think about times that people have gone hungry under the shadow of a church steeple or grown cold because they couldn't pay their electric bill, while the church down the street had the heat on while there was no one on the premises. "Sacrificial giving" to add on to a church, or increase the space it occupies.(?)
If the church boards were honest with themselves, they would ask the question, "If this church burned to the ground today, would the surrounding community miss it?" Obviously there would be a physical void, but what about a spiritual void or community void? "Sacrificial giving" to what end? Building up a church facility just so we can say, when asked, "Where do you go to church?"..."Oh,I go to that BIG church up on the hill." This is not giving God glory...just a black eye.
Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel, said, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world is...Christians; who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." "Denying Him by our lifestyle" is far more than engaging in lying, stealing, using pornography or other of the more "obvious" sinful behaviors; to misuse or mishandle the monetary blessings He has provided is just as egregious in His eyes...possibly even more so. Sacrificial giving is only sacrificial if it is what God asks for, not what we think He's asking for.
Think about it.
10/24/10
10/15/10
JESUS & MODERN CHRISTIANITY: Is there a difference?
I have a couple of friends who have left the church of their upbringing, and to all appearances, God as well. I guess I technically haven't "left" the denomination of my upbringing, even though I don't adhere to some teachings like I once did. With that being said, I may leave a denomination...I may no longer label myself by a particular "brand"...but I will never throw out the Baby (Jesus) with the bath water.
I wonder what makes people not only leave Jesus behind, but even become antagonistic towards Him. I understand that some have been hurt, disappointed or disillusioned with Christianity as a result of someone being a butt-head or something even worse. I am by no means defending anyone or any action that has caused pain...enough pain to make a person walk away from Christ. But I am here to remind you that Jesus is not the same as Christianity...sad but true.
A movement started 2,000 years ago by a Man who literally epitomized love, compassion, forgiveness and freedom has been maligned by His own people by their actions over the past 1,800 years. Within 200+ years after He left, His followers have been devoted to the Church rather than to the Lord of the Church. Everything terrible that can be attributed to Christians throughout history can also be disputed simply by looking at the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and His words when He said, "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' are mine."
I would love nothing more than for everyone, those who believe in Him as well as those who do not, to be able to take their blinders off and see the Jesus that I see. Unvarnished, pure, no pretenses...just Jesus. No forcing, no guilting, no reciting vows other than confessing Him as Lord & God and sharing your knowledge of Him with others. Knowing Him is so simple...but we've complicated the heck out of it!
I think about my bride, Beth. I fell in love with her immediately. I am more in love with her now than yesterday and will only love her more tomorrow. Having gotten to know her better over the 20 years we've known each other, having been married 19 of them, I can't help but love her...and I know she loves me more than anyone else, except Jesus, which I would have no other way. That is the way it can be with Jesus...the more you get to know Him, you can't walk away from Him. My point is, if you have walked away from church, that's fine...but do not make the mistake of walking away from Jesus, too. If you have, then the church you walked away from never showed Him to you in the first place...not really.
Find Him for yourself - and if you need help, let me know...maybe I can help.
I wonder what makes people not only leave Jesus behind, but even become antagonistic towards Him. I understand that some have been hurt, disappointed or disillusioned with Christianity as a result of someone being a butt-head or something even worse. I am by no means defending anyone or any action that has caused pain...enough pain to make a person walk away from Christ. But I am here to remind you that Jesus is not the same as Christianity...sad but true.
A movement started 2,000 years ago by a Man who literally epitomized love, compassion, forgiveness and freedom has been maligned by His own people by their actions over the past 1,800 years. Within 200+ years after He left, His followers have been devoted to the Church rather than to the Lord of the Church. Everything terrible that can be attributed to Christians throughout history can also be disputed simply by looking at the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and His words when He said, "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' are mine."
I would love nothing more than for everyone, those who believe in Him as well as those who do not, to be able to take their blinders off and see the Jesus that I see. Unvarnished, pure, no pretenses...just Jesus. No forcing, no guilting, no reciting vows other than confessing Him as Lord & God and sharing your knowledge of Him with others. Knowing Him is so simple...but we've complicated the heck out of it!
I think about my bride, Beth. I fell in love with her immediately. I am more in love with her now than yesterday and will only love her more tomorrow. Having gotten to know her better over the 20 years we've known each other, having been married 19 of them, I can't help but love her...and I know she loves me more than anyone else, except Jesus, which I would have no other way. That is the way it can be with Jesus...the more you get to know Him, you can't walk away from Him. My point is, if you have walked away from church, that's fine...but do not make the mistake of walking away from Jesus, too. If you have, then the church you walked away from never showed Him to you in the first place...not really.
Find Him for yourself - and if you need help, let me know...maybe I can help.
10/4/10
The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns
On Sunday mornings when I was a kid, my mom would make breakfast and I would plunk down in front of the TV to watch The Three Stooges...but some mornings they would be preempted by some sort of special program, what we now call infomercials.
