What if these headlines were reversed?
Headline 1: Church Completes $23 Million Building Project
Headline 2: Churches in the State Send $5K to Aid in Darfur Relief
Sadly, this is the state of the American church. I think David Platt, Pastor of Brook Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama hit the nail on the head recently in a sermon series on what the Gospel demands. He quoted Jonathan Edwards, and then in aside to the congregation lamented the fact that such a great theologian and man of God could have owned slaves. He went on to say that every generation has its blind spot. Without question, the blind spot of the church in America today, he said, is materialism. Hands down.
I think our church budgets speak volumes for what we really believe. James says that “faith without works is dead.” I think for all our expressed beliefs, as orthodox as they might be, our budgets show our lack of works. Our works are bigger, nicer sanctuaries, with fancier sound systems and flat screen TVs. Meanwhile, 70.2% of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day. Most of us have dogs that live on more than that.
Undoubtedly, our church budgets reflect our personal budgets. We are obsessed with stuff. We can’t get enough. New cell phone: $200. Flat Screen: $800. New Laptop: $900. Big empty house payment: $???. You fill in the blanks.
What if our budgets looked more like this… Living expenses: 10%… Giving: 90%… than like this… Living Expenses: 70%. Discretionary Spending: 20%. Giving: 10%?
Acts 2 speaks of the church having everything in common. That means they gave to one another and supported each others needs. That means when someone went over the top and got radical in their giving, they could trust the church to pick them up if they ran into that unexpected expense. We put so much money away for rainy days because we don’t trust that God will provide when the time is right. We want God not only to provide, but to keep up the status quo. We want Him to be held responsible for keeping up our standard of living. What if our priority was not our standard of living, but our standard of loving?
“Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” -Jesus
