Thinking about money. . . again
Now I understand why my challenge to fuel a church planting movement is not being embraced with enthusiasm. For many parent churches and denominations it just hasn’t worked and now they are left to pick up the pieces—-financially, emotionally and spiritually.
A couple of thoughts:
1. Don’t send anyone out to plant a church with a guarantee of indefinite financial support. It’s bad for them and for you. Make sure you’ve first assessed people’s ability, readiness and calling. Don’t offer indefinite funding. Reality is a harsh but good teacher. Financial subsidies dull the pain of reality. Learn from the ducks at Jells’s Park.
2. If you want to fuel a church planting movement, the resources must come from the harvest. Central funding and control from a denominational system or parent church will not foster faith and responsibility at the edges. When your kids move out of home you want to be supportive of their efforts to stand on their own feet. You want a ongoing relationship. You want them, in their own way, to live out the values you’ve built into them. But you don’t want to be picking up the tab and making decisions for them.
My friend the denominational leader, left our time together wondering how to change his system of funding church planting. He has a kingdom heart. I’m praying he’ll come up with some answers that will work in his context and then go out and plant healthy, reproducing churches all over the place.