I remember in particular when the TV station would air the ones about starving children all over the world. I hated those, because there I was, a kid myself, eating a plateful of food while looking at another kid with a bloated belly somewhere in the world, eating cornmeal mush with his or her fingers, with flies landing on them. I would then start to feel two conflicting feelings: anger and nausea. Anger that my morning ritual was being disrupted; anger that these other kids should be able to eat what I was eating. Nausea because I couldn’t look at the hollow eyes of these kids without feeling sick; nausea because I felt guilty for knowing I would scrape scraps off my plate that these children would love to have.
When I requested The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, I knew I would get some “behind the scenes” info on World Vision, the world help organization of which he is the president...I didn’t realize I would be convicted to my core of just how little Western Christianity seems to care. Oh, our churches will have food drives to make baskets during Thanksgiving & Christmas; we’ll even have a weekend of “awareness” where our youth groups will “camp out” in cardboard boxes to see “what it’s like” to be homeless. But when many larger churches will spend tens of millions of dollars on an addition to their physical facility, while donating only a couple of thousand dollars to the effort to relieve suffering from many factors in another country...need I say more?
This book is incredible in its scope - Rich Stearns will, on one hand, give us statistics that will astound us, and then on the other hand, tell us a story that should move us to action. In particular, he points out that the citizens of the 10 wealthiest countries are 75 times richer than the citizens of the 10 poorest countries. In 1820, that disparity was 4 times richer rather than 75 times richer.
Also, he tells of how he, after only 6 months at the helm of World Vision, went to the village of Rakai in Uganda and met 3 brothers, the oldest being named Richard. They has lost both parents to AIDS, and their graves were literally right outside the hut the boys lived in.
Rich goes on to tell his story of how he left being CEO of very prestigious company to take the wheel of World Vision; he tells of the pain of his selfishness of NOT wanting to do it, but came to the conclusion that God was calling him to do it. He gives us ample information to be able to do something; to get involved...in something. I have a feeling that Rich would want us to help ANY organization, not just his own, in an effort to fill the Hole on Our Gospel, the hole being that the Gospel is less about us being comfortable in our pews every weekend for a couple of hours, and more about alleviating the hunger pangs of people who are in need...who are in need for no other reason than they were born in a poverty stricken country.
So, read this book...underline in it, make notes, read it and do something. For God’s glory and the sake of people in need, do something.
I am a member of the Nelson Book Review Blogger program.
I remember in particular when the TV station would air the ones about starving children all over the world. I hated those, because there I was, a kid myself, eating a plateful of food while looking at another kid with a bloated belly somewhere in the world, eating cornmeal mush with his or her fingers, with flies landing on them. I would then start to feel two conflicting feelings: anger and nausea. Anger that my morning ritual was being disrupted; anger that these other kids should be able to eat what I was eating. Nausea because I couldn’t look at the hollow eyes of these kids without feeling sick; nausea because I felt guilty for knowing I would scrape scraps off my plate that these children would love to have.
When I requested The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, I knew I would get some “behind the scenes” info on World Vision, the world help organization of which he is the president...I didn’t realize I would be convicted to my core of just how little Western Christianity seems to care. Oh, our churches will have food drives to make baskets during Thanksgiving & Christmas; we’ll even have a weekend of “awareness” where our youth groups will “camp out” in cardboard boxes to see “what it’s like” to be homeless. But when many larger churches will spend tens of millions of dollars on an addition to their physical facility, while donating only a couple of thousand dollars to the effort to relieve suffering from many factors in another country...need I say more?
This book is incredible in its scope - Rich Stearns will, on one hand, give us statistics that will astound us, and then on the other hand, tell us a story that should move us to action. In particular, he points out that the citizens of the 10 wealthiest countries are 75 times richer than the citizens of the 10 poorest countries. In 1820, that disparity was 4 times richer rather than 75 times richer.
Also, he tells of how he, after only 6 months at the helm of World Vision, went to the village of Rakai in Uganda and met 3 brothers, the oldest being named Richard. They has lost both parents to AIDS, and their graves were literally right outside the hut the boys lived in.
Rich goes on to tell his story of how he left being CEO of very prestigious company to take the wheel of World Vision; he tells of the pain of his selfishness of NOT wanting to do it, but came to the conclusion that God was calling him to do it. He gives us ample information to be able to do something; to get involved...in something. I have a feeling that Rich would want us to help ANY organization, not just his own, in an effort to fill the Hole on Our Gospel, the hole being that the Gospel is less about us being comfortable in our pews every weekend for a couple of hours, and more about alleviating the hunger pangs of people who are in need...who are in need for no other reason than they were born in a poverty stricken country.
So, read this book...underline in it, make notes, read it and do something. For God’s glory and the sake of people in need, do something.
I am a member of the Nelson Book Review Blogger program.
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