Reader Response to "To Whom Would Jesus Contribute?"

A reader at Revelife.com (which occasionally reposts things I write here) sent me a message with a wonderfully thought-out and graciously-worded rebuttal to my post "To Whom Would Jesus Contribute?" I wanted to share it with you. He punches me in the teeth at the end, and I'll bet the same fist will punch you.

My post had expressed frustration with the two main presidential candidates' campaigns and their use of massive, massive contributions they'd received as of the end of March (I might throw a tantrum if I looked at the amounts today). I opined that that campaign money -- being used for television ads, cross-country trips, smear campaigns, etc. -- would be better used giving someone a hot meal or clean water.

The reply below comes courtesy (and with the permission) of AnyasFriendMe. You may find that what he says makes more sense than what I wrote. I encourage you to read the second part of my ramblings, "When Necessary, Use Money," though, at some point. It may express my conclusions better than the first post.

Here's the response (I put a number of phrases in bold for emphasis):

Hmm... it's hard to put big numbers in perspective. Given that there are some 313 million people in America, even if Obama spends a billion, see http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/30/us-usa-campaign-spending-idUSTRE77T3ZX20110830 -- that works out to about $3 per person. I'm sure many non-profits spend that much money mailing and phoning their average supporters to get them to support their campaigns, since it takes money to get people to act. It's sort of a necessary overhead. It adds up to a lot of money because there are lots of people in our country.

Well, is it worth it? That's hard to say. Obama and Romney each advocate numerous policies that they might be able to implement. Many policies have impacts of many billions of dollars. If there have been 50 or so million abortions since Roe vs. Wade, and if an additional billion dollars would have changed elections that would have changed who the Supreme Court Justices were, then for a pro-lifer the question would be, "Is it worth about $20 to stop an abortion?"

From this perspective spending a billion dollars to stop 50 million deaths could be considered pocket change.

Or in other terms that may be easier to relate to: outlawing abortion could save two babies every minute in America. For those who don't care for a pro-life argument, feel free to switch it. For example, money spent to elect a candidate who was concerned about global warming (or whatever your pet issue is) might save the lives of many people.

There are a billion plus people who need clean water. I'm not sure how many wells would be needed to save as many people, but I'm guessing it would be a lot, and I doubt that it would be cheap to provide them all with clean water.

In short, there are a lot of uncertainties, but there are big bucks spent on politics because politicians have a lot of influence on a lot of big issues that have big impacts on many people. Do we get our priorities perfect? Of course not.But it may be possible that many Christians have spent too little money supporting candidates that shared their concerns.

Then again, how many of us invest time praying for our leaders? Hmm... could that have an influence on the decisions that they make? Maybe asking how we spend our money isn't the only or even the best way to change the world. Maybe we need to ask how we spend our prayer time.

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Big Bird's Portfolio - An Odd Dream

I'm risking a topical diversion today. I want to be careful in how I present the follow-up to yesterday's post since there's frequently contention over Bible translations. I don't want to add to a debate on one view versus another, so I'm going to devote some time to finishing that one up tonight. Don't forget where we left off, okay?

In the meantime I wanted to share a dream with you. I take delight in writing about the stranger ones, even though I'm probably publicly giving out some crazy psychological info by doing so.

In my dream (between this morning's snooze button punches), I was scrubbing old, possibly antique, white furniture alongside one or two adults with disabilities. I'm fairly certain they had Down syndrome. The person working on the piece with me was a female; that's all I remember about her.

This furniture had been deployed in military use for quite a while and there were stains where something had been spilled on them. The stains were possibly greenish, mildew sorts of stains, but I believe this dream was in black and white. From what I recall, we were using fine-grain steel wool at this point to get the stains off. The pieces we were working on were basically white boxes and were about the size of a typical military trunk.

I usually have a somewhat vivid recollection of the surroundings in my dreams, but that wasn't the case here. All I remember is that it was a bit dark and all I could see was the trunk thing. I don't even remember looking at the people I was working with.

Perhaps most odd and interesting was that Big Bird from Sesame Street was talking with someone nearby, explaining the ins and outs of his investment portfolio. I could hear him talking but couldn't see him (nor was I trying; I was focused on the furniture). He was talking about economic numbers and trends rather nonchalantly; particularly about how stocks had performed over the past year. It struck me that he was throwing out numbers so far and above the social status of the people who were there that it seemed arrogant and aloof. One of the specifics I vaguely remember him stating was that his net worth was $13 billion.

I awoke to hear financial news being discussed on the radio, which was tuned to National Public Radio. This explains Big Bird's talk of monetary figures but not Big Bird himself. My job would explain the military focus of the work we were doing. The people are what intrigue me so much about this dream, though.

I always enjoy your commentary on things like this. Fire away if you'd like.

