The DeSocios.com » Money

Church Plant Consumerism

Sam — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:29:18 +0000

Over at theResurgence, Bob Thune wrote a great little article about the dangers of what he called “Church Plant Capitalism”. I might call it Church Plant Consumerism, but I am in definitive agreement with him on many of the apparent dangers.
It is easy to convince yourself that you need the newest and most powerful thing–be it high end nursery equipment or that brand new 17″ Macbook Pro–all so that you can better equip the church for the work of ministry.
Consumer goods have an allure, and when you can say your buying them for Jesus, it seems like it would be wrong to not get the best. If you have ever looked at different magazines marketed toward churches you will see that there are whole industries centered around selling churches crap at twice the market value.
In many respects these industries are just playing on the same motives that try to convince every american male that he needs his own flat screen tv.
While there is some overlap between personal spending motives and ministerial spending motives I think there are a few specific tendencies that make pastor and church planters susceptible to spending alot of money in ways that don’t make sense.

1. Pastors and Church Planters spend lots of money on equipment, because it is easier to rely on items that we can see and touch than it is to rely on the Holy Spirit. We think–if we can just get the right nursery setup and the right sound equipment (with the right musicians) people will come and they will be changed. This is not a uniquely modern problem, just look at Psalm 20, but it is a very dangerous one.

2. Pastors and Church Planters spend lots of money on church stuff in an effort to create a shield between unhappy or unchanged people and their ministry insecurities. We spend lots of money so that things look great and sound great. We trick ourselves into thinking that if people’s lives aren’t being changed its because we didn’t sound good through cheap speakers. Instead of working more at serving people we convince ourselves that the problem doesn’t reside with the message but with the equipment.

Am I totally off track or do other people see similar motives for churches spending exorbitant sums on equipment or even facilities?
I’d encourage anyone interested in Church Planting or working in a church to read Bob Thune’s article.

How American’s Spend their Money

Sam — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:59:48 +0000

Check out this interesting graph I found over at nytimes.com

My Money, or Jesus’ Money

Sam — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:43:39 +0000

Man I am such a creep. My friend Tim’s ministry Harvest USA is in need of more supporters, and Im not even one of them. Does anyone else feel like me? They want to see a changed culture, they want to see people meeting and loving Jesus, but then they feel like jerks when they look at the way they spend their money.

I spend almost 100$ a month on internet and TV, I can justify having the internet, but 60 bucks a month so I can watch episodes of lost and the dog whisper seems a bit extreme.

Is the Gospel Worth 4 Million Dollars?

Sam — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:04:48 +0000

I’ll admit that this post’s title sounds like a chapter out of some nebulous 20th century theology book, but although I could not come up with a cool title, the topic of God and Money is still a very interesting one.

I have been a fan of Mark Driscoll now for over a year or so, and I have been trying to show others in the community group I lead how interesting his ideas are. So I brought his confessions to a recent gathering. One of my friends was reading through it and exclaimed “why does he talk about money, why is money so important?” Interestingly the same question could be thrown toward Luke. In Acts 19:19, he tells a story of how there was a great awakening of the Ghost in Ephesus, and it led to the burning of many ocult books, valued at 50,000 pieces of silver, probably drachma. If this is the case and the New American Standard’s notes are correct in saying that one drachma equaled a days wages, than we can see this as a very large amount of money. Imagine what that would look like in our time. Lets say that a “days wage” today would be around $80($10 dollars an hour for eight hours). This would make the amount of property burned roughly equal to 4 Million dollars. Now I know that the economy of the ancient near-east was far different, but what I’m pointing out is that this sum was seen by Luke as important. It could be that it was the sheer amount that was burned in repentance to Jesus, that made Luke think it was important, but no matter why the inclusion, it was included.

Luke shows that, the city of Ephesus said with their wallets that reconciliation with God was worth more that 50,000 pieces of silver.
Today we can still talk our wallets. Are we saying that the Kingdom is worth more than that new car we wanted, or that cruise we took last year, or that flat screen tv that we have on our walls?