The sad reality of a downturn in giving…

Elissa posted on it yesterday – and I’m not really sure I have time to talk about it as much as I’d like to, but I do want to “strike while the iron is hot” on this particular topic.

Yesterday I received an email from the president of the C&MA, Gary Benedict. He was sharing with us a letter that he had sent to the missionaries. In it, he said:

At the Board of Directors meeting in February, the budget for next fiscal year was set at $37.5 million, which is a decrease of $3.2 million from the present budget. I have been working with the team in Colorado Springs to make the appropriate adjustments. As difficult as it is, we are at the point of personnel reductions. This is an agonizing experience for leadership and the workers affected. The first week of March, personnel reductions were made at the National Office.

To meet the reduced budget target of $1.8 million less in International Ministries, plans have been made for a 5 percent reduction in missionary personnel above normal attrition. This represents 30 people. The International Ministries team, including field, regional, and National Office leaders, has poured itself out on a number of fronts to deal with the financial realities. Included have been focused times of prayer and fasting, initiatives to increase revenues, capping new appointments, additional cutbacks in field budgets, careful use of reserves, and selling of some assets to provide additional revenue streams. Many of the people who are working on this are present and former missionaries who have felt deep anguish over all of this.

As I read the letter, my heart sank. I know that this decision was not easy to make – and frankly, I’m not surprised it’s come to this. We’ve been seeing the GCF (Great Commission Fund – the fund used by the Alliance to finance missionaries) struggle to make budget, and the reality is that if giving doesn’t increase, spending decreases. We see that in local churches. We have a flat budget – same as last year, for our church – with no salary increases for pastors. We know this is part of the reality of ministry.

People pin it on all sorts of things – many people will say this is because of the recession, but I’m not convinced. This GCF struggle is not new with the downturn in giving. People blame it on generational issues – people not wanting to give to a “fund”, but I don’t think that’s completely true. Honestly – I think it’s a reflection of misplaced passions.

In the early years of Crown College, when it was still St. Paul Bible College, they would hold city-wide missions conferences where 20-30,000 people would attend. People would take off their jewelry and put it in the offering plates because they believed that giving to missions made a difference! They believed that lost people mattered to God, and that he desperately wanted them found. They sincerely believed that if they didn’t fund missions, lost people could die and go to hell.

That’s the heartbreaking thing for me. 30 missionaries will be coming home. Four couples – fully accredited and ready to go are not going to be sent. That has an eternal impact – because lost people will not be hearing the good news. I’m deeply grieved for the missionaries that will be coming home, I can’t imagine the heartache they will be experiencing – but I’m even more saddened that the result of this is that there are people who will not hear.

3.2 million dollars is a lot of money – but if 100,000 Alliance families gave $32.00 more a year, we would not have a problem. That’s less than $3.00 a month – $.75 a week.

To me the big problem isn’t that we’re in a recession. The big problem is that American Christians are not so impacted by the fact that people are lost and going to hell that it impacts their spending habits. Too many American Christians have determined that cell phones, satellite or cable TV, high-speed internet, fast-food excursions, and designer coffees are necessities. I’ve had couples in my office asking for financial help with humongous monthly cell phone bills. It’s astonishing what we have allowed to become needs. We’ve been incredibly blessed by God, yet we’ve used it for our own pleasures. Rarely do you hear of people sacrificially giving, because we’ve twisted our theology in such a way that our excess is a sign of God’s blessing. It’s perverse, and in our relatively small denomination, we are seeing the impacts of that.

