My wife and I have been members of our church for gosh about 10 years now I guess. We joined the year after we got married. About 2 years ago our church moved into a brand new building right around Easter as a matter of fact I think Easter weekend two years ago was when it officially opened.
Here is what is a little wierd. We have been getting pushed HARD to give more money to the church. Neither me nor my wife remember being constantly pushed like this. We get stuff in the mail now. We get reminders in our emailed church newsletter and a good 10 minutes of todays introductions was committed to giving more money. It just seems that has been going on since at least the first of December. I love to go to church in December. It's my favorite time. The church is decorated beautifully and the music is lovely. But all four Sunday's in December we were pushed to give, give, give so that the church could cover their 2007 budget. They made up a 225,000 deficit in 3 weeks. There are some wealthy church members who have donated over a million dollars a couple times a year. The church membership is somewhere close to 10,000 people. They just put in an extension to the parking lot for 750,000 that was paid for before a truck showed up on the job.
I know the church uses a lot of this money for the many wonderful projects they have going on all over the city, state, country and world. I get it and I want to help.
Now I can't afford the 10% policy but my wife does write a check to the church every month that averages between 50 and 100 dollars each month. Plus we put an "extra" bit of love in the basket each week.
I don't know what it is. Does the church have their finger in too many pies? Do we need to concentrate on getting the new building the way you want it and then expand our ministries or are we in a TON of ministries and trying to expand the church at the same time?
Not sure what is going on but the give give give messages need to slow down.
3 comments:
We once were members of a church down in Houston that was a lot like this. Then, we got a new pastor. The first thing he did was "pay off the building", then "work in our own backyard" (neighborhood evangelism), then "work in our piece of the city", and so forth until they once again support major missions outside the country.
I think a lot of times that the Church seems to forget that it's not about money ... it's about lives ... it's about people.
I love our church. They are awesome. I don't think they have lost their vision it's just that it seems to me a bit pushy. It worse for me than my wife....she does not notice it as much.
Mabye growing numbers and not growing people spiritually. Our church in Stonebridge was under budget and had a big push too. People were actually writing checks for specific bills that were overdue.
Thing is, if everyone was giving even 5% the church would be way OVER budget. We're not quite to 10%, but we're growing in the giving department. We're maybe 10%of ONE of our incomes.
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