Over the past few months, I have had been a part of many discussions about our task, as Christians, to be compelling. I have also read an article or two describing different churches' approaches to stewardship. My thought process today, combined these two discussions and now I'm wondering: Where do you draw the line?
Would you consider it poor stewardship to pay people to come to your service, knowing that they would hear the Gospel once they were there?
What about dropping handfuls of money off the balcony in your sanctuary, once the congregants arrived?
If these seem too crass for you; would it be acceptable to shower them with free gifts so that they would attend?
What about free food?
Would paying top dollar for big name bands to fill the seats be alright?
Let's take it smaller: Should we spend cash on 'cushy' seats instead of buying food for homeless people? Is that acceptable?
Or even smaller: Do you make a greater impact for the Kingdom by printing your church materials in full color or by printing in black-and-white and using the excess to send mosquito nets to Africa?
Unless your church is printing its own money, these are all valid questions. Ultimately, you are choosing between one and the other. Admittedly, if you send the entirety of your church budget to Africa, you will not have a budget to worry about next year; but, if you keep all your cash inside your doors, it's going to be a lonely party in Heaven.
Where do you draw the line?
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2 comments:
What a question. Talk about speaking directly to the heart of the evangelical mega-church movement. How do we decide what is stewardship and what is wasteful? This is not a question I have an answer to, but one I'm sure I will spend many hours pondering.
Good stuff.
Great post!
I struggle with this same sort of thing in our relatively small church (400 or so active members). I'm a part of the evangelical team and we have similar conversations regarding how we should be spending money.
I'm happy to say that we have been able to keep a good balance in a lot of ways. For example, we spent less money on printing for "new member packets" and were able to purchase two dozen Bibles for our local prison ministry.
That one seemed like an easy decision compared to deciding on how to split money between advertising/web site and community outreach.
In the end, we have to make sure that our time, talents, and money are being invested in bringing people to the Cross. If it for any other reason, we're wasting it all.
Bubba
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