Mega-church downsizes, cuts non-essential members - Lark News

Mega-church downsizes, c uts non-essential members

WINSTON-SALEM — Julie and Bob Clark were stunned to receive a letter from their church in July asking them to “participate in the life of the church” — or worship elsewhere.

“They basically called us freeloaders,” says Julie.

“We were freeloaders,” says Bob.

In a trend that may signal rough times for wallflower Christians, bellwether mega-church Faith Community of Winston-Salem has asked “non-participating members” to stop attending.

“No more Mr. Nice Church,” says the executive pastor, newly hired from Cingular Wireless. “Bigger is not always better. Providing free services indefinitely to complacent Christians is not our mission.”

“Freeloading” Christians were straining the church’s nursery and facility resources and harming the church’s ability to reach the lost, says the pastor.

“When your bottom line is saving souls, you get impatient with people who interfere with that goal,” he says.

Faith Community sent polite but firm letters to families who attend church services and “freebie events” but never volunteer, never tithe and do not belong to a small group or other ministry. The church estimates that of its 8,000 regular attendees, only half have volunteered in the past 3 years, and a third have never given to the church.

“Before now, we made people feel comfortable and welcome, and tried to coax them to give a little something in return,” says a staff member. “That’s changed. We’re done being the community nanny.”

Surprisingly, the move to dis-invite people has drawn positive response from men in the community who like the idea of an in-your-face church.

“I thought, ‘A church that doesn’t allow wussies — that rocks,’” says Bob Clark, who admires the church more since they told him to get lost.

He and Julie are now tithing and volunteering. “We’ve taken our place in church life,” he says. •

Source: LarkNews.com

Love For His People Editor's Note: In January I wrote in my Ahava Love Letter - Now Think On This the topic, "Less IS More". (You can find it by using the SEARCH button in the top right hand corner of this blog.) Briefly, I shared that I believe the Lord is going to do away with the large ministries/one man band concept so prevalent these last 40 years, and focus on small teams. After all, that is how Jesus did it. And after all, He is God, Who knows how to do it right. 

Steve Martin

Founder/Writer

Love For His People, Inc.

“How Shall We Then Give?” Ahava Love Letter (Steve Martin)

                   

                        “How Shall We Then Give?”

 “…and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.” (Luke 8:3, NASU)

Dear family of friends,

Have you ever heard of the book, “How Should We Then Live?” It was written by Francis A. Schaeffer in 1955. I read it in the 80’s and remember it gave me something to ponder (dictionary: to think about (something) carefully, especially before making a decision or reaching a conclusion.)

Lately even more so I have been asking the Lord about the way we support Christian ministries - how they request funds, and how should we then respond. Or as I keep seeking of the Lord, “how shall we then give?”

What is His plan? Is His example the same as the model we have basically followed for the last 30 years, as we respond to requests from monthly ministry contribution mailings, commercials on radio and TV showing needs abounding all over, e-mails coming into our InBox, or through websites having ads on almost every site we get on? I have been pondering.

As I am sure you have, we have heard it all. Tithe here. Send your offering there. “This need is real urgent, call now the 800 number shown on your screen.” Is that really how our Prime Example, Jesus (Yeshua) did it? Of course, you and I know He didn’t have all this modern technology, but isn’t His Word eternal, the same yesterday, today and forever, and we can learn from Him? We should learn from Him. That also holds true in how we support ministry.

If you believe that, yes, His example given in His Word is true, there is something then that we can learn by HOW HE DID IT. We can learn from Him as to how His ministry was provided for. Might we then consider reconsidering how we give - in our support of those we do now, or for those whom we should be, but haven’t been supporting, and now should instead?

Here is one example of how Jesus did it. His ministry means was provided by those who knew Him. In fact, Scripture even gives specific names of some who gave provision for the ministry of Jesus. The first three verses of Luke 8 read, "Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demonshad gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means."

We can learn from the importance of why the writer Luke even specifies the names of some women (that note well taken.) These people were those who personally knew the one they were supporting. I would imagine they even walked with Him, saw how He ministered, knew His family and certainly knew His lifestyle. Because they knew, they gave in support of His work. They gave to the one they were familiar with and trusted.

How familiar are you with the one who has the costly half hour infomercials, and after convincing you to give your $10, $25 or more, “for the need is great”, do you ever see or know exactly where it has gone? (Most likely a good percentage of it will have to go to pay for the TV production, airtime, staff and more.)