I’m not sharing this in a boasting way – but Elissa and I have made decisions for our family that do have an impact on our luxuries. We chose to get out of debt and to support some ministries – so it means we do without. We tithe, give to our local church’s building fund above our tithe, and support the GCF. We also give some money to friends that are church planters. Every time we’ve upped our giving, we’ve had to make sacrifices. We don’t carry cell phones. We don’t have satellite tv, we have just 1 reliable car, we try to tightly regulate our expenses. Certainly – we also spend on some things. We do have high speed internet. We subscribe to Netflix. We purchased a new laptop. I remodeled our house last year. But – what we do is prayerfully consider what we should give, and then understand that it has a cost. For us – the fact that lost people will hear about Jesus is more important than having 150 channels at the touch of a button. I’m not trying to say that in a condemning way – but I think that we have lost that mindset in many of our churches. People don’t have to give what we give (and we’re not giving THAT much) – but they do have to realize that every yes to something is a no to something else. The lattes, the McDonald’s trips, the Satellite TV, the High Speed internet, and every other choice needs to be carefully scrutinized and should be prayed over. These things are not RIGHTs. The money we have is a gift from God – and needs to be used for His kingdom.

It’s one thing to say that we care about lost people. It’s another thing to actually let that impact your life choices. In our church of over 100 families, last year we had 17 families pledge to give to the GCF. More people than that gave, but still… more than 83 family units chose to not commit to monthly support of missions. I understand it’s a personal choice – but it is one with consequences. Some of my families couldn’t afford to give much – but I know that every one of them could afford $3.00 a month. Christianity is not a theoretical religion – it’s one that impacts our life. If we only care about lost people in theory, we are doing nothing to save them from hell. It must be practical.

I’m having trouble bringing this in for a landing, so I’ll just close with this – would you pray? Pray for the missionaries that will be hearing that they have to come home, but also pray about how you can be a part of the team that’s reaching lost people around the world! Pray about your financial decisions – and how you can be a part of the team.

 

Blessings,

 

mike

The movie Taken…

Ok, I’m really not a movie critic, so it’s not meant to be a commentary on the movie itself. In a strange, “me man, protector of me family” way, I did enjoy the movie – so there, guilty pleasure out.

I did feel, by the time the movie had ended, and I’d seen my quota of killings for 123 lifetimes, that move ratings sure seem to have changed. I’m not sure that the same movie would have skated under an R rating 10-20 years ago.

Secondly – ever since Bourne identity there’s a fascination with a film quality that just about leaves me motion sick. Seriously – why do we have to have so much bouncing around on the camera and flashing to different strange angles. I have a headache.

Third – the movie is an interesting way to bring a really serious topic more into the limelight. Sex trafficking is a real problem. I’m not sure the best take-away is to think that the answer is killing everyone, but we do need to raise the level of awareness on this. It’s truly a serious issue.

Anyway, if you don’t mind some of the cheesy things that come along with the style of movie that it is – bad guys have lots of guns but can’t aim properly – good guy only needs one shot, etc. – a decent movie – but don’t let the PG-13 rating fool you.

How does a Christian compete?

This “rant” (although I’m not really sure I’m ranting – more just questioning true ethics of competition) is in response to the following article:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482825,00.html

 

OK – so if you didn’t read the article, I’ll give you a summary. One girls basketball team is playing against another. The winning team beats the losing team 100 to 0. That’s right , the losing team didn’t score a single point while the winning team reached the century mark. This is where it gets weird for me.

The winning school issues an apology for beating the losing team so badly, because apparently, the girls on the winning team were still shooting 3-pointers in the 4^th quarter and the coaches were cheering for the girls more and more the closer they approached 100 points. The winning school apologized to the losing school for having a “non-Christian” attitude toward playing, which is an issue because the schools were Christian schools.

The coach disagreed, saying that his girls played with integrity, and then was fired – but we’re not given the exact reasons why.

So – here’s the issue to me. Is it really “unchristian” to beat a team 100 – 0? I mean – I was pretty lousy in track when I was in high school, and I never accused the winners for being unchristian, regardless of the margin of victory. I never asked them to slow down to make me look better, or accused them or humiliating me.

I think the situation that team found themselves in would have to be one of the hardest coaching situations around? How do you keep your girls excited to play when you are destroying another team? Is it really your team’s fault the other team doesn’t score? Would of it made a huge difference if the score had been 75 – 0? Or 50-0? It’s humiliating for the other team, either way.

