Tuesday, May 02, 2006

101 Church Programs


This week is conference week at our church and something the pastor said shocked me. He said that studies show that on average, most churches only use 2% of money given to them towards world evangelism. Basically, anything that goes past the 4 walls of their church. Most of the money goes into programs, maintenance of the beautiful church, and landscaping, and some even into having baseball diamonds and basketball courts. My gosh!!! Whatever happened to Jesus' commandment of "Going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature"? How can that happen when only 2% of the money goes into something outside the 4 walls of the church? What happened to saving of souls? Most places have program after program after program. Instead of people witnessing, they tell others how many programs their church has. Could you imagine if we were standing before God and God asks, "Did you tell others the gospel of Jesus Christ and how he died on the cross to save their soul from hell"? Then you say, "No, but I sure excited them about our cross-stitching group!" Sometimes I see these mega churches and they've only sent out one church. Why is is that our church only holds 200 something people and couples are sent out to start churches (whether in states or overseas) every year? Amazing! If we want to see souls saved, it cannot be achieved through inviting people to our scrapbooking group, but by going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature.

1 comment:

Amber said...

So true! I am so proud of our church because monthly we send out missionaries to other countries. Daily we go to in our city and spread the gospel. And a huge percentage of our tithes go to helping start new churches, funding missionaries, or helping other local churches. On top of that we still have awesome programs. The ones I love are geared towards our youth to keep them entertained and fill them with the gospel during the school week. A church was never meant to be stationary and static. Jesus sent his disciples to spread the word of God, not to get together and have a pot luck and hide from the world.