Combining Resources – Part 8: Readings – 2
In the first community, Jesus and the Twelve modeled the values of the new future of God in every dimension of life. All their relationships, including their economic ones, were transformed by the in breaking of God’s future into their midst. They shared a common purse not only among themselves, but with their followers and the poor.
The early church continued to follow the model of economic sharing Jesus had inaugurated with his community. In fact, it was a widespread practice among the early church. “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32, RSV).
The reason believers were able to share in this extraordinary way was that their values had been profoundly changed by Christ; they no longer lived for themselves. Their lives were devoted to the service of God, his kingdom, and his world. Through their sharing, they not only modeled the new age of economic justice; they also freed up resources for the work of justice in their own day.
As the church in the late twentieth century is renewed through a rediscovery of community, it has the opportunity to become what it was meant to be: the servant church to the world. From prison we hear Dietrich Bonhoeffer echo the cry for a servant church: “The church is only the church when it exists for others.” Being the church for others means, quite simply, that we are to be a church like the one we read about in Acts—our lives, energy, and resources poured outwardly into the needy world that surrounds us.
Given the ways we use our lives, energy, and resources, are we the church for others or the church for ourselves? You will have to answer for your church. But one thing seems eminently clear to me: the church in the United States is amazingly affluent. It is reliably estimated that the total institutional wealth of all churches and religious organizations in the United States is $134.3 billion. $21 billion flows through American Christian organizations annually. “If there is anything about the Christian Church that is clear to religious and non-religious alike,” asserts Adam Finnerty, “it is that some nineteen hundred … years after the birth of its founder it is a phenomenally wealthy institution. Trying to make it appear otherwise is a little like trying to hide an elephant in a phone booth.” He goes on to point out that by becoming a propertied institution, it is inevitably exposed to the danger of becoming conformed to the world and allied to the world’s center of power. Tony Campolo has described the church as a gigantic oil refinery with no loading dock because it uses all the oil it produces to keep its own machinery running.
Paul Brandt and Philip Yancey vividly describe what happens in a human body when one cell mutinies and begins drawing life away from the rest of the body, creating a grotesquely healthy tumor. The tumor uses up the resources necessary for the health of the rest of the body in its single-minded preoccupation with its own growth. Are we, the church in the United States, in danger of becoming not only a church for ourselves but also a cancerous tumor in the body of Jesus Christ International? How can we be the church for others when we are using most of our individual and corporate resources on our own growth?
In repentance, let’s rediscover what it means to be the servant church for others. Let’s look at alternative ways we might use the resources God has entrusted to us to more fully serve others. If we were to return to a network of small house churches on the model of the early church, we would soon discover we don’t need most of the buildings we have been erecting for ourselves at incredible expense. At the very least, our churches have the opportunity to become much more imaginative in constructing and utilizing church properties so as to channel as few of our resources as possible away from projects of mission and service to those in need.
East Hill Church in Gresham, Oregon, grew to over forty-five hundred members by 1979. They wanted to construct a building in which the entire congregation could worship together without drawing their members’ giving away from the support of their extensive programs of ministry. Their solution? They established a separate corporation to build a self-supporting convention center, which the church uses free.
In some cities, brothers and sisters from different denominations are discovering they can share a common facility. (Some of the most under-utilized structures in the United States are church buildings.) I would even go so far as to suggest a moratorium on construction of new facilities until (1) space in existing church structures, community buildings, and homes is fully utilized, (2) assessment of alternate methods of financing new structures (like the East Hill project) is made, and (3) the stewardship of our capital improvement resources in relation to the needs of the Body of Christ International is evaluated.
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The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, Tom Sine, Word, pages 175-176.
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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?
Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?
David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.
We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.
For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.
You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.
