Love

Your Church’s Budget–And Why It May Grieve the Lord

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Jesus or Money?I was thinking about how churches spend their money. Given all the verses in the Bible on finances and the sheer number of Christians who ascribe to Dave Ramsay’s philosophies, one would think we Christians in America would have this money thing down pat.

One would think.

But what would happen if we were to scrap the way we think about church budgets and adopt something more aligned to what the Bible says?

I could list a thousand verses on money in this post, but you already know them, right? We all know them. We just don’t adhere to them very well.

Here is what I’m thinking:

First, let’s take church staff salaries off the table for now. This is a baby-step process I’m advocating, and it’s no use angering anyone by suggesting we reevaluate staff costs now. Maybe when we’re more mature in the Lord. 😉

Take the church budget and set salaries aside. Now take all the money leftover and split it into two equal piles: Inreach and Outreach.

The Bible states that we must take care of the needs of the brethren. That’s our Inreach. In truth, staff salaries should be part of Inreach, but we’ve got them excluded for now. Inreach covers the church physical plant, programs, and benevolences given to church members who need financial assistance.

The Bible states that we then take care of those outside the church. That’s our Outreach. Missions, connecting with lost people, and benevolences for the needy outside the church community comprise Outreach.

And that’s your basic church budget. I think that’s a Kingdom-minded approach, don’t you?

Now how many churches out there work that way?

I would suggest that Inreach and staff salaries dominate most church budgets. But there is a HUGE “however”: Inreach as allocated in too many churches leaves almost no money for benevolences given to church members. In fact, benevolences monies, whether for Inreach or Outreach, are often the smallest pool of cash in the church budget.

So much for “Give and it shall be given to you.”

As much as we talk about being others-centric in the American Church, our church budgets don’t reflect this. We really are too self-centered. For many churches, the Great Commission is thwarted by building and physical plant maintenance costs. When a church allocates little money for outsiders, it grows into itself and withers.

If you are a church leader, consider a different way of budgeting that better reflects the Kingdom of God. If it means not erecting a $10 million building so you can use those funds to finance the education of single moms in your community instead, then cancel the groundbreaking ceremony. If it means a Sunday School teacher who has been out of work gets to keep his house because you set aside monies for this kind of help, then go for it.

We live in disconcerting times. If we don’t adjust the way the Church spends money, we won’t be the first choice when lost people come looking for answers. The Church will look like any other worldly, tightfisted corporate entity, and no one is running to Megabiz Inc. for salvation.

One Golden Rule for a Better World

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Love thy neighborBeen slammed lately with work, which is a good thing for the bank account but not for the blog. So I want to offer a simple thought for today.

Maybe I’m just getting old, but the angry young prophet part of me just doesn’t have the fight to be angry about everything anymore. I think it’s because I’ve tired of anger being the predominant emotion in America 2011.

As a Christian, my task in this life is to love other people, love God, and tell those people I’m supposed to love about the God I’m supposed to love. Seems pretty simple, actually.

But we make it all so complex. And in the midst of that complexity arises a bunch of misunderstandings, inevitable arguments, and way too much anger.

More and more, though, one simple truth from the lips of Jesus resonates with me. We are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Can we get our brains around that one and try it out for a few days?

What if you and I interacted with our fellow human beings in the way in which we would like to be treated? Wouldn’t that go a long way toward defusing the powderkeg of emotions so many people carry around with them daily?

Seriously, for all our talk of ministry, how often do we truly think about the condition of someone else’s life?

When I’m hacked off about the new gadget I purchased that broke after 15 minutes of use, am I thinking about the customer service rep on the other end of the phone? Do I ask myself what kind of day she has had, whether her marriage is happy and her kids are avoiding jail? Before I unload my ire on her because my doodad disintegrated, do I pause to think how that person, who may not know Jesus, would like to be treated by someone who does?

I’m convinced that most Christians never ask those questions. We do an atrocious job of imagining ourselves in the shoes of the person we’re abusing. In those moments, our self-centeredness becomes the defining characteristic of our lives and nothing of Jesus shines through.

No one is unredeemable until that last breath is drawn. For that reason, the Golden Rule must always apply whenever we deal with others.

No, this isn’t a heavy evangelism message. Still, it strikes me that the best way to find that opening to talk about Jesus is if we learn to treat other people with the same level of love and care we reserve for ourselves. If we put ourselves on the other side of the table. If we learn to think beyond ourselves.

Jesus did.

