A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from one of my
friends in India asking if we would sponsor their building a church building.
If we did, they would call it the "Ruth & John Grant Memorial Church." A
little bit of my heart broke off as I read the letter.
As Dad and I travelled with this
very pastor across Maharashtra a little under three years ago we spoke of the
way that American Missions had taken the worst of our culture as well as the
best with us as we tried to proclaim Jesus and that the idea that material opulence
in church buildings was part of that sin.
In India more than 600 million people live on less than
$2.00 a day. Somehow they survive. Here a pastor wants several thousand dollars
to erect an additional church building when they already have a compound built
as an orphanage. Something is out of kilter.
Unpacking some of my library I came across two books that
speak to this issue. The first is by John Alexander. It was never published so
it sits on my shelf in two notebooks. Its title says it all, Stop Going to
Church and Be the Church. “How can we go to something we are?” he asks. Yet,
that is the nature of how we think: “Do you want to go to church today?” Or, “Come
on kids, we’re late for church!” we yell angrily because we are going to look
bad, arriving late for the church gathering.
The second book, The Torch of the Testimony, makes
the statement that if the evangelical church in North America was to divest of
all it’s property the church would have over two billion dollars to spend on
feeding the poor, clothing the destitute, and generally fulfilling the great
commission of our Lord, Jesus.
One of my favourite churches is called the Evergreen
Community. Because it meets in pubs throughout Portland, my wife and I were
married in a Pub. I think it is one of the best possible partnerships. The pub
isn’t going to open on Sunday morning (because it is not a sports pub). And so
their space goes unused. Some of the church stick around to have lunch also
helping the pub’s bottom line. The elder who preaches encourages people to tip
well and most do. Jesus smiles.
Now, if you talk to the church planter that started it all
he will tell you that not having a building sucks sometimes. Evergreen is truly
missional and wants to be involved in feeding the poor and clothing the
homeless. But because they have no building, they forgo the opportunity for a
food pantry or a clothing bin for the homeless. In today’s day and age, there
is little need for an office, though at times it would be nice and having a
print center could be a great cost savings. There is a cost to not having a
building.
Matt Hannan is a pastor at another of my favourite churches,
New Heights, in Vancouver. A few years ago the church truly was out of space.
They were meeting five times a weekend because there weren’t enough seats in
the building for everyone to sit. Matt, who is probably Portland’s preeminent
preacher was running out of voice by Sunday night, and the energy outlay of the
weekend had to take it’s toll on his effectiveness during the week. However,
when the church planned expansion they didn’t plan a seat for everyone. Instead
they planned to still have three services and so they planned their expansion
accordingly to save dollars so they would have more to throw into church
planting and community engagement.
Another church here in Portland partnered with local
businesses to build their building as part of a retail, and office space complex.
By partnering with business the cost to each party was less than it otherwise
would have been.
There is no right answer to these questions. And so even I have
a suggestion to add to the mix. It might help someone somewhere. Let’s see.
What if several church’s here in Portland that do not own their own building
got together to lease space together… not to meet mind you, but for mission
purposes. An old warehouse could be turned into a copy center, food pantry,
clothes closet, or who knows what else, people could share the space. Church
communities could work together to make it functional and fir their needs.
Costs could be shared and kept low, and so congregations that could not afford
their own space might be able to share space.
I fear that this would only work if the commitment of the
leadership was to not see this as a stepping stone, “until we can afford more”
but as a commitment to Kingdom values, and doing it in order to be missional.
Anything less would lead to outward selfishness, conflict, and eventual
collapse of the venture.
Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone and afraid. Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others.
Early on, we came to feel disconnected. We tuned out our pain through any number of idolatrous diversions: a relationship or sex, food, alcohol, drugs, work, fantasy, media, and trying to control everyone and everything else; anything that could keep us from facing ourselves or our God.
We ran to our idols looking for something… anything that could speak to our souls. We did not like the way God was providing our world to us and so we demanded a different one, which He seemed unwilling to provide. We found relief in our idols when God refused to give us what we demanded. They were much better. We could control them.
We became true addicts. The only way we knew to stop the pain was to look to our idols to provide for us what only the Trinity could provide. We asked people to fill a void in our lives that they could not possibly fill. In so doing, we alienated them and pushed them away even as we cried for them to come closer. Progressively we moved farther away from our Creator and his creation, destroying any chance of healing, freedom and real life.
Our idols produced guilt, self-hatred, remorse, emptiness and pain, and yet we knew we would die without them. We were stuck and we were dying. We found ourselves driven inward, into a virtual reality of our own making, away from reality, and away from love. We were lost inside of ourselves.
Our self absorption made real connections and intimacy impossible. We never knew true union with the Real, or any of His creation because we clung to the unreal. We craved control, adrenalin, safety, chemistry, and / or freedom from pain, fear and control of others. We created virtual ‘unreal’ worlds that existed in our minds and online, and they corrupted the real world God had made. The powerless, selfish “I” killed love. And we found ourselves falling of the edge of isolating, unmanageable insanity.
Recent Comments