I want to stop thinking!!!
My church launched an MYR$25million building project at our 25th anniversary dinner on Sunday. I suddenly found myself in the unenviable position of trying not to let my (unfortunate) experience with a previous church prejudice me too badly.
Our senior pastor said: "I'd like you to dream this great dream with me and the leadership of our church. It is an opportunity and a privilege to share in something like this. Friends, let me tell you, it is the opportunity of a lifetime. Let's realise something that will shake this nation for Jesus!"
In my head I was hearing: "Great PR spiel... very nicely put..."
Arrgh. Maybe I'm cynical because I work with the media, and have to listen to lots of carefully-worded PR speeches and reports, not to mention all sorts of wonderful claims for all sorts of wonderful products. The secret really is in the presentation. It's all about how you say it, you know. That's why PR guys make so much money (more than journalists do, at least! haha).
Then the senior pastor said: "Take this information leaflet home and pray about this project. Ask God to help you to stretch your faith; ask Him to give you a generous heart..."
In my head I was hearing: "If we believe God has given us the dream and will bring it to pass, why do we always act as if WE must make it happen? Why do we have to go around asking people to give us money so that we can bring that dream into reality? I think, deep down, we don't really believe God will provide..."
The clincher was when senior pastor was introducing the whole project -- 5,000-seat auditorium with a "world-class stage", another two halls with 1,000 seating capacity each, reception area, community centre, 3-storey arts centre with recording studio, atrium with skylight (a "hang out" spot), bookshop, library, counselling rooms, sports centre with facilities for indoor sports, two floors of classrooms, two floors of office space, and an intercessor's hall. In my head I was hearing: "Is all this really necessary?"
If you're a pastor and you're reading this, by now you're probably thanking the Good Lord that I'm not in your church ;P
Well yes, it's a marvellous vision, a great dream. And we do need more space because our congregation keeps growing (we started holding four weekend services in January -- two on Saturday nights and two on Sunday mornings. Imagine, pastor preaches the same sermon four times, and the worship team also sings the same set of songs four times!). But I just wonder why churches keep wanting to build huge buildings with state-of-the-art facilities and recording studios, cafes, bookshops, and all the rest of it?
Remember how I said we've unknowingly absorbed our culture's values and perspectives? Everybody else is out to win all the biggest, tallest, widest, strongest, deepest, bestest awards, and we're so geared towards this kind of thinking that we automatically assume "bigger is better". I sometimes feel it's almost like we're in competition with the world: it's as if we want to say, "Hey, anything you can do, we Christians can do better!" How many times have you heard a pastor say, "If the world can do this, why shouldn't be be able to do even more? After all, we have the Lord God Almighty behind us!"?
But we are NOT in competition with the world, you know, and we do NOT have to prove ourselves to anyone (not even to God, in case you were wondering, since there's no need to buy His approval or His love). So I'm not terribly impressed when I hear churches boast about getting world-famous architects to create a "signature building" or see churches give a list of the record-breaking biggest and best things about their new church building. In fact, such things get my back up because it makes me think that maybe, just maybe, there could be some priorities going askew here.
Also, when it comes to huge church-building projects, I'm reminded of what I read or heard somewhere: while Jesus told us to go out into the world, nowadays we Christians are expecting the world to come to us. We hold Easter and Christmas evangelical dramas on the stage in our church hall and invite people to come over. We want to build recreational/sports centres and cafes and "hang out spots" within our church grounds so that people will be attracted to our facilities and come over. With a community centre as part of the church building, those who need assistance will have no choice but to come over.
Right now I'm helping out in my church's "tuition club" by volunteering as an English teacher to children for 90 minutes a week. This is supplementary coaching to complement the teaching they get in school. We go into their neighbourhood and meet them on their turf, setting up temporary partitions in their community hall each week to divide the space into several classrooms. After the class is over, we push the partitions back to the wall. Yes, maybe it's not the most perfect arrangement, but I like the fact that we are going to where the children are instead of expecting them to come to us.
So I dunno, I just dunno... everybody else is all dreamy-eyed and excited and ready to give their heart & soul for this project, but I am thinking about all these things and wondering what it would be like to have the kind of innocent enthusiasm they have. It's like when the church printed special T-shirts to commemorate our 25th anniversary and everybody automatically happily went out and bought at least one -- except me, because I just didn't see the point of getting one. (I told my cell group leader that I already had lots of T-shirts, and she was speechless!) I do not have the ability to get swept up in the tide of excitement because I think too much. I tell you, ignorance truly is bliss.