Keep the change?

Look, I'm not on staff at any church nor I am a member of any committee, nobody "clears" The Blue Book first or sends either "suggested post topics" or follow-ups to my In-Box ... so get mad at me if you wanna, 'cause I take 100% responsibility for what you read here. And am trying real hard to stay on the ball, since limited web access means I only got about 8 minutes to write and post this.

I got angry this morning when I heard about our church's new capital campaign. See, leadership feels God is calling the local church where I'm a member to built a new youth facility, a new children's building, and meet certain needs in our community ... all of which is gonna cost some bucks.

Yeah, lots of bucks. So here comes a new campaign. The church needs more money and that's what got me started. $20 million is the figure I wrote down. That's 20,000,000 smackeroos.
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First I did the math, to try making sense of such HUGE numbers.. Let's say a hypothetical church has 4000 members. $20 million divided by 4000 members = pledges of $5000 bucks apiece. Spread out over 5 years, that's $1000 per person/per year.

Now there's 365 days in a year, so dividing $1000 per year by 365 = $2.74 per day for five years. Is the big picture starting to come into focus a little bit?

I got angry because I caught myself doubting the hearts of people who're being called upon to give.
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"Hey now, wait a minute Joe. A new youth building and foreign mission stuff sounds great and everything, but I got bills and things to pay." Then you should pay what you owe ... but stop borrowing money to buy more things you don't need so you can owe even more.

Just think for a minute about whatever "thing" you'd been thinking so lovingly about buying next.
-Thinking about adding-on a swimming pool? A pool is just a big bathtub that stinks like chlorine.
-New shoes (closet's so big you can't find the one you've already got)?
-A 2008-model car?
-A network-capable GPS/radar for the boat? (who, me?)

Shoot, after church today I swung by Bi-Lo to pick up a few things, and realized I spend more than $2.64 every day on stinkin' potato chips and Ramen noodles. Which only made me angrier ... the biggest "financial situation" facing a body of believers ought to be "What are we gonna do with all this money?"

After all, how much did you pay for your salvation ... and how much is one person's soul worth? For believers, who've witnessed the change that happens when Christ comes into your life, is the joy of knowing that God Keeps His Promise worth more than $2.74 per day ... especially when it's used to preach and share the gospel throughout our community? (Folks, we're talking about the richest country on the planet here. Isn't that worth twice the amount ... $5 bucks a day, I mean really).

I'm a simpleton, I am, a guy who's comfortable with the basics and don't like gray areas much, least of all near our checkbooks. And anyway, how much would you have paid for someone else to step up, and take your place in the crucifixion line?

Cause somebody named Jesus Christ already did.