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10
reasons why your church sucks:
#9. It’s all
about money.
by
john o'keefe
At some level the idea that “your church sucks because it
centers on money” is a no brainier, right?
Well, think of it this way, how many
of you are reading this with the idea that
you are going to “prove me wrong?”
How many of you are reading this with
the idea that at some level the church needs
money to do what it needs to do?
We need to know that the church is
not a business; it’s not a business, at
any level.
It cannot be seen as a business,
operated as a business or understood as a
business, because it was never intended to
be a business.
It is when we think of church as a
business we start thinking that money has a
higher place and value in the church.
I remember once speaking with a group
of Elders of a local Baptist Church (keep in
mind, this is a Baptist church that belonged
to the Southern Baptist Convention, where
they declared that all churches must not
accept monies in there plate from gaming
operations – exempting Las Vegas from that
ruling because 90% of the plate in a Vegas
church is gaming related); we were
discussing the idea of tithing.
I mentioned that I did not believe
that tithing was a New Testament teaching;
well you would have though I was one who
suggested that Jesus be crucified.
I was informed, in no uncertain
terms, that the church needed the money to
do ministry – when I informed the
gathering that the church did not need money
to do ministry, all it needed was people –
I was shunned; and not in a figurative way.
Problems:
The idea that the church cannot do what it does without
money is just not the case, and is so beyond
my thought.
I believe, in reality, the church may
be able to do so much more without money,
because it is not limited by the politics of
the offering and all that money brings with
it. Too
many churches base a great deal on who puts
what in the plate.
I remember when I was serving in one
of my first churches as an Associate Pastor.
At one of the “business” meetings
I was informed that a certain request I was
making for funding of a program would not be
approved – even before the meeting took
place – the reason?
One of the largest contributors to
the church did not think the program would
be a good idea, so she told others,
“my money will not be used to fund
such craziness.”
So the elders felt that it was in the
best interest of the church not to offend
her, because she could take her money and
leave the church.
Too many churches base how they treat others, and how they
do ministry, on what people give – I have
heard many a minister say they would not be
willing to do certain things for certain
people because they “did not tithe” to
the church.
Money has become the “control” to
ministry and the church.
Let’s be honest, we raise money for
a few reasons.
First, to pay a salary; whether there
is one paid pastor of fifty paid pastors 80%
of what is colleted is used to pay them,
support them and give them benefits.
Second, building, 15% of all the
church raises goes to pay for the building
(and in some cases, much more).
I know of a church in Northern New
Jersey that has millions in a special fund
to maintain the building.
This same church refused to give
$500.00 to the children’s ministry to buy
vacation bible supplies to outreach to the
children – reason?
The money was for the building and
nothing more.
Salaries:
I am not speaking against a paid staff; heck I am a “paid
staff.”
What I am saying is, we tend to pay
for things volunteers can do – we remove
people from the joy of ministry because we
want to pay someone to do the job.
Too many churches have a “pastor”
for everything they can think of – and
what we should be doing is developing
volunteers to be serving in ministry – I
think many “senior pastors” do this
because it makes them look important – the
more people they manage the better it looks
for them as a “leader.”
After all, if you look at all the
books on “church leadership” they are
more concerned with how they supervise then
how they help develop people on a spiritual
level.
Building over people:
I like to think of this as the “phallic symbol” of
church leaders – the building; “mine is
bigger then yours.” I know of a church in Las Vegas that has a plan to build a 60
million dollar church complex on some 40
archers of land – think about that – 60
million dollars – let’s put that in
context:
60 million dollars will feed 400,000 families of four for
one week; 7,700 families of four for a year
(just a little over the average attendance
of the Las Vegas church) It can buy a home
for 480 families; if laid end to end it can
cover the length of about 66,7000 football
fields; it would take 1,200 people making
50,000 a year and saving every dime to equal
60 million; you could buy 17,143,000 fraps (venti)
at Starbucks – or you could buy 47,000
people a frap every day for one year; you
could buy 44,444,450 lemon scones at
Starbucks – or you could buy 121,800
people a lemon scone a day for a whole year.
I know it sounds silly, but how many
actually think that a 60 million dollar
church needs to be built?
Bad biblical teachings
To me, it all stems from some twisted biblical teaching of
“the tithe.”
The idea of “tithing” is at best,
confusing and at worse taken out of context. I might be slicing my own thought with this idea, but hey –
I believe this idea is scriptural and I will
stand on that.
In Leviticus, the idea that we are to tithe is not what we
think of today.
Today, we teach that people are to
tithe (10%) of their gross income to the
church – for many fundamentalist churches
any less is a sin.
But that is not what “the law”
teaches.
In the law it teaches that we are to
tithe (and the meaning of that word is up
for debate also) on our “increase” and
not on the total – meaning?
If you got a raise you tithed on the
raise part only – the increase – but
that includes the increase in stocks, bonds,
house, land, income and all – granted, the
church would never teach that because it
would mean a much smaller piece of the
“pie.”
What should we do?
The idea that the church “needs” money to do what it
does is so wrong – it needs people.
Money is not needed at all, at any
level.
To teach that it does removes the
power of God in the life of the church.
We should never seek to “raise”
money or “take an offering” because
nothing we take impressed God
– God does not care at all how much
we collect.
God is not standing in the background
waiting for his cut.
What we are to learn from scripture
is that God loves a cheerful giver, and
giving via the law is not cheerful.
We should give from the heart and not
from the law – we should give, as we
believe God is leading and not as some
“leaders” think we should. Churches that concern themselves with money are centering on
the wrong thing.
We do not need money to be in
ministry, we need the heart of Christ in His
people – and then we can move mountains.
the
other "10
reasons why your church sucks"
articles
1.
It does not understand the community at large
2.
It has poor leadership
3.
It has no solid vision
4.
It is graying, quickly
5.
It’s inbred
6.
It’s concerned with look and not action
7.
It’s comfortable in its misery, and is looking for
company
8.
It’s out of touch
9.
It’s all about money
10.
It’s all politics
we,
are in the process of developing a bible study based on the 10 reasons -
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