Here’s how I would view it as a coach. If my team is destroying the other team, I know the tendency would be for my players to begin to feel sorry for the other team – to begin to play sloppy ball to give them a chance. It’s the way I sports with my kids. I intentionally don’t play as hard – because I know they don’t have a chance. But if I were to play that way against people my age, it would be humiliating to them. This used to happen with our church softball team. Occasionally, we’d get in a hitting streak and the other team was playing really bad defense. They had some kids playing on their team, and for whatever reason, just couldn’t get an out. We made a “rule” that if a team scored 10 runs in an inning, it was the same as 3 outs, but when that happened – the other team looked humiliated, not just because we scored 10 runs, but because they couldn’t get us out. Our guys started trying to hit pop fly’s to give them a chance – but that’s the last thing you want to do… Bad habits are hard to break – so if your team starts taking it easy, or playing light, then you have a problem later on.

So – as a coach, you find new things to motivate. You put in your reserves, and if they are still blowing the other team out, you set a goal. Hey guys – keep playing the way you know you should. Get some good playing time, and lets see if we can score 100 points. Why? Because if you don’t set a goal in front of your players they will begin playing down to their competition. If you don’t keep them motivated, they’ll begin playing sloppy to give the other team “a chance.” You don’t want bad habits in your team.

All the other team had to do was play basketball. If your team can’t score a single bucket, that is NOT the opposing team’s fault!

Honestly, I’d be more humiliated if I was on the opposing team and saw them start playing “keep-a-way” just to keep the score down. If they start playing out of their game and running out the clock and holding the ball for minutes at a time (which you can do in high school basketball because there is no shot clock) I would feel more embarrassed. At least when a basket is made, I get a new chance to try to score. If I lost 100-0, I’d be embarrassed – but I certainly wouldn’t blame the other team.

This coach made the best of difficult situation, in my opinion. But, I could be wrong? What do you think is the Christian thing to do? Should he have told his girls to let the other team score? Should he have talked to the other coach at half time and just had the other team forfeit the rest of the game? Would that have been fair to his 2^nd (and may be 3^rd string) that got time to play? Should he have played keep-a-way? Was there a good way to win this game – and isn’t the margin of victory relative after a certain range? If the score would have been 50-0, would it have really been any different?

Maybe I’m seeing this poorly because of my own competitive side – so post your perspective so we can learn from each other!

Confessions of a lifer…

I don’t have much time – but this came to mind during my reading this morning.

I was, for the most part, raised in the church (not literally – but as long as I can remember, we were going to every church function offered.) The Bible has always been special to me – I remember sleeping with my Bible when I was 12-14 years old. I would fall asleep reading it and wake up to read it. I love God’s word.

Last year, I finished reading the Bible for the 10^th time – 5 times in the last 3 years. I love the book.

But sometimes, I get to familiar passages, and I find myself wanting to skim through it. It’s the old “I already know this” mindset.

So, this morning I got the 2×4. I was reading in Luke 8 – and I came to the very familiar Parable of the Sower. I know the parable, know the explanation, etc. – so I was just kind of skimming through. Then, I came to verse 16 – and again, very familiar – you don’t put a lamp under a bed or a basket… Then, verse 18. Here’s how it reads in the Holman CSB:

Therefore, take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.

Wow! I’m sure those in the church have discussed that verse in different ways in the past – but as I was skimming this morning, God was reminding me – take care how you listen, Mike. In every passage, those who have will receive more – but there’s the requirement of having care while we listen. Skimming isn’t going to get the job done – have care while we listen.

In the same way – falling into patterns of just showing up, singing familiar songs, hearing familiar passages, saying hi to familiar people isn’t going to cut it in church, either. If we want to keep growing – we need to have care how we listen. Then, if we have, we’ll receive more – but if we are careless – even what we think we have will be taken away. There really is no plateau in the Christian faith – you’re either growing, or shrinking.

