Friday, June 11, 2010

The Wrong Impression

If you left my Rescue Me post thinking my church is filled with cheap hypocrites, then I gave you the entirely wrong impression of the few thousand people that attend there. Just as every human being has weaknesses and imperfections, so does a body of people, even those who love Christ.

My church actually spends about three hundred thousand dollars a year on missions. That is a very generous number. It is just that we do not have an orphan adoption ministry and that really needs to change.

And if I stood up in front of my church during all three services one week and made a presentation of what we are doing and asked for help, I have no doubt that our congregation would rise to the occasion and I would probably even have tons of money left over to give to other RR families who are adopting. (Unfortunately, I wouldn't be allowed to do that sort of thing.)

So don’t get me wrong, my church is filled with true Christian people... it has just become a little too corporate, a little too about itself and its corporate mission. This experience has made that clear to me. That is the discomfort I have been struggling with for a couple years now. To me, there is no more personal family-style church left in my church.

But I promise you God is there.

1 comment:

RissaRoo said...

(((hugs))) I can completely understand your feelings about what happened, and also those about the family-style church. We are blessed by a wonderful, amazing church family...but they will not fund individual adoptions either. They have the heart to help, but not the funds.

It's God working through His people that make up "church" and that's what it boils down to, I guess. What matters is that you feel like you have a strong church family surrounding and supporting you, that Jesus is moving there, and that God has a plan for you where you are. I hope that's the case for you, and if there's a point where it isn't then you'll know that, too. Church family loving you and standing by you through your adoptions is worth more than anything. I came from a very "corporate church" background into a church where the building is falling apart and the people are working hard to keep things together with duct tape, band-aids and lots of prayer, but God is doing great things through the servant's hearts of the people. We'll be getting a "real" church building soon, and I'm almost sad to see the old one go...you gain something and lose something when a church grows, I guess.

And if you do stand up and ask for help, maybe you will light a fire for someone else and they will feel called to adopt, too...you're good at that, you know. Perhaps God can do more through your need than He could have done through one big donation? Just thoughts. I am praying for those funds to build quickly so they can be matched.

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