A balanced church – five

this morning, some random thoughts came into focus as i was reading an interview of os guinness, a wizened prophet of the church over the past forty years.  i followed that with a read of brian maclaren, a post-modern sage of our current culture. they both had different perspectives.  i think they are both right.  go figure.

to get the whole gist of my thought process, you’ll probably need to read what they wrote.  but for those of you who need the reader’s digest version, here goes:  thirty years ago, we realized that if we were ever going to reach modern young people with the gospel, we had to speak their language.  in the church, we tried our best to do music that would resonate, to preach and teach in a way that would engage kids, to use cutting edge technology, to “wow” them with conferences, to excite them with over-the-top experiences, to make sure that we were just as state-of-the-art as anything else in their world.

honestly, after thirty years of trying to be just as good as the world in our programs, our publications, our music, our experiences, and our presentations, we still fall short.  waay short.  you know why?  it’s not because we’re not as smart, or gifted, or talented, or tech saavy, or prepared, or educated.  no, it’s none of those.

it’s money.

in our society, people are driven to excellence in the corporate world in order to make a profit.  you don’t think that spielberg makes the movies he does simply out of a push for artistic integrity?  you don’t think that one-of-a-kind architectural masterpieces are built so that people will walk by and say “ahhhh”?  surely you don’t think mtv is driven by a desire to entertain?  wake up and smell the cash register!

we are a consumer driven society.  and we smelled that in the church years ago and began to do our best to cook up something that smelled just as good as what “they” were cooking.  after all, we were competing for the same people, the same hearts, the same money.  we didn’t want to lose, so we tried hard to compete.

we lost that battle.  we always will.  and it’s worse now than ever.  you know why?  money.  now, more than ever, we need to get out of this game.  there is less money to go around.  gas prices alone are going to dictate what we do in youth ministry for a long time…maybe forever.  as the church, we need to radically rethink how we spend our money, what we invest in, the kind of people we are sensitive to, what kind of buildings we build, and what we expect our church family to pay up for.

don’t get me wrong.  god’s people have always dug deep, sacrificed, given past the hurting, and made ridiculous financial commitments to the kingdom.  we will always challenge each other to do that…and more.  you’re not getting off that easy at north point!  

i just think that that maybe instead of being obsessed with excellence in the things that money can buy (in the church), maybe we could generate the same kind of over the top excellence in our relationships, our fellowship, our personal study and worship, our commitment to the poor, our service…the real ways we show our love for god and our love for people!

#mission #money #priorities