Presenting affluence and preaching sacrifice.
In early 1976, Eastminster Presbyterian Church in suburban Wichita, Kansas, had an ambitious—and expensive—church construction program in the works. Their architect had prepared a $525,000 church building program. Then a devastating earthquake struck in Guatemala on February 4, destroying thousands of homes and buildings. Many evangelical congregations lost their churches.
When Eastminster’s board of elders met shortly after the Guatemalan tragedy, a layman posed a simple question: “How can we set out to buy an ecclesiastical Cadillac when our brothers and sisters in Guatemala have just lost their little Volkswagen?”
The elders courageously opted for a dramatic change of plans. They slashed their building program by nearly two-thirds and settled instead for church construction costing $180,000. Then they sent their pastor and two elders to Guatemala to see how they could help. When the three returned and reported tremendous need, the church borrowed $120,000 from a local bank and rebuilt 26 Guatemalan churches and 28 Guatemalan pastors’ houses.
I talked recently with Eastminster’s pastor, Dr. Frank Kirk. Eastminster stays in close touch with the church in Central America and has recently pledged $40,000 to an evangelical seminary there. The last few years have seen tremendous growth—in spiritual vitality, concern for missions, and even in attendance and budget. Dr. Kirk believes that cutting their building program to share with needy sisters and brothers in Guatemala “meant far more to Eastminster Presbyterian than to Guatemala.”
The Eastminster Presbyterian congregation asked the right questions. They asked whether their building program was justified at this moment in history given the particular needs of the body of Christ worldwide and the mission of the church in the world. The question was not, Are gothic (or glass) cathedrals ever legitimate? It was rather: Was it right to spend $3.9 billion (in 1967 dollars) on church construction in the 1970s, when over 2.5 billion people had not yet heard of Jesus Christ and when one billion people were starving or malnourished?
Almost all (five out of six) of the more than 2.5 billion persons who have not heard of Jesus Christ live in social groupings and subnations where the church has not yet effectively taken root. Cross-cultural missionaries are needed. Gottfried Osei-Mensah, executive secretary of the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization, recently called on every 1,000 evangelicals to send one missionary couple to these unreached peoples. That can be done—but it requires that the church live a simpler lifestyle, as called for in the Lausanne Covenant.
The grim realities of world hunger also raise questions about expensive church construction. The World Food Council recently reported that “up to one-third of all children born alive die from malnutrition or (malnutrition-induced) diseases before the age of five.” At least five hundred million and perhaps as many as one billion persons are starving and/or malnourished. The National Academy of Science published a study in 1977 in which it was stated that “seven hundred and fifty million people in the poorest nations live in extreme poverty with annual incomes of less than $75.” In the U.S., on the other hand, the middle class feels poor when it makes only $15,000, $18,000, or even $25,000 each year (“The Middle Class Poor,” Newsweek, Oct. 1977). We are 14 times as rich as the average person in India and the gap continues to widen. It is in that kind of world that North American congregations must decide whether buying expensive organs, rugs, and multimillion dollar cathedrals is justified.
What biblical teaching is relevant to that decision?
First, this created world is a beautiful and good gift from our Father. Our places of worship ought to be a joyful celebration of his gorgeous gift.
Second, Christians are not committed to a simple lifestyle: we are committed to Jesus Christ. We are, therefore, also committed to faithful participation in the mission of our servant King in a lost, broken world. It is because two and a half billion have never heard the gospel and because perhaps as many as one billion people are starving or malnourished that Christians today must question expensive church construction.
Third, God is on the side of the poor and oppressed. But do not misunderstand this—I do not mean that poverty is the biblical ideal. Nor do I mean that the poor are Christians just because they are poor, nor that God cares more about the salvation of the poor than the salvation of the rich.
But the Bible does teach three things:
1. At the central moments of revelation history (e.g., the Exodus, the destruction of Israel and Judah, and the Incarnation), the Bible repeatedly says that God acted not only to call out a chosen people and reveal his will (although he certainly did that), he also acted to liberate poor, oppressed folk (Exod. 3:7–9; 6:5–7; Deut. 26:5–8; Amos 6:1–7; Isa. 10:1–4; Jer. 5:26–29; Luke 4:16–21).
2. God acts in history to pull down the unjust rich and to exalt the poor (Luke 1:46–53; 6:20–25; James 5:1). And God does this both when the rich get rich by oppression (James 5:3–5; Ps. 10; Jer. 5:26–29; 22:13–19; Isa. 3:14–26) and also when they are rich and fail to share (Ezek. 16:49–50).
3. The people of God, if they are really the people of God, are also on the side of the poor (Matt. 25:31–46; Luke 14:12–14; 1 John 3:16–18; Isa. 1:10–17; 58:3–7).
If we want to worship, we must also imitate the God who, Scripture says, is on the side of the poor.
