I have several people asking me for money for their church planting or building ministries. I believe in giving and sharing and being overly generous whenever possible. My wife and I love to give and share and believe in having an open hand, and we both wish we could afford to give much more than we do, to many more people than we do.
I understand that money makes almost everything in life on this planet easier. But, I can also see that many protestant ministries, funded by wealthy churches have and are exporting a major stronghold about the ministry of the church and about money… along with some evangelism on the side.
But if scripture can teach us, church planting and church life is a uniquely spiritual activity when God is really working in a person or people. It is a truly spiritual revelation and knowing of Jesus Christ within a people, it is not physical, it is not even helped by money in any significant way. We love to add our big buildings and salaries and turn it into a primarily financial thing but Jesus does not build with money.
If we cannot build ‘our ministries’ (whether we are in America or else where) without a large flow of money, perhaps it is not God doing the building anymore…perhaps we are doing our own thing, with good intentions, and exporting mixture to the nations.
If that is the case it is time that we reconsider our ways, and for a long sabbatacle study what the real ministry of the church is. It is time we begin to follow the pattern from scripture, abandon humanistic traditions and the constant need for money.
1 Peter 1:3“blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”
A hope in the living One brought about by His resurrection from the dead. That is the foundation of our real Christian ministry.
Jesus told his disciples to wait for Pentecost until they would be filled with himself, He became a life-giving spirit. Christ inside of us that is the hope we look to. That is the drive and support of real ministry from Jesus.
Jesus did not teach his disciples how to get money, how to find funding for their ministries, how to run businesses.
Jesus does not build with money, so why has money become such a big deal to so many in church ministry and ambitious pastors all over the world?
The importance of money to the life of a church can be a great litmus test as to its foundation. Is the foundation well-intentioned (and well funded) men? Or is the foundation the person of Jesus Christ revealing himself within a people? He is the only legitimate and real foundation of any church.
If financial bankruptcy can ruin a church, then at the time of its death it was not a real church at all OR along the way it ceased to be a real church built by and on the Lord Jesus Christ. It got mixed up with money-minded men along the way. At best it became an effort to build for Jesus by well-intentioned religious guys.
Revelation 2:5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place-unless you repent.
A church is a church not because we say ‘its a church’, a church is not a church because it has a steeple or the sign which says ‘its a church’. A church is not a church because some human government recognizes it as a church. A church is not a church because it employs someone called pastor. A church is not a church because it is a member of a denomination or has by-laws.
A church is a church because there is a people who gather and have Jesus Christ inside of them as their living hope and he Himself makes himself to shine out of them when they gather like a bright lampstand in a dark place.