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When Necessary, Use Money

I think I'd better clarify some things about yesterday's post, "Would Jesus Contribute?" It may sound like I'm opining that Christians should be giving more money to organizations or efforts that I consider to be Christ-honoring and much less to "evil" things like presidential campaigns.

That's not what I meant to convey (but if it's a conviction of yours you should act on it). I don't believe that donating funds to a campaign is inherently bad. I don't think I'm better than you if you've never given a dime to the Downtown Rescue Mission, and I don't even think you're a terrible Christian if that's the case. I intended to illustrate that our priorities as a nation just might be out of whack, and the direction our money flows could be a key indicator of that.

Jesus and the apostles gave to poor people from a pool of money they collected, and Judas was their treasurer (see John 12:5-6 and 13:29). So while there may be a Biblical basis for stating that Jesus likely would've been more likely to give money to a rescue mission rather than a political coup effort (I can't think of a better comparison at the moment; the political landscape of the middle east was... well, a bit different from that of modern America), my guess is that Jesus would've actually been at the rescue mission rather than simply donating money to it.

This also touches on one of the serious issues I have with modern church culture. The typical church atmosphere today is such that attendees are conditioned to put money into an offering plate and consider this to be a pretty decent way to spread the Gospel (you know, it will grow the size of the church so more people will come, hear the preacher preach, and get saved -- which is not a Biblical concept). Whether intended or not, this method of helping, if it is the primary focus, keeps the average church-attender from actually meeting and connecting to needy people and it tells him that money is his best gift or good deed. And it keeps the business end of the church above water so that the process can be repeated over and over.

While I'm not condemning all churches that see fit to sink their funds into a state-of-the-art building, frankly, it makes me sick to learn of a church raising, say, $5 million and pouring it into a new facility when they've never lifted a collective finger to help to the needy in their own community or the organization a few miles down the road that's furnishing meals, clothes, and blankets to those who are going without. This is utterly appalling.

Again, my intent yesterday was not to say that Christians should be giving more money to such-and-such or less money to this-and-the-other. To modify a saying that's most frequently attributed to Francis of Assisi -- "Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary use words" -- I believe that our "contribution" should be a lifestyle of sacrifice for others, for the sake and in the name of Jesus Christ. When necessary, use money.

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Would Jesus Contribute?

I read an article at Yahoo! News today. In it President Obama was painted as being concerned that his campaign for re-election might be outspent by Mitt Romney's. The president noted, "And if things continue as they have so far, I'll be the first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign." That would certainly be embarrassing.

The article also notes, "[President Obama's] campaign, the Democratic National Committee and their joint accounts reported more than $173 million cash on hand at the end of May, $61 million more than rival Mitt Romney and Republicans." At the end of May. A full month ago. At that time, according to the article, Obama's campaign claimed $173 million and Romney's apparently $112 million. That's $285 million that people and organizations have donated to have their favorite candidate elected or re-elected. That doesn't include third-party candidates' coffers.

Just for grins, I had a look at the website of Huntsville's Downtown Rescue Mission and saw this quote: "To feed everyone at the Downtown Rescue Mission for one year: approximately $385,000. 'He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his good deed.' - Proverbs 19:17."

Since I am an absolute math wizard, I popped up my calculator and quickly determined that presidential campaign funds raised so far could pay for about 740 years' worth of meals at our local Rescue Mission.

But who cares? We certainly have more pressing concerns than this.

For more laughs, I went to The Water Project's website to see how their donations were coming along. In Africa or India, each shallow well costs the group about $6,500 to dig and maintain. For a deep, well-maintained one it's more like $30,000. That's a lot of money whenever a missionary comes to meet with your church and asks for donations, isn't it?! And they usually talk way too long. According to Water Is Life, one child dies every 15 seconds due to a lack of water.

But mercifully, that doesn't impact us in America and has little bearing on the election process, if any.

By the way, my calculator told me that about 9,500 wells -- the expensive ones -- could be dug with the money that both major parties had raised for their candidates by the end of May.

You can rationalize all you like, and you can offer explanations as to why our priorities are the way they are. Tell me that in order to make good things happen we have to have the right man in office. Tell me that the government isn't supposed to cure all social ills. Agreed. Isn't the Church supposed to be the example in that arena? 

Something here is very, very screwed up.

"One nation under God." Remember how the religious people got horribly and vocally bent out of shape when a key politician said that America wasn't a Christian nation? You can honestly look at the numbers above and tell me that we are?

Out of the things I talked about above, to which would Jesus contribute? And would He contribute something other than money?

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5 effective strategies for spiritual growth for one low price!

This may be my longest post ever. I'm just sayin'...

