LET’S GIVE IT UP FOR… GOD!

In our part of the world, there are beautiful country churches, painted up and well-groomed… locked tight against threats of vandalism. There is no longer any worship to be held in these buildings, except for special occasions and festivals. Resources are available from careful investments, with demands they be used for the maintenance of the building. There is no ministry for anyone to pursue. Instead, the mission is to protect a space of remembrance, of recollection of grand old days.

Investments protect the building, the grounds, and the cemeteries that hold the remains of loved ones and ones long gone. What would the forebears of these structures think of this witness? Pride, you reckon?

Jesus had devoted followers who gave up their lives for His Church. Were they too stupid to know that what was really important was to secure the pinnacle places of faith? Had they no thought of providing places for people to go, so they could better remember Jesus and His love? Why didn’t they purchase the Upper Room, or develop some means of purchasing Calvary, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion? Think of the money to be generated for Christ’s Church, with more funds to buy more spaces of religious significance, so long ago! Talk about church growth!

There are at least two reasons for such “lack of foresight” from the disciples. First, they were a group of outcasts, who readily knew from Jesus’ death what awaited them if they witnessed to anybody about Him! Second, they would have defied what Jesus had told them to do: “Go… and make disciples… baptizing them… and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you.”

Jesus is not into real estate. He owns the whole world. The money you give as “your gift” is already His, and it is for the Church, for people to learn they can become His people. When the offering is given appropriately, it’s indeed “the Church’s money”.

It isn’t your money or my money. It is God’s resource, for God’s use, for God’s people.

Leaf Mountain Lutheran Church doesn’t know what its future holds. We don’t have the people we would like to have coming to join us for worship on a regular basis. Ours is an aging congregation, with fewer and fewer people of less and less strength to do much more than “go and tell”.

Programs aren’t written for our “predicament”, but then programs anticipate artificial intelligence, like forecasts of city growth and community development. They cannot predict the future.

Covid was devastating to church life in lots of places, but Leaf Mountain Lutheran Church was not overwhelmed. We yet plan, and we adjust, and we scheme… but the future of our establishment is entirely in the hands of God.

Many small rural churches have learned there is nobody out there that will come to help us. We have learned, perhaps too well, how to take care of ourselves. If others can’t make it, that’s just too bad. We all know insurance is necessary, and funds for emergencies are critical. Sometimes we can look to each other for immediate assistance, but after that we just kind of hope people will come to see our little church in the country. If another congregation fizzles out, we hope there are people from those places who might wander our way. Maybe we could have a choir again, or maybe they would develop our Bible Study groups.

Maybe… probably not.

The truth is your gift, as a small congregation, could be to invest some of the money you “control” now. Direct some of your “rainy day funds” to places that are really seeing a vibrant response to Jesus, where floods of people stand now in real need of His Living Water!

We all have some things that are dear to us, things that we really hold in high regard, that we hope to leave our children. Most of those cherished possessions are unwanted by those we hope to give it to. Perhaps you have something really big to pass on, like property or land. For all the promises given, you can’t possibly govern what happens to even those precious resources when you die and are “out of the picture”.

It’s the same for the resources compiled by a congregation. The money secured for their ministry goes elsewhere for use to be determined by someone else, unless it is retained for building maintenance.

Oh, isn’t God happy with that!

Surviving members don’t get to divide the money and head to Cancun for a vacation. The funds go to the governing church body.

If you want to have a hand in where those accrued finances go, spend it while your congregation’s hands are yet warm. You can invest right now in God’s doings, and revel in the difference it can make for some young child to hear of Christ Jesus and His love for them right now.

If you have grandchildren, and your kids don’t want you to “poison” their minds with Jesus, you can send your money to where His witness is resonating. Someone’s grandchild will hear about Him.

I was raised with the notion that “God’s family is bigger than our family.” All God’s children and grandchildren need to hear of Jesus and His love. They don’t need to see the place you were baptized, they need the love of Christ proclaimed, and the relief their sins are truly forgiven.

Whether in Africa, in Estonia, Milwaukee, Shanghai or Keewatin, Minnesota, the money will be taken to do God’s work in God’s world with your say-so.

Remember, it’s not your money. It’s not my money. It’s God’s money, and He is unimpressed with the strength of any congregational financial profile, even less by beautiful, wondrous empty church buildings.