Oct 27 2009
Posted by Gary under Uncategorized
Without Adequate Funding Our Visions Perish
It’s been one of the most frequently quoted scriptures, “Without a vision the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:19) As church planters we have been well schooled in the virtues of casting a compelling vision. Wise planters do this well…and often! But there’s another side of this that requires equal diligence. I phrase it like this, “Without adequate funding the vision perishes.” Many a church plant has shriveled up and withered away because of a severe case of financial dehydration. Casting vision is easy. Gathering folks around that vision is exciting. Asking for money to support that vision is not (for many of us).
Let me encourage you, the reader, to do some re-framing here. You’re not just asking people for money when you invite them to give you are encouraging them to lift their eyes above the temporal things of this earth to invest in that which is eternal.
I think the greatest challenge you and I have is not getting people to give money (people give to people they know, trust and care about) but to renounce the idolatry of caring too much for the things of this world. You and I are engaged in a battle against affluence!
Years ago my wife gave me a neat little book called, “The Music of Silence- Entering the Sacred Space of Monastic Experience” by David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., This is one of my absolute favorite books for lots of reasons. About a third of the way into the text the author wrote this gem about affluence:
“The word affluence suggests that whatever flows in never comes out. Our affluent society stays affluent by making the containers bigger when they are just about to overflow, like a fountain with its lovely veils of water spilling over. The economics of affluence demand that things that were special for us last year must now be taken for granted; so the container gets bigger, and the joy of overflowing, gratefulness, is taken away from us. But if we make the vessel smaller and smaller by reducing our needs, then the overflowing comes sooner and with it the joy of gratefulness. It’s the overflow that sparkles in the sun.” (p.30)
Whenever I’ve held a vision like this one up before my churches you could hear a pin drop. Instant conviction AND longing. I believe people are intrinsically generous because we are created in the image and likeness of a generous God. Deep down in our hearts we Christians know why we have money, where it came from, and what to do with it. We just get amnesia sometimes and need our leaders to hold a mirror up that reflects back to us who we really are in Christ—generous, grateful souls and invite us to live out of that place.
We should never feel shy or intimidated about financial conversations in the church, in fact, we should be excited about them! To help people struggle with the issues of affluence (to keep their vessels smaller) can lead them to a kind of freedom they may never have known releasing resources that splash out in God-honoring ways. It’s that kind of overflow that truly sparkles in the SON.