MONEY OR MINISTRY

How many places today remain God’s temple; a house of prayer?  Whenever I hear the cry that “this ministry needs your support”, and that support is money, I wonder if it’s a ministry Jesus would support.  Jesus cleansed the temple of God in Jerusalem by driving out all those who bought and sold, overturned the tables of the money changers, and those who sold animals for others to use as their sacrifice.  People no longer needed to bring something of theirs to sacrifice; they could purchase their offering there.  It didn’t cost them anything of them selves; just their money.

 It seems like many ministries are founded upon the amount of money they can bring in to fund the ministry, or at least the running of the ministry.  So the ministry becomes dependent upon the money to keep it going.  When the money stops the ministry stops, the doors are locked, the buildings are deserted.  It seems to me that money is not a firm foundation to build upon; it is like building on shifting sand.

Money should be used as a servant of the ministry, not its master.  God is to be the Master and the people in the ministry are mere servants, not employees.  I have been a part of ministries where people were the major part of the foundation.  They gladly served with no thought of being paid for their services.  They saw their work as an offering, a ministry of service, not a job.  They had other jobs that provided for their needs; ministry was a gift to be offered, to God and to others.  Paul’s made his living as a tent maker; his ministry was to feed the masses, not put food on his table.

We have made ourselves dependent on money, just as we have made ourselves dependent on oil.  That dependence creates a need to sustain ourselves and our bad habits; it creates problems, tensions, and even wars.  I don’t sense this was God’s intent for His temple or for His world.

When money becomes the bottom line for a ministry, the ministry loses its focus and mission.  It becomes a priority to save the ministry, not the people it was to be ministering to.  Solutions to save the ministry that are conceived usually require asking for a sacrifice; we don’t want to sacrifice ourselves so we sacrifice others.  That is the world’s way.  Whenever a budget is cut it’s those that need the ministry the most, the poor and needy, that are cut off.

Businesses need hierarchy to survive.  True community cannot exist in a hierarchy.  The temple of God, the church is people in community; it was never meant to be a business.  Businesses fail for many reasons; lack of money, lack of vision, lack of good business practices.  The true church will not fail; it will have God’s provision, God’s vision, God’s practices, and it will stand forever to minister to people.