Fourth, the uniform teaching of Scripture in both Old and New Testaments is that God wills transformed economic relationships among his people. God desires major movement toward economic equality in the new society of the church. Paul’s advice to Greek-speaking, European Christians collecting an offering for Aramaic-speaking, Asian Christians puts it bluntly: “I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want so that their abundance should supply your want, that there may be equality” (2 Cor. 8:13–14).
If we examine what the Bible says about economic relationships among the people of God, we will discover that over and over again God specifically commanded his people to live together in community in such a way that they would avoid extremes of wealth and poverty. That is the point of Old Testament legislation on the jubilee (Lev. 25) and sabbatical years (Deut. 15), on tithing (Deut. 14:28–29), gleaning (Deut. 24:19–22), and loans (Exod. 22:25).
Jesus, our only perfect model, shared a common purse with the new community of his disciples (John 12:6). The first church in Jerusalem (Acts 2:43–47; 4:32–37) and Paul in his collection (2 Cor. 8–9) were implementing what the Old Testament and Jesus had commanded.
Compare that with the contemporary church. Present economic relationships in the worldwide body of Christ are unbiblical, sinful, a hindrance to evangelism, and a desecration of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The dollar value of the food North Americans throw in the garbage each year equals about one-fifth of the total annual income of Africa’s 120 million Christians. It is a sinful abomination for a small fraction of the world’s Christians living in the Northern Hemisphere to grow richer year by year while our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Third World ache and suffer for lack of minimal health care, minimal education, and, in thousands and thousands of cases, just enough food to escape starvation.
We are like the rich Corinthian Christians who feasted without sharing their food with the poor members of the church (1 Cor. 11:20–29). Like them, we fail today to discern the reality of the one worldwide body of Christ (v. 29). The tragic consequence is that we profane the body and blood of the Lord Jesus we worship. Christians in the United States spent $5.7 billion on new church construction alone in the six years from 1967–72. Would we go on building lavishly furnished, expensive church plants and adding air conditioning, carpeting, and organs if members of our own congregations were starving?
These biblical principles lead me to question much of the church construction in affluent nations at this moment in history. But not everyone agrees.
One of the most common reasons advanced for erecting expensive church facilities is that they attract individuals to the church and thus have an evangelistic impact. Robert Schuller defends his multimillion dollar church plant in this way:
“We are trying to make a big, beautiful impression upon the affluent non-religious American who is riding by on this busy freeway. It’s obvious that we are not trying to impress the Christians!… Nor are we trying to impress the social workers in the County Welfare Department. They would tell us that we ought to be content to remain in the Orange Drive-In Theater and give the money to feed the poor. But suppose we had given this money to feed the poor? What would we have today? We would still have hungry, poor people and God would not have this tremendous base of operations which He is using to inspire people to become more successful, more affluent, more generous, more genuinely unselfish in their giving of themselves” (Your Church Has Real Possibilities [Regal Books, 1974], p. 117).
But several questions arise: Does God really want rich North Americans to be still more affluent? Do people who are attracted to that kind of church really give more generously to world evangelism and a biblically-grounded search for justice for the poor? Are we attracting people to the kind of God the Bible says Yahweh is—or are we attracting them to a God made in the image of affluent North Americans? The programmatic account in Luke 4:16–21 makes it very clear that preaching to the poor, releasing captives, and liberating the oppressed were central to Jesus’ mission. Is a multimillion dollar church building the best setting for calling people to follow that kind of Lord?
I feel more ambiguity about a second objection: “Since the good Creator has made such a gorgeously beautiful world, our places of worship ought to reflect that splendor. And that costs money.” Now, I must confess that I love Gothic cathedrals. (I suspect, however, that if the medieval church had devoted more resources to the kind of economic sharing across class and ethnic lines exhibited in the New Testament, the church would have been much stronger.) Certainly the good Creator has no interest in drab, dreary churches. He loves celebration and beauty. But need that always be expensive? Joyful, colorful banners and Spirit-filled singing can enliven even cheerless community centers and school auditoriums.
Some things, of course, are invariably costly. You cannot produce good organ music from burlap banners. Actually, I would not have too much trouble with one “cathedral” built to celebrate the splendor of the Creator in each larger population center if all Christ’s body in that area could share it. But most of the expensive church plants I know are for the exclusive use of rich suburban folk rather than for the poor, blacks, and Hispanics.
More intensive use of existing church buildings or other buildings that stand idle on Sunday would make much church construction unnecessary. At Dallas’s Fellowship Bible Church (Gene Getz, pastor), four different congregations use one sanctuary. Obviously, a bit of flexibility is necessary. One congregation meets on Friday evening, two on Sunday morning (8:00 and 10:45) and one on Sunday evening.
Philadelphia’s Living Word Community used a different approach when their congregation outgrew the original downtown structure, which seated about 400. They subdivided into two (and later, four) weekend gatherings for worship. One group continued to use the downtown church. But the second group (and then the third and fourth groups) arranged to meet in a school auditorium or a warehouse or in church buildings that were available on Saturday or Sunday evenings. The absence of costly building programs has provided large financial resources for more significant programs. (And it certainly hasn’t hindered church growth!)
