Sunshine
Trust the pie.
- Dec 17, 2009
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Church of the Nazarene - Offering Resources
"The World Evangelism Fund fuels the Church of the Nazarene’s global mission. Because we can do more working together than we can alone, every church shares a portion of income for the purpose of making Christlike disciples in the nations.
The global mission of the Church of the Nazarene is a strategic undertaking. To accomplish the Great Commission—spreading the gospel and the message of holiness around the world—requires significant funding.
In “self-funded” missions, missionaries must spend valuable time raising their own financial support. They conduct services, take offerings, receive pledges of support, and pray that they are able to raise sufficient funds themselves. Sometimes, their time of service is shortened by lack of resources. Larger churches are visited by more missionaries than they could possibly help, while some smaller churches are overlooked."
Meanwhile nearly a billion people, mostly children starve and/or suffer from malnutrition. All my life I've watched churches promote every manner of fund raising on their agenda and basically ignore what their charge was from the new testament...to take care of the poor.
Jesus himself said, 'the poor will be with us always.' And it was to Judus who had ridiculed a woman who had broken open a very expensive vial of perfume for Jesus. Jesus said that her loving action would stand as a monument to her through time. And it has. How many poor from those days can you cite?
What I have seen over the years is that when someone who isn't doing very well joins a church, they adopt the more orderly style of living, and stop wasting their money. They come to be acquainted with people who can help them get to a better place in life. That is far more productive in terms of fighting poverty than giving handouts, although most churches give handouts in astronomical proportions.
You've got it bad. As a matter of fact you're eat up with it. I helped keep the books in a Baptist church in Tennessee which had over 900 members. I worked on the building committee, was in the Brotherhood, served as an usher some times, worked with RA Boys, visited the sick on Tuesday evenings, prayer meetings on Wednesdays, etc. etc. etc. A modern church is nothing more than a microcosm of American society. Now....if you would like to modify your statement to 10% of the church membership I might agree...otherwise you missed it. Our church had about a hundred members who were regular tithers and less than that who attended more than one service a week. I was there and lived it for nearly 40 years.
That does not invoke the picture of you as a charitable person. You clearly believe that you put more into it than you got out of it. And what you get isn't really the point. Go back and read my edit to the post you just quoted.
How many poor do you help these days? I daresay none.