The Forgotten Prayer of Jesus

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One of the final prayers of Jesus before His crucifixion:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me….”
—John 17:20-23

Gordian KnotThese are the words of God Himself in the Flesh, Jesus Christ, and yet that prayer carries a bitter irony: We Christians are far from one. If our oneness is to be the very representation of the Trinity’s own oneness, how then is it possible for us to be so fragmented and hostile to those people who share and affirm our belief that Jesus Christ came in the flesh?

It makes me wonder how much better would be the state of Christendom today around the world if we spent more time in genial, wise conversation with those who disagree with our particular interpretation of doctrine or biblical interpretation. Instead, we go to great lengths to prove our “foes” wrong and believe ourselves the best people to deliver that correction.

What does it mean to work toward ensuring that Jesus’ prayer of perfect oneness matters in how we conduct ourselves with brothers and sisters who disagree with us?

Take one position that divides Christians across the country. It may not seem like a make or break doctrinal stance, but I’ve witnessed the most terrible things done in the name of this disagreement: the consumption of alcohol by Christians.

For some Christians, anyone who drinks alcohol might as well be the devil’s own spawn, Christian or not. That said, I drink alcohol. I have a glass of wine with meals now and then. Sometimes I might have a beer.

The Bible says this about wine:

You [God] cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
—Psalms 104:14-15

And with all due respect to those who would like to see Prohibition return, grape juice doesn’t have the same ability to gladden the heart of man as a good glass or two of a fine Pinot Noir. Let’s get real here.

That said, I perfectly understand those who shun alcohol, especially when they’ve had a bad past with it. Alcohol killed my own father. I fully support anyone’s decision not to drink wine, beer, or spirits.

Yet how these two sides can tear into each other! Especially when a glass of wine with dinner somehow gets conflated with “do not get drunk with wine.”

And should I go into the battle over the continuance/cessation of the charismata? Or of credo- vs. paedobaptism? Can we talk about eschatology? Don’t our positions on those doctrines make an enormous difference in the fundamental ways in which we believe and how we practice the Faith?

Can we disagree and still be one? Or will the group in power run roughshod over the other?

How many issues have we made divisive in the Body of Christ? And what about Jesus’ oneness prayer?

So alcoholic drink consumption, despite the fact it can be used as club in some Christian circles, isn’t a major doctrinal issue for many. Or any of those others I mentioned. OK, what else then?

My post “Better Than a Beating” discusses how to handle someone who is 90 percent accurate, but not 100. Fact is, each of us has been at 90—or even less. In fact, some of us may just now be reaching that 90 percent stage. Growth means leaving behind what we were and becoming more like Christ is. That’s a continual refinement that won’t be complete until we draw our final breath. Agreed?

So what about the worst of the worst Scripture manglers out there? Well, even they have common ground with us if they conform to the following biblical test:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
—1 John 4:1-3

Do we know anyone who believes and confesses that Jesus Christ came in the flesh and yet he or she still professes some wonky theology?

If we do, then our role is to go to that person and try to win them to a more fully developed and Scriptural theology. Isn’t that what Christ would do? The Bible seems to say that it is:

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
—Matthew 12:18-21

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
—Luke 15:4-7

The Bible adds this:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
—2 Peter 3:9

If the Scriptures says that Christ is gentle with the bruised reed and the faintly glowing wick, if He is willing to leave the many to rescue the one that wandered away, if He is patient with us and with our progress toward Him, how is it that we so rarely exhibit those same traits toward others, especially perceived theological foes?

One final statement concerning the Scriptures just noted—please read this again:

“…a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory….”

That final phrase should warn us that the patience will some day turn into judgment for those who will not acknowledge the full truth of Jesus Christ. One day, there will no longer be any excuses, and those who dragged their heels will have no recourse.

But that day is not yet come. Until then, we are to work at being one. And it is work. No one said restoring people with flawed personal beliefs and practices would be easy. Too many of us, particularly those best equipped to handle truth correctly, often consign the flawed thinker to perdition ahead of Christ’s own, final pronouncement.

Do we believe that any one living, breathing person is beyond redemption? If so, then we have nullified the blood of Christ. If Christ has had mercy on you and me, how then can we fail to show mercy to others, even those who some would say are our enemies because their beliefs are not yet fully conformed to truth?

All God can ask of you and me is that we do not give up on those who are lurking at the fringes, no matter how great or small they might be. Justice is His alone and He will execute it at the right time. Until then, the prayer of Jesus for oneness should ever be before us. Because when we are one, the world can see His glory.