Having worked with three major ministries, as the Director of Operations and Finances over a period of 24 years (these each having budgets of over one million dollars annually) I daily saw how money was raised and spent. And on a regular basis I did reviews of other ministries with large budgets and expenditures, to gain further perspective. It will amaze you, and at times it did me. Years later it caused me to seriously consider how funds for our ministry, Love For His People, would come in.

My encouragement to you would be to give to those ministers and ministry whom you personally know. By having a relationship with them, and not just in giving money, you can see how they themselves live. This will very well be a good indication as to where your generous gifts are actually going. Or you might even get to know the ones that their work assists. This too is a good indicator.

But if you can’t do that, might you yourself ponder for a bit and seek the Lord, if you are to redirect your giving? Jesus knew His supporters, and they knew Him. His ministry didn’t get so large that the relationship was no longer there among His supporters.

I believe the time will come, sooner than later, that the Lord will shake down in size those ministries that have gotten too big, and the relationships aren’t real. He will have caused us to join together and support one another in small teams, where the huge expenditures for big TV budgets, radio airtime, and staffs won’t be the norm. He will get us back to basics, just as He and Paul did it. And we know what they accomplished.

The Word also says to “Know those who labor among you” in 1 Thessalonians 5:12. It might also mean to know those who you support for the work of the ministry. To me, that speaks of an ongoing relationship.

Jesus knew how to do it. Paul knew how to do it. I want to follow their examples in how you and I do it.

Ahava to my family of friends,

Steve Martin

Founder, Love For His People

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA organization. Fed. ID#27-1633858.

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Ahava Love Letter #98   “How Shall We Then Give?”   Steve Martin 

Date: In the year of our Lord 2014 (01.06.14) Monday at 9:00 pm in Charlotte, NC).

All previous editions of Ahava Love Letter can be found on this Blog, and our newest website: Ahava LoveLetters

Time to Call It In - Won’t somebody help me by standing up to testify & say Amen? Jim Croft

Time to Call It In - Won’t somebody help me by standing up to testify & say Amen?  
Jim Croft  

I have travelled the globe in ministry for over 40 years and have been in well over 40 nations.  The trips were financed by $s from the sacrificial giving of tenderhearted and generous American Christians.  The wonderful saints who have given to ministries like mine have significant untapped funds available to them.

For many, it’s high time to call in funds from that which they have stored in the heavenly accounts over the nations where they sowed for the sake of the furthering the Kingdom.  This is especially so in regard to those who have added to the billions of $s given through the years to impoverished and developing nations.

Curiously, it is apparent that the indigenous ministers and ministries that have been sown into for continuous decades by American ministries have not learned the principles of sowing into those who have blessed them spiritually. (1Cor 9:7-11)  It’s rare for indigenous clergy and churches to reciprocate by giving American ministers offerings.  This is rude protocol that needs correction.

Many claim that the churches of other nations are too poor to give.  That is an unbiblical notion.  No one is too poor to give.  In addition, countless clergymen from many countries regularly fly to the USA to speak at conferences and churches in order to reap humongous offerings from soft-touch American believers.  I have ministered at some of those visitors’ home turf fellowships in afar-off lands.  I have observed at firsthand, that many don’t have the slightest hint of unmet needs.

Without exaggeration, I can say that as often as not, the foreigners have more elaborate homes and well equipped offices than the USA pastors who invite them to speak in the USA.  In many African nations, any pastor that does not have a luxury car and a fulltime chauffer is not considered by his indigenous peers to have achieved full-stride success in ministry.  

It might be said that the people who comprise the US funding base for global missions are as naïve and gullible as they are sweet and generous.  I think they would be quickly sobered if some of the more famous foreign revivalists that minister in their churches were scrutinized by the American News Media.

US Christiana don’t take kindly to learning that funds they gave to bless the poor and neglected in faraway places were primarily used to boost the lifestyles of some clergymen to gaudy levels of extravagance.  Stateside pastors who have been exposed as manipulators for personal gain by the media usually repent and return to their original desire to serve Christ as humble servants.

I am a giver and will continue to give with discretionary cheerfulness to missions, but I am not happy about seeing my countrymen played.  The ability of  US citizens to have been so generous for the purposes of the Kingdom and for disaster victims worldwide for centuries is a blessed privilege more so than a burden.   Nevertheless, the Bible endorses the concept of reciprocal giving.