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 speaks about not dismissing prophecies -- if they hold water and measure up to the standard of the Word, then don't scoff at them: "Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil." (NLT) Similarly, in Acts 17:11 we read about a group called the Bereans in a very positive light: "And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth." (NLT, emphasis mine) So these nobody "laypeople" were searching the Bible to see if the "heavy-hitters" were actually teaching the truth?! How impertinent! But they did, and it was good for them to do it.

In that spirit, this post is not in the interest of bashing someone who's using his gifts to help and spiritually and numerically grow the Church. It will, however, show that I am not convinced that this is healthy, and to be honest, I believe it runs directly counter to many major principles that are communicated plainly in the Word of God -- the Book that this organization and many others claim to be supporting.

I received an e-mail (one of many I get) from an organization that sells its intellectual property and its products in the interest of helping worship leaders to "grow" their "worship ministry" teams. I guess it's fine if someone wants to pay to learn these things. We sell everything else God-related: Bibles, Bible studies, niche devotional books, studies (not to mention breath mints, jewelry, etc.), and the list goes on.

In fantasyland, it would be cool if we sold them simply to cover the cost of the paper and the hours that people had to pour into them. I'm rambling now, and I don't know if I want to fight that battle, to tell the truth, but it makes me scratch my head to think of the implications of having created profit centers that are "selling" spiritual growth. Sure, it's better that the resources be used on this than on pornography or on blatantly worldly things, but does that justify everything that we do?

Back to the e-mail... These kinds of sales pitches usually include at least one bullet item that references spiritual growth, so they're covered if someone tries to claim they're all about physical/numeric growth. ("Hey, we're all about spiritual growth! Check out that bullet point.")

Side note: In the world of PR, if you use numbered lists ("The 5 Keys to Success," "30 Proven Methods of Getting Away with Picking Your Nose in Public," etc.), you're more likely to get someone to buy into what you're saying, or at least do more follow-up than if you didn't use a numbered list. Those things always jump out at me and surely taint even the legitimate lists for me, even though this first chunk doesn't have too many. There's good use of exciting-sounding verbs here, too. "Maximize," "capture," and "empower" were immediately noticeable.

To be sure, there's some good stuff here; it's not all negative (in this statement I'm being serious). You can grow your team, stave off burnout, and even grow closer to Christ in the process, all for only around $90 (that's with a $10 saving for getting the download version). In this exciting e-mail offer:

You can expect to learn...

• How to exponentially grow the number of people serving on your worship team and ensure that you're never short on volunteers again!
• How to create a thriving auditions strategy that honors God and empowers volunteers to serve in their area of greatest gifting.
• 5 foundations of an Effective Audition Strategy that you MUST have in order to maximize your team.
• How to develop seasons for your team so that current members are never "burned out" and new members are always joining.
• The powerful affect that a BIG Day of auditions has on your team.
• How to set God-sized goals that help you maximize how many people will join your team. [Eh? Should God not be the one setting those goals if they're His size?]
• How to develop an auditions timeline so that you can properly plan and promote it to your church.
• How to capture over 40% of your audition sign-ups through a 30 minute pre-audition reception.
• How to lead an actual audition, including what to say and do during the audition.
• Actual scripts for how to follow-up with those who have auditioned.
• How to say "No" to someone who auditions in a way that connects them to another area of your worship ministry.
• How to deepen the commitment of your worship team to Christ, the church and the team through an easy to navigate leadership development process. [Saved the best bullet point for last?]
• And much more!

No, there really is more! Reading the whole e-mail, I saw the opportunity to prayerfully consider joining a network of worship leaders. It requires a 10-month commitment at a couple of hundred bucks a month (to be fair, this includes lodging and air fare, so it seems reasonable), and offers these benefits, for example:

This additional purchase/commitment "will follow the outline of the 7 Leadership Challenges for Worship Pastors...  The 7 Leadership challenges include the Personal, Pastor, Planning, People, Provision, Professionalism, and Production challenges."

And the following part really got to me. If you join this network, one of the benefits is "A private weekend meeting with [the personality around whom all this is centered], exclusively for [program] participants where you will get to go behind the scenes at a [name of church] service – a $1500 value!" What?!? Spending a weekend behind the scenes at a mega-church's weekend services (with what must be a high-profile worship leader) is a $1,500 value? Are you kidding me??

All of this (not just the weekend with the famous guy at super-church, but the whole package) makes me think of Thesis #82 from Martin Luther's epic, reform-inducing 95 theses posted on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517: "Cur Papa non evacuat purgatorium propter sanctissimam charitatem et summam animarum necessitatem ut causam omnium iustissimam, Si infinitas animas redimit propter pecuniam funestissimam ad structuram Basilice ut causam levissimam?"

In case you don't read Latin, it's been translated this way: "Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church [St. Peter's Basilica]? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial."

