Several weeks ago a friend visited a poorer Eastern European country. There she entered certain people's homes and saw varying degrees of poorness first-hand. However, when she visited the church she saw top-of-the line furniture.
When she asked about this strange distinction she was told that God's house deserved the best. I'm not one for saying that churches should demand money from the poor so that they can fill their buildings with expensive luxuries. However, there is a point to this story that many of us in North America do not take to heart. God certainly does deserve our best, but does this include buying quality products for ministry use?
When we walk through our churches we can often find piles of donated junk. Someone decides to buy a 50-inch plasma screen television and then drops off their old 19-inch black and white for the church to use. Or someone buys a new basketball and gives the church their old one. We buy a new computer and donate our Vic 20. We've all done things like this. But does it honour God?
Just something else to think about.
this phenomena also happens between churches...
ReplyDeletei read a story recently of an american church that pledged to help an african church. however, as time passed, the african church heard nothing from their american brethren. after some inquiry, it turned out that the american congregation had voted to make improvements to their church (new vestibule? cafe?) and had no more money to give. the sad part was that the aid pledged was something like $30,000 and the improvements were something like $300,000.