My Money Well Spent
I subscribe to a Christian magazine called "Outreach". It comes out six times a year and highlights what churches around the country are doing to reach the unchurched. Most of the time it has some really good ideas and thought provoking articles. The last issue was one of the few that I felt was a waste of time. The entire magazine dealt with what "we as churches could do to battle the evils of the Da Vinci Code movie". My personal thought was who cares? Is the Da Vinci Code really the most dangerous thing "The Church" should be worried about? The whole time I read that issue I kept thinking of all the money that was going to be thrown away to "fight" some movie. Money that could have been used in local homeless shelters or battered women homes. Maybe they could have saved that money and used it to send some medical mission teams to some third world countries or sponsored an organization that will actually make a difference.
I received my newest issue in the mail yesterday and my greatest fears were realized. They highlighted some of the church that "thought outside the box" and used the Da Vinci Code movie as an outreach tool. One church inparticular bought every ticket to the first 2 shows on opening night and then gave them to the people who walked up to buy them. They then invited the movie goers to come to their church and hear God's thoughts on the movie/book. The church review of how it went was something like this, "Everyone was surprised to see a church buying their tickets to the movie, and a few even came to visit us because of this." A FEW came to VISIT" doesn't sound like much of an outreach. The price tag for this event, $4,500!! So for almost five thousand dollars, this moronic church managed not to change lives physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, but instead get themselves a few more visitors.
This is what is wrong with church today! It makes me so angry I can barely gather my thoughts to write this. When are we as followers of Jesus going to wake up and realize that 90% of what our churches do are not "ministries" that Jesus would be a part of or proud of? The real question is what are we going to do to make some changes? How much longer are we going to spend our time, money, and resources fighting make believe enemies instead of addressing the real issues on society? Maybe that's it. Maybe it's easier to fight a movie or boycott and store then it is to walk into housing projects or povershed nations and offer help. Maybe we choose to not to serve like Jesus because we don't want to. If that's the case, are we followers of Christ or followers of ourselves?
I received my newest issue in the mail yesterday and my greatest fears were realized. They highlighted some of the church that "thought outside the box" and used the Da Vinci Code movie as an outreach tool. One church inparticular bought every ticket to the first 2 shows on opening night and then gave them to the people who walked up to buy them. They then invited the movie goers to come to their church and hear God's thoughts on the movie/book. The church review of how it went was something like this, "Everyone was surprised to see a church buying their tickets to the movie, and a few even came to visit us because of this." A FEW came to VISIT" doesn't sound like much of an outreach. The price tag for this event, $4,500!! So for almost five thousand dollars, this moronic church managed not to change lives physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, but instead get themselves a few more visitors.
This is what is wrong with church today! It makes me so angry I can barely gather my thoughts to write this. When are we as followers of Jesus going to wake up and realize that 90% of what our churches do are not "ministries" that Jesus would be a part of or proud of? The real question is what are we going to do to make some changes? How much longer are we going to spend our time, money, and resources fighting make believe enemies instead of addressing the real issues on society? Maybe that's it. Maybe it's easier to fight a movie or boycott and store then it is to walk into housing projects or povershed nations and offer help. Maybe we choose to not to serve like Jesus because we don't want to. If that's the case, are we followers of Christ or followers of ourselves?
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