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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Donate or Die

Donate now! read the flashing banner in the corner of the website I was using to learn a little history on the church at Corinth. As I closed the window in disgust, I began to wonder why it bothered me. Everywhere you look in modern Christianity, it seems, there's a beggarly hand held out for your spare change: on the corner of a website featuring an eloquently written and well researched historical article, In the basket that goes around at any church you attend while the preacher 'tenderly exhorts' you to give generously; Even in a military chapel where money for the bills and the chaplain's paycheck are already taken care of by Uncle Sam.
But as a Christian, I should be able to look at the issue maturely, taking away anything to be learned from the situation, and 'spitting out the bones' as the old analogy would run, right?
Or does it bother me because it bothers unbelievers, who are turned off by this unprofessional and seemingly faithless approach to meeting the 'needs' of the 'church'?
I wish there was a way to freeze any financial intake for churches that had to be requested, and see which ones actually survived because the members stepped up and met the need,
without having to be prompted every sunday that they're going to get 40 virgins (or whatever reward you want to throw out there, although the latter would probably elicit a generous revenue from the guys) if they give their pennies to "God's work".
Alright, I got to rant about that for a minute. Now I'll get back to my original intent... Coming soon: a look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

5 comments:

Rhonda said...

Whoa! I thought I would fall over when I saw a new post in my feed from here!
I totally understand what you mean.
I will look forward to your post. My dad has been preaching through I and II Corinthians for several months.

Hannah said...

Glad to see a post! That issue bothers me tremendously though I try not to let it. Whatever happened to trusting God???? No, I mean TRUSTING him, without doing anything on your part to "help" him!

Unknown said...

There's a little brown church in northern New Mexico that has not once, in 6 years passed a plate asking for a donation. We first heard of the idea from a lady who now lives in Michigan when she told us of a church she had attended. We didn't want to ask anyway and decided at the beginning to do it that way. The Lord lets us support 8 missionaries at $50 monthly and one at $25, plus sending all of them a check for $500 a month ago. Now our problem is we have too much cash on hand and don't know what to do with it. Praise the LORD!

Unknown said...

Forgot what I wanted to say originally, the red print on a black background is very difficult for old eyes. How about a post now and then like the comments (black on white) that is easy to read? Hang in there we're watching the news and pray you won't be caught in something like 60 years ago.
Papa Dick

Faith34 said...

I just have one question, at the top it says,"Anonymous comments will be deleted." but if you CAN'T comment as anonymous, why did you write that?? Just wondering....oh and it would be nice to see a new post.... : )