Howard Snyder suggested in The Problem of Wineskins that the early church’s model of house churches meeting in private homes was an inexpensive way to begin new congregations in the city. Unfortunately, many denominational church-extension agencies assume that the first step in starting a new congregation is to purchase land for a new building. In my own church, Jubilee Fellowship of Germantown, we discovered that when we grew too large for the delightfully informal atmosphere of private homes, a local community center was adequate.
But not all church construction is wrong. What we need are guidelines to help a congregation decide when it ought to build a new church or expand existing facilities. Obviously there are no revealed norms. And woe betide those who dare to try, legalistically and self-righteously, to impose their hunches on others! But, does that mean that each congregation should do what is right in its own eyes?
That is the typical, individualistic American approach. But it is not the biblical pattern. Certainly each individual and each congregation should pray and seek the Spirit’s guidance for themselves. But they should also solicit the advice and wisdom of the other members of the body of Christ as they endeavor to apply biblical principles in today’s world. And that worldwide body includes not just other affluent North American congregations who have lovely facilities that others would love to duplicate. It also includes poor, inner-city churches struggling to meet minimal budgets, and Third World churches where sisters and brothers in Christ cannot afford minimal health care, adequate clothing, or elementary education for their children. Defending our building programs before their church boards would dramatically alter the discussion.
Would it be possible to develop a set of guidelines for future church construction in North America resulting from dialogue with all segments of the body of Christ worldwide? I offer the following as an attempt to begin such a dialogue:
1. Carefully explore the relevant biblical teaching. The congregation should spend a couple of months studying how the Bible’s teaching about God’s special concern for the poor and about redeemed economic relationships among the worldwide body of Christ relates to its proposed plans. Sermons, Sunday school sessions, prayer meetings, and fellowship evenings would all be appropriate for this.
2. Study the world scene today. Carefully analyze, as a congregation, the current needs for both world evangelism and relief, development and justice programs abroad.
3. Examine your motives with ruthless honesty. Ask questions such as: Do we want a new (or larger or renovated) building because it is necessary to carry on the biblically defined mission of the church, or because other Christian congregations (of our social status) have similar facilities? How many of the items (carpet, organ, etc.) are necessary and how many are planned “because that’s the way they are doing things these days”?
4. Explore alternate ways to meet the same need. Can we use other facilities in the community instead? Could a second congregation use our present church facility on Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon? Would we be willing to make modest changes in our traditional time of worship in order to free resources for worldwide evangelism? If not, what does that say about our priorities?
5. Consider the effect of the new facilities on the thinking and activity of your members. Will the new building (or organ) help the members of the congregation identify more easily with the poor? If new facilities require a new location, will the new location make it easier to engage in Jesus’ special concern to preach to the poor?
6. Engage in extended dialogue with other members of the worldwide body of Christ before beginning any new church construction. Ask nearby congregations if they have any suggestions on how to meet growing demands for additional space. The church board could spend a weekend visiting an inner-city minority congregation to review the building plans in great detail with them, to pray together about the plans, and to seek their honest reaction. Invite your denomination’s cross-cultural missionary agency to respond to the proposals in light of evangelistic opportunities abroad. A few key members of the congregation who could might visit a Third World country to discuss the building plans with Christian leaders there in light of the needs of their evangelistic and development programs.
7. Include equal matching funds for Third World (or inner-city) evangelism and long-term development in your fund-raising proposal. If we decide we need a $500,000 educational facility, then we would raise $1 million and give one-half of it to inner-city or Third World churches. Of course, if we can do what Eastminster Presbyterian did (i.e., slash the original cost by two-thirds), we might even be able to go beyond a 50–50 matching arrangement. But I want to keep the proposal modest, so I’ll stick to the idea of an equal matching fund.
Obviously, this is not the usual procedure for planning church construction. But it certainly would not be difficult to implement. It would be an easy, visible way to implement our confession that all Christians in the world are our brothers and sisters. Undoubtedly all church construction that the risen Lord truly desired would still take place after open consultation with a few more members of his body. We really have nothing to lose but church construction that God does not want.
And there is not one suburban congregation in North America that could not afford this matching funds arrangement if it cared half as much about evangelism and justice for the poor as the Bible says God does.
Should we build large, expensive church facilities today? Occasionally, perhaps—after we have studied relevant biblical teaching, explored the needs of our hungry, unevangelized world, vigorously tested our motives, looked carefully for alternatives that would permit us to give more to missions, made sure that the new facility would help us imitate Jesus’ identification with the poor, honestly sought the advice of other Christians (especially poor Christian congregations), and implemented a matching fund for evangelism and development in the Third World.
If the North American church followed that process and immersed itself in deep prayer and unconditional openness to the Holy Spirit, how many more ecclesiastical Cadillacs do you honestly think it would order?
G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.
