Economics, Buildings, and a Reality Check

I teach as an adjunct faculty in theological graduate schools & other ministry training programs. I teach classes such as small groups ministry and church multiplication as well as other classes. Depending on the class, I'll present a variety of strategic options for students to sort through. Just one of those options is to leave out heavy infrastructures and to approach church more organically. Occasionally, simple-organic church positions are classified (by others) as anti-church building and conventional wisdom is heartily defended, and as a seminary professor, I applaud the opportunity for vigorous debates in academic venues.

However, allow me to take a moment to step away from good facilitation and professorial objectivity and just say a little something about our religious edifices. The DOW went down 634 points today. This is a pile-on in the midst of a very slow recovery from a deep & damaging economic recession. Job reports are no longer in the negative, but they are not as positive as they need to be. We have more tough days ahead of us.

Our church buildings are expensive. When the market tumbles, businesses suffer, and as a result so do those in the non-profit sector whom they support. Missionaries are hit hard by changes in church budgets. I am one of those, and I'm trying to walk in faith rather than think about the grim economic forecast. Youth ministries, homeless ministries, and other charitable work will likely suffer as well. Today, at a community center, a karate teacher was let go for budgetary reasons, and a parent cried because of the difference this class was making in her son's life. Everyone on staff knows that this is one of this center's highest quality programs, but bottom-lines over quality programming means it gets cut. Churches, as organizations, often follow the same bottom-line logic. Why? Because we generally run our churches as organizations rather than as families.

Are the organic church folks anti-building? Okay truthfully some are, but definitely not all. Am I anti-building? No, as an urban missionary doing organic church planting, when I visit friends and colleagues in local urban church buildings, I actually feel a warm sense of nostalgia. In short, I'm not anti-building. I want the whole church to flourish which, ironically, is exactly why I followed the path to a more organic expression.

...But do I think that we might need a values check in the church in North America. Yes, without apology, we absolutely need to take a second look at our value system. When missions or orphanages or homeless ministries are cut from the budget so that we can spend hundreds of dollars a month on air conditioning, yes, there is a problem. I know it's hot outside, but it's really hot in India or Cambodia where believers are sitting on dirt floors in homes to hear from God's Word, and they have "no debt outstanding except the debt to love one another."

This is not meant to be a rant or a guilt trip, and I doubt I have many readers for such a new blog anyway. But it is a plea. It is a plea to reconsider our values and to allow the Gospel to shape them in fresh ways. It is essentially taking a moment to ask why we must defend these structures so rigorously when they strap the church with debt, cost us people-centered programs, cut into our missions budgets, and require so much energy from leadership.

Ironically, at a time when debt is being discussed in our society's politics, the church has fallen into corporate debt for the sake of building bigger despite the stark warnings in Scripture about debt. I'm afraid that our big buildings can truly be such great blessings that we fail to consider the other side of the same coin.

People First

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

In Mark 2, Jesus sheds light on religious structures. Israel was given a regular weekly rest for their own good. Without Sabbath, it is likely that slaves would have been overworked without rest, animals' lives could have shortened due to over-exhaustion, and the people themselves may have faced the harlot of workaholism. However, Torah gave them a special gift. The rhythm of their lives was to include regular intentional rest from their labor.

However, at the time of Jesus it seems that Sabbath had become an institution to maintain rather than a protection against labor abuses. Naturally, Jesus challenges this notion. The point all along, he says, is to serve people. As an institution, Sabbath was always meant to be for the well-being of human beings, and the religious establishment of Jesus time had erected it as an institution to preserve at all costs.

We face a similar dilemma today. We have erected mighty institutions in the name of faith. These are inherently neutral. Buildings, programs, organizations can all be used to bless people. They are tools in the hands of Christ's servants for good works. However, if we do not periodically question and challenge these structures, we are in the same danger as the pharisees. As long as institutions designed to serve are indeed empowering people to thrive, they are beneficial, but when upkeep and maintenance overshadows the needs of people, it's time to question what we're doing. It is when all of our efforts go into preserving an institution or organization rather than advancing the original mission (for people) of the organization, then we must re-evaluate its function and perhaps even its very existence.

Jesus demonstrated an immeasurable value placed on people. Today, we get locked into debates over forms and strategies, but often even good changes fall short of Jesus' real challenge -- prioritizing people over things.... even religious things.

Just Names

During our recent church gathering, we were concluding our series of interpretive discussions on Romans. Naturally, that discussion ended with the last chapter, Romans 16, which includes a list of not-so-easy-to-pronounce names. Reading through the names, we reflected on people that had touched our lives, names that we would mention as important to our own story.

At one point during the discussion, one group member highlighted an important tangent. Reflecting on Romans 16, he pointed out that although this list of names included numerous missionary workers and church leaders, titles were obviously missing. Paul simply listed their names. He didn't feel the need to say, pastor so & so or elder so & so. Rather he just mentioned names.

A few days earlier, I was debriefing one of our interns, and towards the end of the conversation, I asked, "What advice would you have for me?" She explained how important it was that I acted not only as a mentor/supervisor but was accessible as a friend. I expressed my thanks for the affirmation; however, I also further confessed that at times I doubt being so transparent. After all, prophets in their hometown are not honored. Individuals have such a tendency to hang on every word of teachers who are distant and stay remote from their experience and at times overlook those who come close.... as Jesus came near. Vulnerability can be scary because for better or worse, leaders often deeply desire to be respected even as they battle secret insecurities.

A few years ago, I was interviewing a leader of a house church network in California, and I asked him what was most challenging. He answered, "Pastors just need to learn how to be normal again." We've created systems of separation because in our religious structures we often need protection from various waves of political backlash. However, Jesus calls to us to avoid "lording it over one another" but rather to wash feet even as our Lord and Master did.

In the end, we are all just names. When we stand before our Maker, we're all standing on a level playing field.