Monday, March 31, 2008

two sides of the church thing

Last week, an email was sent on my behalf, with my permission, to everyone on our email list. Lots of folks got it. The email was asking for financial assistance to finish the classrooms on the second floor.

A few people responded positively. Thank you. Most did not reply. That is fine. Two have asked to be taken off of our email list. One, wrote me an unhappy reply about how they only get contacted when the church needs money.

Ha.

Well, I wrote back a very nice reply. Offered to get together with them. Tried to reach out. It is what I ought to do. But there is another side to the relationship between a person and the church or a person and the pastor. It's not always about the pastor or the church needing to take care of a person. There is another side to this relationship which is easy for folks to forget.

Here it is:

When you join the church, you make a commitment. Not to me, but to Jesus Christ and his church. You promise to be loyal to the church and support it with your prayers, presence, gifts, and service. There are no conditions attached. The promise is not conditioned on whether or not you are happy with the sermons. It is not conditional on whether or not you like the issues of a bigger church. It is simply a commitment to support the church.

I tend to believe that if we stay with good things and keep our commitments, even when we feel bad about something, eventually, everything will come around. We can't throw away our spouse because we are bored with them, stop paying taxes because we are mad at the president, and we shouldn't quit the church because something annoys us.

The church is worth supporting. Sure, it has it's moments, but all in all, this is a great place. We teach people about Jesus, we adopt orphans, we feed hungry people. We encourage the broken hearted, help hurricane victims, and give people the opportunities of Christian fellowship. We connect people to Jesus Christ. All of this on a proportionately small budget, and under the most stringent of financial controls. I am proud of our church, and I think that you should be too. There is so much more good than bad. In fact, there is so little bad, it surprises me when it shows up.

Please don't ever be offended by the church or the pastor or staff. Its a great place, doing great stuff. Because of the faithful participation of many, we are making a difference in the world.

Thank you for what you are doing at Woods Chapel Church.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Very good comments. I've only been a member of WCC for a couple of years but I couldn't begin to put a price on the love, worship, fellowship, friends, prayers, support, good food, meditations, music and joy that being a member has brought me.

Making the church an integral part of your life.....priceless!!

Anonymous said...

For what it is worth, I think our church almost never asks for money. With the exception of this special campaign (and the building funds), I feel like money is only mentioned in the fall when we need to have pledges for the general fund. Even then, I feel the request is low key.

I don't know of any organization that doesn't require funding in order to operate. It always strikes me as odd that people seem to think churches shouldn't seek operational funds. How else can services be provided?

I guess this is my rant for the day.

Becky

Anonymous said...

Becky is right, I feel WCC hardly ever asks for money and though we are "encouraged" to fulfill our committments as a Christian and a member of WCC, we never feel "pressure". I am sure the person who wrote Jeff had some other issues that day, and took it out on Jeff!