207 — Debt and Doubt
Here is a quick one. I was unable to enter the museum of Civil Rights today because it is closed on Tuesdays! I’ll try to go back in the morning.
When a church borrows money or takes out a mortgage on a building is that like telling God that what he has provided is not good enough? It seems like we are telling God we do not trust him to completely take care of the situation, so we will help him out (anyone remember Sarah?). If God is trying to teach us to rely on him as a congregation by removing our monetary safety net, and we choose to replace the net with a loan doesn’t that seem to imply that God will go about removing the other safety net as well in order to teach the lesson?
In a word: no. This is not a parallel situation with Abraham and Sarah. They had been directly visited by heavenly visitors throughout their lives, assuring them that God would do great things through them at the right time. When they decided to form a committee — shall we say — to facilitate the birth of a child, they did so knowing that God had repeatedly said HE would do it. Elders, ministers, and building committees have no such heavenly assurance.
I am not one of those who believes that all debt is bad. The Bible does tell us not to owe any person anything but to love them, but we need to be careful in how we apply that passage. I have a mortgage, for instance. Yet, today, I owe the bank nothing. We have made that agreement. On the first of the month, I need to get a certain amount of money into them and once again I will owe them nothing for a further month. I didn’t walk into a field and trust God to provide shelter for me… because He never promised that He would! He designed me to use my brain and He also required me to care for my family. I found a way to do that that included a mortgage. That mortgage is HUGELY beneficial to the bank… I know that. But it is also HUGELY beneficial to me!
Churches and people can certainly make horrible mistakes with credit. We see that all the time. As a nation, we can even vote people into office who double and triple our debt with no more concern or thought than they would eating a sandwich. If I am shopping to make myself feel better (so called “retail therapy”) and going into debt (or, just as important, denying God use of those funds in mission and ministry), there is a case to me made that what I am doing is sinful. However, to provide for a place for Christians to gather, celebrate, develop ministries, etc. is not sinful in and of itself even if it requires going into debt. If they go too much into debt or make a building that is bigger and fancier than necessary, that is another issue. I have even heard elderships say that they were going so far into debt BECAUSE of their faith. They believed that God would supply more Christians and more giving down the road. I wasn’t excited about that line of thought. It seemed presumptuous.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:35 am
I know of churches in very poor circumstances and ones in very affluent areas that have very nice facilities and have never borrowed a dime. It is possible to only build after you have the funds.
My limited experences has been that Bible churches commonly do not borrow. At least some of the ones I’ve known didn’t.
If most church budgets are looked at closely, spending doesn’t match biblical priorities. I have been a part of churches that borrowed lots of money and then struggled to make the payments. I don’t see that grand building are that necessary.
Royce
September 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
We are currently debt-free on our building, but we went through some hard times to get that way. I am in agreement with you on this, Patrick. Not all debt is bad. One is going to pay for a place to live, whether it is directly to a bank or to a landlord. In either case, you are likely paying a mortgage. In the latter case, you are paying the mortgage for the landlord.
The original questioner might just as well have asked, “When we take out a mortgage on a building, aren’t we trusting him to provide for that mortgage every month?”
September 16th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I don’t know that it’s always doubt as much as it is impatience. Many churches aren’t content renting or leasing or having to multiple services. So, they end up in debt, diverting resources from what actually may be higher priorities (to God) to pay for the interest rate of immediacy.
It’s not surprising, really, when you consider that’s how most in our society and the church handle their personal finances, too.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
No disagreement from this guy. I knew of a church in Alabama that had tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in a savings account … “just in case they needed to replace the roof” was the official line. When Otis Gatewood came through that area asking for money to get Bibles into the Soviet Union, this church eldership refused to give a dime of their savings. “Just in case ….”
Not exactly the Q/A posed here, but it just reminded me of that situation. I would strongly agree with Royce’s comment above: “If most church budgets are looked at closely, spending doesn’t match biblical priorities.” A pet peeve of mine, but I’m content to let the leadership of churches give an answer to God for that. I’ll just give me offerings in faith.
September 17th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
It’s always interesting to note what provokes the “need” for a new building. If it’s due to maintenance issues, that’s one thing. If it’s due to a “want,” that’s something else. It seems that whenever the need for a new building comes about followed by financial woes, someone mandates Sunday morning lessons on financial giving.
I recently moved to a new location where I visited a congergation and noted its new building. Considering the congergation relies heavily on its military population, it wouldn’t / couldn’t depend on building a new facility while taking out a loan to do so. It continues to take awhile, but the building continues to be built with contributed man power and no bank note.
September 17th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I’m reading a book right now called Irresistable Influence — one of the things that their church has decided is that no more money’s going into the ground. Their resources are going to go into being salt and light in Little Rock.
Scary decision, but I think I like it.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:49 am
We financed our expansion “in house” 5 years ago.
We raised a little less than 500K.
Interestingly, many of the quarterly interest payments end up right back in the contribution plate…we’ve also had about 100k of principal returned in a similar fashion.
Our outstanding balance is a little less than 200k now.
Economic conditions have hit us pretty hard and we may be required to slow down a bit on our payback which is fine as far as I’m concerned.
I was talking to a missionary we support the other day and he asked me how we were doing financially and if he thought we’d be able to continue our monthly support.
Fortunately, the attitude here is that the last thing we will cut is our mission and benevolence budgets. We’ll find ways to save money cut back on some niceties and even reduce or freeze staff budget a bit before that happens.