And we see that, if we’re honest, don’t we? We see that people don’t really remain at a level of spiritual growth. If they don’t keep growing, they begin to be overwhelmed by the cares of the world. They begin to drift off center.

So – it was a good message for me, this morning – a reminder to not skim – but to listen carefully. Hope it’s a good reminder for you also!

My Cousin’s Wedding

Yesterday I got the opportunity to see a bunch of the Picconatto extended family again – I had a cousin who got married. It was a beautiful ceremony, beautiful reception – only bummer was we had to cut out a little early. Elissa and I danced one dance together and then off we went. We got a little turned around getting back to Elissa’s parents (who were watching the kids), then it took us awhile to get everything loaded up – so we weren’t on our way out of the cities until 9:45 pm. Since I try to go to bed by 10:30 on Sunday nights, this morning is going to be a bit of a challenge!

The priest said something interesting to Emily and Eric during his homily that I found pretty interesting. He warned them that what they were about to do was a very dangerous thing – they were about to commit their lives to another person for the rest of their lives. He warned them that doing such a thing was a dangerous thing.

It made me think – those wedding vows, they are a pretty impressive thing, aren’t they? I mean – you’re literally committing your whole life to another person’s life as long as you both shall live.

There’s a guy in our church who’s modeling that right now. His wife has advanced Alzheimer’s disease, and he continues to gently care for her. Dressing her each day, taking her on walks when possible, bringing her to church and to family functions. He’s a beautiful model of “in sickness and in health.” It’s certainly not what he would have planned for over 5 decades ago when he asked his wife to marry him, but it’s what he committed to – and he’s faithful to his commitment.

It’s kind of surprising to me how often we try to talk to people about the good sides of things without warning them of the potential for pain. IN wedding vows, there is that warning – it’s a vow for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. There’s the hope for the good, but commitment no matter what!

I wonder why we don’t do that for other things. We want life with a warranty, don’t we? Even in our faith, we want all blessings, no pain. We want all success, no heartache. We want all joy, no sorrow. Certainly – that’s a great thing to look forward to. We know that in heaven we’ll have no more tears, no pain, no sickness, no death – but in the meantime… Why do we so often ignore the clear teachings of scripture that faith comes with trials, persecutions, and struggles.

I think that it’s because we’re scared that people might not think it’s worth it. Maybe subtly they think that no one will take faith if it doesn’t get rid of all the problems of life.

But that’s like saying you don’t want to get married unless the person is only going to be rich or healthy. The relationship is worth the suffering that comes with it. The joy of knowing the presence of your spouse is worth the potential heartache. In a relationship with Christ – it’s even greater! The joy of knowing and being known by God and the joy of knowing that your Savior is with you and has your maturity and best interests in mind makes the inevitable difficulties of life worth going through.

Anyway – I’m sleep deprived and need to finish preparing myself for the morning ahead.

The word “sin.”

Funny thing happened yesterday as I was getting ready for our church service. We’ve decided to try to make the time before church starts, at least in our sanctuary, a time of “preparation” from a spiritual point of view. We built a new entry way and sanctuary in 2003 – but before that, the entry way was small and the sanctuary itself was often used as just an overflow entryway. Lots of visiting, chatting, etc. We decided we wanted to give people a space to prepare their hearts for the worship service, and since we have the entry space to do that without taking away the also very important visiting, reacquainting, friendly space, we’re navigating the change.

