At the church where I serve, we are coming to the
conclusion of a sermon series entitled treasure. During this series, we have
been spending our time together looking at what the Bible has to say about the
subject of money and finances. We discovered that the Bible
teaches that how we handle our money and finances is a big deal. We have
discovered that Jesus talked so much about treasure because how we handle our
treasure reveals what we treasure. We have discovered that when it comes to treasure, God is the owner and we are the
manager.
We have
discovered that when it comes to treasure, the measure for how we manage God’s
treasure is faithfulness. We have discovered
that when it comes to
treasure, debt reveals an arrogance that enslaves us. We have discovered that when
it comes to treasure, those who fail to plan for the future financially plan to
fail financially in the future. Last week, we addressed the issue of giving and
discovered that when it comes to treasure, we are to give generously because
Jesus is generous.
Now this week, I would like for us to spend our time
together talking about a specific aspect of giving that we have recently
entered into at the church where I serve. And that specific aspect of giving
involves a Capital Campaign that began this past January to raise two million
dollars to build a New Family Life Center.
Now for some of you, as soon as I mentioned the subject
of this morning’s sermon, an immediate response was provoked within you. For
some of you, that immediate response was one of skepticism. And if we were to
have a conversation out at the Courtyard Coffeehouse, the conversation would
sound something like this: “See Dave, I
knew it! I knew the only reason why you were doing this sermon series was so
that you would get me to give money to the building campaign.”
For others of you, that immediate response was one of
questioning. And if we were to have a conversation out at the Courtyard
Coffeehouse, the conversation would sound something like this: “Dave do we really need a new Family Life
Center? I mean couldn’t that money be used in a much better way than just
building a building?”
For others
of you, that immediate response was one of resistance. And if we were to have a
conversation out at the Courtyard Coffeehouse, the conversation would sound
something like this: “Dave I totally
disagree with the idea of a Capital Campaign. The church is not supposed to
spend its time and resources raising money to build buildings. The church is
supposed to spend its time and resources building people into the image of
Jesus. The church is supposed to spend its time and resources spreading the
gospel. I mean, you didn’t see Jesus spending His time and resources building
buildings, did you. I just wonder if this whole capital Campaign idea is even
Biblical.”
And for
some of you, that immediate response was one of being overwhelmed. And if we were to have a conversation out at the
Courtyard Coffeehouse, the conversation would sound something like this: “Dave, did I just hear you right? Did you say
two million dollars? I mean why don’t you just ask for two trillion dollars!
How do you possibly think that we are going to raise two million dollars? I
mean, that’s a lot of money.”
Now if I have just described the response that this
subject provoked within you, I just want to let you know that those responses
are legitimate responses. And because of that reality, my goal is to address
each of those responses in a way that expresses why we as a church believe so strongly
in the concept of this capital campaign.
Now if, I was able to have a conversation in the
courtyard coffeehouse with those of you whose immediate reaction to the concept
of a capital campaign was one of skepticism, here would be my response to that
skepticism: “As I have stated repeatedly, we are not
doing this so that you would give money to the building campaign. We are not
doing this with the sole goal that we would get more of your money.
Instead,
our hope and our prayer is that God would move in our heads and our hearts in a
way that results in us embracing some timeless truths and principles when it
comes to money that will enable us to live our day to day lives in a way that
reveals and reflects Jesus head, heart, and hands when it came to the issue of
money and finances. We are doing this, because as we discovered in the first
week of this series, how we handle our treasure reveals what we truly treasure.
And our hope and prayer is that we would handle our treasure in a way that demonstrates
our trust in Jesus as our supreme treasure.”
In
addition, if I was able to have
a conversation in the courtyard coffeehouse with those of you whose immediate
reaction to the concept of a capital campaign was one of questioning, here
would be my response to that questioning: “The reason why we really need a new
Family Life Center is due to the fact that our current Family Life Center is
too small, too old, and too outdated to continue handle the current amount of
usage that it handles.
To give you a little bit of perspective, every Sunday
morning, there are approximately 60 children and 20 volunteer staff using the
Family Life Center for Kids Konnection. That number does not include, the 16
children and 5 staff in the nursery building.
During Wednesday evenings, there are approximately 75 children and 30
adults using the Family Life Center during AWANA. At the same time, there are
between 15-20 Jr. High students and 5 staff using the Family Life Center for
Fusion Jr. High.
There is literally not a single room on this campus that
is not used on Wednesday nights and most of those rooms ore overcrowded. In
addition, there are only 11 spaces on the entire campus for someone to use the
bathroom during that time. The Family Life Center, which was built in 1971, is
outdated and can only be completely, not partially renovated. In other words,
you cannot just add on to the current structure without updating the entire
structure. So we are at a place where we are limiting our ability for our
amazing volunteers to love and serve children, students, and their families as
a result of a facility that is too small, too old, and too outdated to continue
handle the current amount of usage that it handles.
If I was able to have a conversation in the courtyard
coffeehouse with those of you whose immediate reaction to the concept of a
capital campaign was one of resistance: if I was able to have a conversation in the courtyard
coffeehouse with those of you whose immediate response to the concept of a
capital campaign would be to say “The church is not supposed to spend its time
and resources raising money to build buildings. The church is supposed to spend
its time and resources building people into the image of Jesus. Jesus didn’t
spending His time and resources building buildings. I just wonder if this whole
capital Campaign idea is even Biblical.”
Here would be my response to that resistance: Throughout
the pages of the letters that make up the Bible, we see several examples of
God’s people raising resources for a space for people to encounter God. For
example, in 1 Chronicles 29, we see King David lead the Jewish people in a
Capital Campaign to raise resources to build the Temple in Jerusalem. The
Jewish nation had become one of the most powerful and prosperous nations on
that planet during King David’s rule, and King David wanted to honor God for
blessing the Jewish people by building a space where God would dwell among the
Jewish people.
In addition, in three different letters that are recorded
for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the books of Ezra, Nehemiah,
and Haggai, we see God’s people come together as a result of God’s leading
through godly leadership to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem after it was
destroyed by the invading Babylonian Empire in 586 b.c. However, it is in a
section of another letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the
Old Testament of the Bible, called the book of Exodus, that I would like for us
to spend our time together looking at.
And it is in this section of this letter that provides
for us some timeless and timely principles that serve as a response to the
potential resistance and the potential overwhelming feeling that comes with the
concept of a two million dollar Capital Campaign.
Tomorrow, we will begin to look at this section of this
letter…
No comments:
Post a Comment