Churches, ministries and ministers of supposed needy nations that have received from the believers of affluent nations are to have a mindset to give back when their benefactors are going through trials.  This is so that there might be equality. (2Cor 8:13-14)  This principle is a preventative against the believers of one nation endlessly financing the churches of developing nations that have had plenty of time to start exercising faith to be self-supportive and to sow seeds elsewhere.

I cannot believe the hindrance has been poverty and societal idolatry.  We must remember that the Church was launched in a period of harsh religious-political persecution, slavery, widespread poverty, food shortages, high taxation, and cultures satiated with occultism.  Yet, the churches of that day in every nation quickly became self- supporting and sowed into traveling ministries of foreigners.  

We need to ask ourselves why we continually have to support churches in nations that are not directly under political and religious persecution and have a rapidly expanding middleclass.  There are many believers in other nations that are far more dependent on America for their livelihood than they are on faith in God.  This should not be so.

Spiritual slothfulness is rampant in many countries where believers ought to be making faith confessions about what they have sown in order to reap harvests to overcome their circumstance. Shoe now on other Foot Many generous US believers have been going through tough times over the past number of years.  I believe that they have an untapped source from their faithful sowing during times of plenty.

It is the manifold return of all they have sown into foreign missions and ministers throughout the years.  Most conscientious Christians have a huge harvest waiting on them.  All they need do is to wake-up and call it in. Start naming the foreign works and workers that you have sowed into and call in your harvests from them with great expectation.

Please remember that God laid it on your heart to give to them.  It is reasonable and biblical to anticipate that he will lay it on their hearts to bless you.  It is just as possible for God to put your name, your ministry on the heart of someone in a foreign land as it has historically been for him to put their names on your heart.

I’m not speaking from theological theory.  I’ve experienced what I’m speaking about on numerous occasions.  My wife and I had a $5,000 need and we don’t make our needs known to others.  That week a brother from a former political and religious oppressed nation was on a flight to the USA.  The Lord spoke to him about Prudence and me during his journey here.  Upon arrival, he invited us to dinner as I had him countless times when ministering in his nation.  During the meal he told us what the Lord had said and gave us an envelope that contained $5,000 in cash.

On other occasions, my bank has called to say $1,000 or more had been wired into my account.  I recently spoke on this theme to those in my house church.  I led them in a session of “calling it from foreign heavenly bank accounts.”  Within the following week, we received $3,000 from unexpected sources.  I instantly gave $3,400 to a stateside ministry couple who have been struggling for several years.

Am I rich?  No!  There was a day when I piled up thousands in credit card debt to fly to distant ports to minister faith to needy people.  God completely revolutionized my perspective.  I’ve learned that when I’m outrageously generous towards my wife and toward others, God is outrageously generous towards me.

Call It In 

Don’t you think that it is about time for you to call in the treasures you have laid-up in foreign heavenly bank accounts?  The Lord is well able to bring you funds from where you’ve sown abroad.  Or, it might be that he’ll have the funds transferred into someone else’s stateside heavenly storage account who has been predisposed by God’s whisper to share with you.

One way or the other, it will come. Faith demands simplified boldness.

The simplicity is to say, God send money.  The boldness is to not be shy about the amount.  Your Heavenly Father is not staggered by monetary figures.  He is your friend and you have already proven through years of sacrificial giving that you are not greedy.  (Heb 6:10)

Remember, Father God is glorified when the prayers of Jesus’ people are answered. (Jn 15:7-8)  It is one of numerous signs that you are spiritually-minded and are abiding in the Vine.

Call it in!

Jim Croft

jcm888@comcast.net

Editor's Note: 

I wholeheartedly agree with Jim's words, "He is your friend and you have already proven through years of sacrificial giving that you are not greedy.  (Heb 6:10) Remember, Father God is glorified when the prayers of Jesus’ people are answered. (Jn 15:7-8)  It is one of numerous signs that you are spiritually-minded and are abiding in the Vine."

The photo below was added by me (just because I like photos and color!) 

Also, as for the support we provide to our friends in other countries, we have been to their homes. Our good pastor friend in India lives in a three room apartment and sleeps on a cot in Hyderabad. One family in Jerusalem, with four kids, soon to be five, live in a 700 square foot (if that) four room apartment. Another couple in Jerusalemwhom we support monthly live in an apartment provided by the ministry they volunteer with, while having little earthly goods of their own. 

You need to know those whom you are supporting. If you don't, then find ones you do.

Steve Martin

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. And as for our ministry, we do not take funds from the ministry for salaries or office rent. My full time accounting job, and my wife's daycare job provide for our living.