Anyway – to help make this a meaningful time, I’m making some powerpoint slides to help give people some things to think about as they’re quieting their hearts before the service. I decided to use the A.C.T.S prayer model – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication and give some descriptions, Bible verses, and instructions on the slides. Basic format is to give the word, say what it means, give some instructions, give some supporting verses. Adoration works fine – here’s the definition, and now – the instruction is to “Spend some time Adoring the Lord.” Pretty basic…

Then I get to C. I cut and paste a definition for confession, and then get to the instruction aspect, and find myself struggling with how to word it. This is the odd part for me. Spend time adoring the Lord – no problem. Spend time Thanking the Lord – no problem. Spend time “Supplicating” – or asking the Lord to meet your needs – no problem! Spend time confessing your sins – problem. For some reason, I kept finding myself wanting to soften it. I typed out “asking God to forgive you for the things that come between you and Him.” Erased it. I typed “Spend time…. Examining your heart.” Erased it. I even typed and erased spend time “Confessing your sins.” Several times, but erased it. It just seemed so harsh – and then I had to really ask… Why is this such a big deal for me this morning? It wasn’t a prompting from God that was leading me to not put the words “Confess your sins” up there – it just made me nervous that it might (*gasp!*) make someone upset that I was calling them a sinner.

But we are! All of us. We’re all guilty, and all sinners, and all in desperate need of the forgiveness only God has to offer.

So finally – I just typed the words and put them up there.

Made me curious, though. I wonder why I reacted so strongly to those words yesterday. I think that, inside, there’s always a part of us that doesn’t like being told that we’ve done something wrong. Perhaps that part was rearing up yesterday. Just thought I’d share something I found strange.

New Year!

Ah – my first blog of the New Year. And, in case you hadn’t really noticed – my first blog in quite some time.

The reason I’m writing today is actually about that thing. I’ve noticed that, in my life, the time necessary for introspection often gets crowded out by the time needed for tasks. Those tasks vary, as they do for everyone. For me, most of my deep thinking ends up going into the sermons I prepare on a weekly basis and the Bible Studies I lead on a weekly basis, and the time left over ends up going to tasks at home – sometimes the necessary cleaning and cooking, remodeling, etc. – and then the “spare” time, I tend to squander in front of the x-box or TV. Often, the TV time is spent with my bride at my side, and we laugh or shake our heads together at what we’re seeing – so that’s not really “squandered” time, but anyway, the point remains that… I don’t spend much time being introspective, and that is to my detriment.

I spend time doing, or acting, or reacting – but not much time asking why did I do, or act, or react. I find myself asking cultural questions – like “Why is our society like this?” or “Why are we so blind to this?” but fail to ask the same questions about myself.

In part, that’s a hard thing to do in a public forum – a journal feels very private, but a blog is more… well – it exposes the inner workings of my brain for other people to comment on, and I’m not always comfortable with the vulnerability that creates.

But, as a pastor, I don’t always have a forum to simply throw out what I’m thinking and have people respond to it. My thoughts are supposed to be “spiritual” all the time, and “correct”, and I’d prefer this forum to be someplace I can throw thoughts out and not get creamed for it.

I long for the days when all the guys used to retreat into a smoking room and air their thoughts, argue about it, and be able to come out more educated for hearing everyone’s thoughts. Almost a sense of public introspection – things in my brain get expressed and other people comment on them, and I’m not insulted but I’m grown. I’d like this to be that kind of atmosphere, but I’m not sure I’m always willing to be that public, or capable of taking the shots to my thoughts that would allow this to be that forum. I become so attached to my ideas that I take intellectual criticism personally – not necessarily a good trait.

Anyway – I’ll work on it this year, and try to post some introspective thoughts at least once a week, and we’ll see what happens.

Woops! It’s been awhile…

Wow – I didn’t realize that it had been quite this long since I last posted. There have been so many different things going on that I forget to blog.

The work on the house is coming along, and I do actually think I’ll get it all done. I put the first coat of stain on the deck yesterday, and should get a second coat on today. Garage doors go in this weekend, and then I can finish up with the last remaining siding. It’s nice to reach a point where I can see it all finish.

I haven’t been running quite as much, but did go out again last night.

I’m still losing weight – and I think that some of that is because of the work in the cold I’ve been doing. I’ve been hungry as a horse, and even though I’m eating more – I’m not gaining any weight. I’ve got to be careful so I don’t gain my normal “hibernation weight.”