Luther had a non-Biblical belief in a place called purgatory. In those days people thought that they could pay a certain amount of money to go toward the building of the new, awesome mega-church building, and in turn a soul would be delivered from purgatory. Looking at motivations rather than destinations (and I understand that he was off on the purgatory bit), Luther simply asked, "Why wouldn't the pope do that for free if he could do it at all?"

In the same vein, why wouldn't someone want to give these gifts I've been talking about (not spiritual gifts, but things like team-building lessons, help with challenges, how to avoid burnout, and -- of course -- how to grow in Christ) freely for the edification and building up of the Church?

Go ahead and give me real-world "but Dean..." replies. Worship pastors need to eat, too? Cool -- I mean, if I have to eat and all, then surely it's okay to sell this gift that God gave me freely. We've built up a culture -- within the church and without -- that sees all this as normal.

I'm asking you now to question the legitimacy of what we've come to think of as "normal."

What if it's not "normal" the way God sees "normal"? What if God actually doesn't think of all this as glorifying to Him? You won't really have to dig too far into the Word to see that this is more than a strong possibility.

At this point I probably need some of you to reel me in. I really do feel like I'm overreacting in some areas. Note that I pulled every name and corporate reference out of this post, because although I'm livid, I don't want to attack a person. And it's possible that I'm off-base somewhere (which is why I ask you to reel me in). Call me crazy, but for some reason this all seems like someone is trying to sell the power of (or gifts from) God for profit. I can't help thinking of this passage:

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this power. “Let me have this power, too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”


But Peter replied, “May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God. Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, for I can see that you are full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin."
Acts 8:18-23 (NLT)

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our bottom line

I was listening to the December 13 sermon/message podcast from Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA, entitled "Beware of Good Liars - Part 2," and in the podcast, teaching pastor Francis Chan noted that while Cornerstone typically gives away about 50% of its income from tithes and offerings, the following week, December 20, they would be giving 100% of their offerings away. They would give it away to needy people, organizations who fight to prevent human slave and sex trafficking (yes, that goes on, and it's shocking to hear the statistics), and other kinds of "social justice" efforts, both in America and around the world.

Now, I have not yet confirmed that this is what they did, nor do I have specifics on exactly where the money went. But I'm stuck on the fact that they gave away 100% of the money that came in. I don't say this to elevate this church fellowship to some sort of "They have arrived and the rest of the churches in America stink" status, but it immediately made me begin to wonder how the people and leadership at my own church fellowship, and others, would respond to such an idea. Would these be the responses...?

• I understand what they're trying to do, but our money already goes to kingdom-oriented purposes.
• We have to take care of the things that God has given us, and then we can turn our attention to the needs of others.
• What a liberal idea.
• That's a nice idea, but we live in the real world and have bills to pay and new facilities to build.
• We need to be focusing on ministry at home before we try to heal all of the world's ills.

No matter what you think of it, this kind of action is quite obviously one that puts the interests of others above self-interests. It's an incredibly Kingdom-focused thing to do. I want to see my own church fellowship begin thinking and acting like this. I want to see it reflected in the thoughts and resulting actions of the Church in America and globally.

So what can I/we do to see that happen? Giving to others at our own expense is exactly what Jesus taught us to do, and we've ostensibly already been teaching that for thousands of years, so to say that we just need to keep on teaching people in our churches to be more Christ-like is, to me, not a very good answer.

(By the way, the title of the post comes from Facebook friend Stacy, who said in response to my tweet about this earlier in the day, "thinking about others and not the bottom line.... oh wait.... church... bottom line.... WAIT the others ARE supposed to be the bottom line for THE CHURCH!")

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SpongeBob or the Poor?

I went to a large, monolithic chain store the other day for a specific purpose. I'd promised myself never to go to this place again, but I did it anyhow. It unfortunately made sense on this item we needed.

While we were there, I picked up SpongeBob Season 5, Volume 2 on DVD for $19.98. Now, I personally enjoy watching SpongeBob, though I know some of you don't allow your kids to watch it (and therefore, I assume, don't watch it yourselves). I'm okay with that, certainly, and I hope that you don't think less of me for enjoying it.

After we'd checked out and were heading to our car, I had a horrible looming feeling. Out of the blue, I remarked to my 10-year-old daughter, "I think that was the worst use of $20 that I can imagine. There are people in this city who are starving and I just forked out $20 on a DVD for my own entertainment." (or something very close to that.) Apparently I didn't feel awful enough, because we continued to the car rather than returning it. However, I don't know that I'll ever be buying a $20 DVD again unless I have a massive stockpile of money (unlikely).

I actually feel ashamed admitting I spent $20 on a DVD, but that leads me to want to ask where you draw the line in your expenditures. Is there anything that you will always forego in order to have some liquidity so that you'll be able to generously give to those in need as we're commanded to do in Scripture?

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