22 Days: Stewardship 3

2 minutes a day at 2 pm for 22 days…Pray for Western Hills.

The elephant in the room…
I don’t know of too many pastors that like speaking about money. (At least good ones.) I used to cringe at the thought of talking about money from up front. I mean, what’s the point? God doesn’t need your money or mine.

Yet, there is more written about money in Scripture than any other topic. It’s not even close how much money is talked about in the Bible. So if God owns the cattle of a thousand hills, why the focus? It didn’t hit me until recently – it’s not about God that God tells us to give our money. It’s about us. God tells us to give our money away so we don’t become greedy and idolaters. It’s the biggest competitor for the worship of Jesus.

I used to apologize and let people off the hook in giving to the church. I used to feel real awkward in asking for money for the church. Until I became a part of church that sought out to bless people. When we started to adopt schools and invest in foreign missionaries that are blessing their communities, when we started giving away food and money to people below the poverty line – a light bulb went off. There is no better place to give your money than to a church that is doing these kinds of things. Even if you don’t follow Jesus.

The good news for Western Hills is we already have a foundation in this kind of thinking. Our community Easter egg hunt, our mission work, the Topeka Food Pantry, we take an offering every time we do communion and give all that money away to people who need it. I know other places where helping like this takes an act of congress, a huge reluctance. Not true here.

But we have limits, and there are times we have to say ‘no.’ It’s a ‘no’ because of man-hours and money. I’m learning very quickly my limits in terms of time. I’m 4 weeks out on appointments for the most part. That’s ridiculous, honestly. The money issue is not necessarily our weekly giving but rather our debt. It’s $6,000 a month we send to the bank instead of spending on ministry.

The good news – we’ve only got $106,000 left on the debt. The bad news – we’ve got $106,000 on the debt. I’m praying that God removes that debt over the next month.

In the meantime…we keep plowing forward. Next week: leadership.