I’ll get back to updating on the “Why” question areas soon…

Physical Journey Update

Haven’t done any updates on my continuing journey in this department lately…

I gave an update on the race, but I am continuing to run. I’m trying to gradually increase my distances looking to possibly running a half-marathon next year. I really don’t want to jump into the increased distances, I’ve learned from past attempts that this doesn’t generally work for me. My tendons don’t respond well to sudden jumps in activity. So I’m gradually increasing. One of the benefits of this is that I’m continuing to see times drop and proficiency rise. My running proficiency (using the method I posted here) has increased from 1.43 yards per heartbeat to 1.49 yards per heartbeat. I’m still not running at any kind of world dominating pace, but my pace is increasing – and I’ve replaced one of my 4 aerobic runs each week with an anaerobic run to get my times increasing. It is nice to get the wheels turning a little faster at least once a week.

On the pushup side. As my running increased I’m finding it harder to maintain the pushups. I haven’t been able to reproduce the 74 that I did before, and still have not been able to do the week 6 schedule for that max, so I’ve dropped down one level on the week 6 schedule and keep pressing along. If you have no clue what I’m talking about here – I’m trying to complete the hundred pushup challenge, and have increased from 45 to 74 – but can’t finish week 6’s workout. I’m sure there’s a connection between that and the increased running, especially when I try to do pushups on a heavy run day…

On the weight side, I’m down to 15.1% body fat. That’s a pretty good decrease from the 22% my scale said I had when I started the journey, so things are coming along. My goal is 10-12%, and I should be able to reach that. Typically, I go through the acquisition of “hibernation weight” with the onset of the holiday season – and I’m hoping to avoid that this year! We shall see.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now. The pants that were too small are now coming close to being too big – and my belt is more than just decoration, and that’s a good thing!

2nd Reason “Why”

Back to our “Why” Question meeting… Our church went through the NCD survey, and came up with “Gift Based Ministry” being our lowest category. We held a meeting to determine “Why”, and six things came up. We’ve talked about one already – People being afraid of judgment, criticism, etc. last week. I want to look briefly at the second one, and that is:

Don’t know what our gifts are or how to develop them. Church doesn’t know what gifts people have.

I think that there are legitimately 2 parts to this – people don’t know what their gifts are, and the church doesn’t know what gifts people have.

Part 1 – people don’t know what their gifts are. For some, I think there’s just general confusion about what “spiritual gifts” are. How do Spiritual Gifts differ from talents? How do I figure out what gift I have? Could I have more than one? If I’m really good at something, could that be my spiritual gift? Will Spiritual gifts make me feel important and special? Answering these questions is, in part, the church’s responsibility – and we’ll be addressing this in a sermon series soon. Part of it also is accomplishable through “smart” Bible study. I think we run the risk of opening ourselves up to deception if we decide we’re going to find out more about spiritual gifts by checking out two dozen books and reading what other people have to say about spiritual gifts. We have to start with the Bible and then, if we still have questions, find reliable sources to help after that. The four main listings of gifts in the New Testament (there are some others that could be added from OT scriptures) are in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4.

Part 2 – Church
doesn’t know what gifts people have. This is an issue, and because of it, as we’ll see in other findings later, people often find themselves burning out or ministering in areas that they don’t feel gifted (which will eventually lead to burnout.) I’m not 100% sure how to overcome this, but I know that part of it needs to come from better communication between people and the church about their areas of giftedness. It’s not enough for the church to ‘guess’ about a person’s giftedness, and it’s not really enough for a person to come and say that “I’m gifted in teaching.” Ministry has to go beyond just sticking a person who’s gifted in teaching in a teaching spot, or a person in service into a serving spot, or a person who’s gifted in praying for healing into some vague healing ministry. The church has to not only know gifts, but know people, and have ministries available for them to be involved in. We need to find a way to know people, know their gifts, know our ministries, and have ways for gifted people to get involved in ministry.