David Mays, November 2003
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I’m in an eleven year-old church of 600 people, mostly in
their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. Our
church is known for hosting concerts and athletic programs designed to bring
the community to the church. Our
church gives 10% of its fundraising campaign and 2% of its general income to
missions. Three conversations last week suggested to me that mission
organizations should not expect a dramatic increase in giving from our church
in the near term. Similar
conversations might be overheard in other churches. Monday: “In 10 minutes I could
write out a list of about two million dollars of electronic equipment we
could use.” A technical services
volunteer. Friday: “We have two PowerPoint
projectors working in sync. Each has
two bulbs. The bulbs cost $1700
each. If one of those bulbs blows,
you gotta’ replace it.” Our worship
pastor. Saturday: “The plan calls for me
to supervise people doing the maintenance. But with our austerity tight budget, I end up doing most of it
myself.” Our custodian. One author says that the church is an organism that
produces more resources than it consumes, thus providing resources for
ministry outside itself. But
increasingly, churches are consuming almost all the resources they can
obtain. Why is this so? By and large this generation has not had to wait for
anything. If they needed something
they got it. If it needed repaired it
was repaired or replaced. Quality is
a high value. Church, representing
God, should definitely be high quality.
And since we are trying to attract unchurched people who are turned
off by shabbiness, the church must be even more high quality. Our church has high tech people who know how to purchase,
install, and use high tech equipment.
They recognize the value and the usefulness of it and feel constricted
and handicapped without it. In order
to produce high quality worship services and high quality concerts, the
equipment and facility must be first class. Our younger leaders, by and large, have not been raised on
a healthy diet of missions education.
The world is hopeless, far away, and out of our range of impact. There are many people in our community to
reach and it is our job to reach them.
And if we feel really ambitious, there are many needs in our city. Church leadership is increasingly being handed to this
generation. Many of our church people have been raised without a
healthy church background. Some spent
years in nominal churches before dropping out. Some were not raised in church. Most have learned how to handle money from the culture and the
media. Success is indicated by
material possessions. They purchase
what they feel they need, if they can afford it. Giving to charitable causes is good, but systematic or
sacrificial giving may not be the norm.
Perhaps many look at how the church uses its money and
wonder if they couldn’t use it themselves to better advantage. As one young man said, “Why should I
sacrifice the better sound system I want so that the church can purchase a
better sound system?” Perhaps few are
being given a cause big enough for which to sacrifice. There are more uses for the money on church grounds and
less money available to give away.
It’s not surprising then that the world waits. And it may keep on waiting for another
generation that has a different philosophy on the church, the world, and the
use of money. |