TILL HE COMES Blog

When it comes to ministry, most churches don’t think past their parking lot.

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As I drive around Dallas for my carpet-cleaning job, I can’t help but notice how much land is tied up in church real-estate. I drove by one mega church today that must have had 50-40 acres in land, and a good 20 of it was nothing but grass. Think of the tax revenue the city is losing! But I’ve written on that before.

With just a tiny bit of creative thinking, churches could be redeeming their land and buildings in ways that would truly benefit the community. Take the Episcopal Church of Our Savior in Pleasant Grove, Texas as an example. It’s a church of only 30 people, but they recently divided their four acres of land into garden plots, and rented them out to area residents for $30 a month and an agreement to donate 10% of their produce to a local charity.

Since 2003, they have donated 18,000 pounds of produce to area food pantries.

So what are you growing on your church property? Who uses your church building Monday-Saturday? Can you think of any better uses for both?

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We’ve all heard of Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church which I hear averages over 30,000 people on a weekend. I think this is the largest church in the United States. His sermons are on television and his book, Your Best Life Now has sold 3 million copies.

But Joel does not have the largest church in the world. Most give this “honor” to David Cho and his Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul Korea with about 830,000 members.

Of course, when it comes to buildings, nobody can top the most expensive church, The Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). It cost $300 million to build. It also is recognized as being the largest by floor area (30,000 sq. meters!). I hear that it has it’s own airport. Top that one Joel!

But has anybody heard about “Uncle L”? He has no formal seminary education and no advanced degrees. You won’t find his sermons online, on the radio. or on television. He hasn’t written any books. He doesn’t have a website, or even a blog. He didn’t raise funds to help plant his church, in fact, his church doesn’t even have a central building. There isn’t even a church budget. He doesn’t have dozens of staff members. He is is not a “Type A” personality, with great leadership abilitites. He would fail most “church planter assessments.” No big deal, right? That’s true of a lot of pastors around the world.

True, but Uncle L is the “lead pastor” of a church of 3 million people. Yes, 3,000,000. (See Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, p. 150).

Uncle L is a soft-spoken, unassuming, older man, who has been to prison several times, and is quietly leading the greatest movement of Christians the world has ever seen.

So why haven’t you heard about him? He’s a church planter in China, and is only one of scores upon scores of such “successful” planters in that country. If they could read our “church planting books” and attend our “church planting conferences” and see that most of our planters want to spend several million dollars to have a church of 10,000, they would probably be amazed at how low we’ve set our sights, and how little we accomplish with so many resources and such amazing structures.

Maybe our resources and structures are part of the problem.

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There are only three ways you can spend money. You can spend money on mission, on life, and on yourself. Churches only have two. The trick is determining which is which.

Spending money on mission is spending money that accomplishes our God-given mission on earth. Ultimately, our mission is to make disciples (Matt 28:19-20) which includes everything from serving unbelievers so they are drawn to Christ and saving Christians so they become more like Christ. It involves both developing relationships with unbelievers, and maintaining relationships with believers.

In your life, this may take the form of having families over for dinner, helping out financially with your neighbor’s medical bills, adopting children, buying and reading books that help you understand Scripture or culture, supporting evangelistic ministries, or sending money to support well drillers in Africa. Churches can do these things as well. But a church might also spend money on programs, buildings, or Audio-Visual equiment if it will help them accomplish their mission better.

The second way to spend money is on life. One of the reasons God has given us life is simply to enjoy life. This is our “secondary” mission. The book of Ecclesiastes shows this. Life is a blessing from God and is to be enjoyed and lived to the full. If this means going on vacations with your family, and buying a coffee at Starbucks, and going to see 3:10 to Yuma, then enjoy! I am not sure that churches can spend their money this way, since when a church spends money on “life” they are spending it on “church life” which is actually discipleship. If a church buys and runs a coffee shop, the purpose might be that they can develop relationships with the community, and have a place for small groups. This is mission. So a church doesn’t really have this category.

The third category we can spend money on is self. This is the tricky one, becuase if we are not careful, we can think that we are spending money on mission or life, when in reality, we are spending it selfishly on ourselves. Some people’s houses, for example, are not really for “mission” (despite the good intentions to have people over), and are way too big and expensive for life (Does someone really need 5000 sq. ft. and marble counters to have a safe and enjoyable home for your kids?). It’s the same with cars. Is a Hummer really what is needed to help cart the neighbor kids to soccer practice, or would a caravan do fine? I’m not judging anybody who has these things…maybe they really do need them for their mission to reach out to the “upper crust” but if so, my question is “How’s that mission going?”

It’s the same for churches. Do we really need a $30 million building that sits empty most of the week? If the culture you are in won’t listen to you unless you have the giant building, then maybe it is money well spent. But on the other hand, maybe big buildings and expensive programs and high-power technology are the result of other motives. I’m not saying that buildings and high tech sound systmes are sinful. It may be just as sinful to not have such things, if our mission demands it. Buildings or a lack of buildings must help us accomplish our mission.

Of course, we must watch out for self-deception. Benny Hinn spends $112,000 per month on a personal jet, owns a $10 million, 7,000 sqft. home, and when traveling, gets hotel rooms for $10,800 per night. Why? Hinn said something to the effect that ministry is stressful, and such things help him accomplish his mission more effectively. Even Hinn is convinced that he needs to spend money on these things so he can accomplish what God has called him to do.

Every person and every church needs to take a long, hard look at how they spend money, and ask themselves: Is this for mission, for life, or for self? Anything that is for self could be used better elsewhere.

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In a previous post, I presented a theoretical plan for solving the world’s water crisis. Todd Phillips said that $10 billion could solve the world’s water crisis. I proposed a way for churches to come up with that money by “taxing” themselves 1/3 of what their property taxes would be if they were paying property taxes. We could get the $10 Billion in one year.

Now, Todd Rhoades, over at Monday Morning Insight has got me thinking about another way churches can do this. He writes that according to a recent study, churches in America spent $8.1 Billion on sound and video equipment last year.

So we can either give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name to every thirsty person on planet earth, or we can have state-of-the-art sound and video projection equipment in our chuches. It’s an easy choice. After all, to really be in touch with Jesus, we’ve got to “feel” the music and have our eyes massaged by the swirling lights on the screen.

Of course, I’m in the same sinking ship, but on a smaller scale. I bought an mp3 player (a cheapo $30 job) last month, and purchased a few songs off iTunes. Jesus might be asking what I did with the $40 He gave me, but if He is, I can’t hear Him, becuase somehow, I got water in my ears.

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I’ve been mulling this idea around in my head for a long time (six years or so), and finally found someone who is doing it!  Check out the video at this link:

 Church in a Bar

See my previous posts about this idea:

Dirtbags in Montana

St. Pete’s Church, Bar and Grill

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One of the blogs I read daily is The Ongoing Adventures of the ASBO Jesus. The author is a pastor in the UK who writes a comic strip about Jesus, Christianity, and the church. Most often, I find his strips spot on.  The one below is true on multiple levels.

This is true first of all as he has shown it. The “church” has made so many additions to what the church is supposed to be and do, that we barely represent the church any more. We need to strip all this away, and get back to being and doing what Jesus intended.

But also, this strip could be true of the offer of eternal life, how to be a follower of Jesus, and just life in general. Simple is always best.

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