Hundred Million Dollar Churches

I just finished reading a great book with a group of friends. The book is called, “Jesus Wants to Save Christians” by Rob Bell. There are probably a thousand statements in the book that I could use for a blog topic, but I've picked just one that had significant impact on the way I view my faith and my responsibility as a Christ-follower. So here it is:

“Jesus wants to save [Christians] from shrinking the gospel down to a transaction about the removal of sin and not about every single particle of creation being reconciled to its maker.”

America makes up less than 5% of the world’s population yet controls 20% of the world’s wealth.

One billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, while the average American uses 400-600 liters of water a day.

Every 7 seconds, somewhere in the world a child under age five dies of hunger, while Americans throw away 14% of the food we purchase.

40% of people in the world lack basic sanitation, while 49 million diapers are used and thrown away in America every day.

Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half of the world does on all goods.

Never before in all of human history has the world seen a superpower as wealthy and as powerful as The United States of America. We have more at our disposal than any people group anywhere at any time has ever had. So here’s the premise of the book (something that will make you think):

Empires accumulate.

Accumulation gives birth to Entitlement.

Entitlement demands preservation.

Preservation is self-serving.

Preservation is costly.

The US accounts for 48% of global military spending. Less than 5% of the world’s population purchases nearly half of the world’s weapons. If we can spend a trillion dollars on a war, what else we could spend a trillion dollars on?

Most of the bible is written history told by people living in lands occupied by the superpower empires of their day. So it’s very difficult then to fully grasp and understand the Bible when we read it as a people born into the most powerful and wealthy empire the world has ever seen. We’re reading it from the privileged side of power, the opposite side from which most of the writers of the Bible lived.

I heard a pastor this week talking to his church about the need for some of his people to move out of their most attended and crowded service which is no longer growing because there are just not enough seats, to a different service time of which they offer quite a few, so that their church could continue to grow and reach more unchurched people for Christ. Sounds like a simple request, but do you think people are really moving by the droves to give up their seat at their service for someone else? Why should they? After all, they were there first. Why can’t they just encourage the new people to attend one of the other services?

A few weeks ago, while Katie and I were traveling, we caught an interesting story on the national news. They were talking about a church, a Christian church that spent more than 100 million dollars (one hundred million, in case you thought that was a misprint) on their worship center. Who am I to judge what another church spends their money on? After all, they’re a much larger church than any I have ever attended which means they have more money coming in every week which means they have more money to spend which means they can throw 100 million dollars into a church building that looks pretty and makes the Christians who go there feel very privileged. The question I have to ask though is, if we can spend 100 million dollars on a church building, what else could we spend 100 million dollars on?

It’s complicated I know. We are privileged. And yes, God has blessed America. We should be grateful and continue to expand and grow and influence. The problem is, blessing can become a burden, a curse, if it’s not handled God's way. We are made a blessing not for accumulation and self-gain but to be a blessing to others.

Christianity is so much more than a simple transaction about the removal of sin.

“To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity.” –Rodney Stark, Historian

Christianity is living life as Christ lived life. Christianity is standing up for the weak. Christianity is taking care of the widow and the orphan. Christianity is remembering our redemption through Jesus on the cross, remembering our Exodus as people who were once in exile and separated from God brought back into relationship with God through Jesus’ selfless sacrifice.

Christianity is remembering, remembering where we came from, remembering that we, who were once dead in our transgressions, have been made alive in Christ.

Christianity is identifying with the hurting, the sick, the poor, the oppressed and the suffering, even if the suffering is happening in another world, another place far from the comforts of our own privileged homes.

Christianity is movement, action. Christianity is to be embraced and expressed through selfless sacrifice and sacrificial giving. Christianity is lived.

So there it is. What do you think?

I think Jesus wants to save Christians from the exile of irrelevance.