The Blessings of Good Stewardship

Being Good Stewards

It has been a month since my last blog post, but I am going to endeavor to be more regular with it.  I know, I know, we’ve all heard that song before, but up until now I have generally reserved my Making Disciples blog for when God lays something strongly on my heart. I have come to realize that diligence is its own reward, and that there are valuable insights to share more regularly, even if I don’t feel they are specifically laid on my heart by God. So I will try to post more regularly going forward, with a goal of once a week, but will be certain to differentiate the posts that I feel are particularly laid upon my heart by God, and those I am just sharing from my study and experiences. This is one of those God-burdened posts, however.

Everyone knows that in the past few years, the economy in America has been at a low point. Cutbacks, layoffs, double-digit unemployment, and general reduction in available funds to spend are all symptoms of this problem.  This blog is not going to try and examine the causes of these issues, but rather is focused on their effects, specifically upon international missions.  The International Missions Board of the SBC is an organization with which I am intimately familiar. I am an SBC minister and serve overseas with the Board, and have for over three years now. In that time we have seen continued belt-tightening as funding shortfalls in giving continue to impact the funds available to accomplish the task around the world. I would like to commend the leadership of the IMB for the amazing job they have done in continuing to lead and provide vision and direction and adjustments which, while not easy, have allowed the work to continue despite the shortfalls.

Living overseas and only seeing the effects as they ripple down to the field, I just assumed that things in America were equally tight, and that churches everywhere were having to make the same adjustments that the overseas work was having to make, i.e. doing more with less. Unfortunately, while we were back in the States for six months at the beginning of 2014, I was rather surprised at what I found. We visited a number of churches where I got to speak, but we saw many, many others that I was not directly involved with. What I found across the board, with a few exceptions, was large churches with all the latest audio/video equipment, large sprawling campuses, major construction projects, and huge, beautifully-adorned sanctuaries being either built or updated. There really was no openly apparent sign of the knuckle-down, make-due with what you have mentality that is the norm for the work around the world.

After talking to a number of people from many different churches, it seems that the five and ten year plans for most of these churches have continued unimpeded by the realities of the adjusted economy. The main difference being that instead of saving up tithes and offerings and being able to expand the churches as funds were available, loans were being taken out to cover the difference.  Now borrowing money is not specifically forbidden in Scripture, nor is it called a sin, but in a number of places it is described as unwise and something to be avoided.  For example we have these poignant examples:

Proverbs 22:7 The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender's slave.

And

Proverbs 22:26 Do not be among those who give pledges, Among those who become guarantors for debts.

But above and beyond the unwise nature of borrowing from the secular world to fund the comforts of the church are the opportunities being missed.  Think about the numbers for a moment.  A ten million dollar building project loan, actually fairly conservative by today’s standards, at 5% interest, with let’s say an aggressive payoff schedule of only five years, would result in interest payments of over 1.134 million dollars over the course of the loan. Now while real estate loans have the interest front-loaded, so they aren’t evenly spread across the loan, that is still an average of $227,000/year being put not to the work of God at home or abroad, but lining the pockets of bankers.  Now that is just ONE church with ONE conservative building project.  Think about multiplying that across the thousands upon thousands of churches just in the United States alone.

Now for a moment, just considering SBC churches, my denomination, there are 46,000 churches in the SBC in America.  Out of those, according to a recent survey (http://thomrainer.com/2013/08/03/2013-update-largest-churches-in-the-southern-baptist-convention/) 1/3% of those, or just under 600 churches, have an average attendance of 1,000 people or more.  While many SBC churches are very small, and have bi-vocational pastors and are unlikely to be undertaking multi-million dollar building projects, I would dare to say at least those 600 or so churches with over 1,000 in attendance most definitely would be building and expanding.  So let’s again just take 600 churches with these types of building projects paying an average of $227,000 per year in interest on loans.  That’s 136.2 MILLION dollars every year paying banker paychecks rather than funding the work of God. 

Just think what a difference those funds could make if the principle on those loans were placed into savings until whatever building plans were planned could be paid for 100% in cash, and the amount being currently spent on interest were instead funneled to international missions. In 2013 the projected budget for the IMB was $323 million, but receipts of gifts from 2012 were only $245 million, despite record giving year after year for the Lottie Moon offering.  Where the shortfalls continue are the donations coming through the cooperative program, which is basically the amount the churches themselves give to fund things like Baptist Seminaries, the North American Missions Board, and other cooperatively funded projects including the IMB.  So while Southern Baptists across the country continue year after year to demonstrate a genuine heart for seeing mission work around the world done, as evidenced by the ever-increasing Lottie Moon budget giving (which goes 100% to the work of the IMB), more and more churches have cut back their cooperative program giving to keep more dollars “in house”.  Given the numbers we looked at for building projects and interest payments, this is not surprising.

We need to remind ourselves of one key thing.  Deuteronomy 28 calls out specifically the blessings which will befall a people whose heart is following God first and foremost, while also spelling out the curses that will fall upon those whose hearts have wandered.  When we supplant the Biblical values of saving over borrowing, and we funnel so much every year to fund usury paid to banks on loans while reducing the funding going to support the work of missions around the world, could we not imagine we might have gotten our priorities a bit out of balance? I have no idea how far this blog post might spread, but I urge each of you who read it to share it with your fellow church members, with your church leaders, online, and wherever you can.  This is not meant to be a condemnation, but a call for a return to stewardship and an awakening and awareness that in these times of want, these tight times, we all should be tightening our belts and finding ways to continue on God’s plan rather than finding alternative, secular ways to fund the plans of men.

To those who hear and obey God’s word:  Deuteronomy 28:12 "The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.”

And to those who hear and do not obey God’s word:  Deuteronomy 28:43-44 “The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.”

Not sure about you, but I’d rather the former than the latter…

On a final note, I know of several of those 600 churches in the SBC who have in fact recognized this fact and have dug themselves out of debt and are now operating all new projects on a cash only basis.  Those churches have been able to greatly increase their missions giving and also fund a great deal of local ministry projects with the funds they formerly were paying to banks.  One of the most stunning examples of this faithfulness comes from First Baptist Church Euless.  You can read that story here: http://www.firsteuless.com/miracle-story/