(The dialogue continues between a Church Member and a Believer but Not Belonger.)
B/NB: I have another problem. If the church was just a simple group of believers who gather to listen to Scriptures like the first Christians, I could get interested, but it seems to have become a huge institutions that always needs your money.
CM: The church does require money, but it also reminds us that all we possess is on loan to us by God. Supporting the church is a reminder of the proper use of God’s resources. I for one am glad that my spending patterns are not judged by the same criteria many people use to evaluate the church. I have to admit that I too often think of my money as “my” money. Actually, no one but the church reminds me on a regular basis that my net worth is on loan to me and I am accountable for how I manage it. I need to hear again and again that life is more than possessions, and that I am far more valuable in God’s eyes than what I possess.
The church’s attempts to minister all around the world are costly. Funds may not always be spent correctly, but human abuse or misuse does not justify withholding a contribution or tithe.
B/NB: Tithe? Tithing doesn’t work in this day and age. Back in biblical days the religious community had responsibility for services that the government now controls. Most people barely make enough to meet their bills. If you are rich, perhaps you might tithe, but the majority of people today cannot afford to give ten percent of their income to the church.
CM: The primary reason I give at least ten percent is to challenge the myth that my survival depends on what I possess. All church bodies should be held accountable for how they spend the money they’re given, but my act of giving is first an act of worship; it is my way of saying that I trust more in God for my future than I do in my wealth.
B/NB: You continue to make some strong points, but don’t you agree that we can worship God in ways other than going to church on Sunday morning? I simply don’t have time to give two or three house every week to church. Besides, I can worship God as well on the golf course or hiking in the woods as I can in a church building.
CM: Perhaps you can, but I know that I could not. I believe that twentieth century culture has had a devastating impact on the human spirit. We have so flattened life that our only reality consists of the present, and our vision of the future merely extends the present. I recently read some essays by a group of fourteen year olds concerning what life would be like twenty-five years in the future. I could group them roughly into two categories. One group thought the future would be worse because people would refuse to do what was necessary to stop crime, drugs, and pollution. The other group pinned their hope for a better world on advances in technology.
Regular worship reminds me that our future, though it can be helped by our efforts, depends on God All my life, I’ve contributed money to feed the hungry, but if solving the problems of hunger depended on my efforts, I would be in despair. But my hope for the resolution of the problem of hunger and the other planet sized problems rests not on human perfection or technology but on God’s goodness and faithfulness. Basically I see my gifts as acts of worship, it’s my way of praying “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
B/NB: I guess you are saying that by worshipping with others, you sort of share the load.
CM: Worshipping with a Christian community pulls me outside of myself. I join with others around the world in singing the praise of God. Hearing Scripture read and preached joins me to a community that reaches far into the past and projects a yet unrealized future. In prayer, when my mind wanders or I don’t feel worthy of saying a word there are others around me lifting up prayers for the whole world and for me. I am carried by their faith and the faith of the whole church when I don’t have much faith of my own. In all these worshipful acts I experience the presence of a mystery beyond my comprehension. Yet that mystery promises to be present where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name.
I need to be part of a church community because it helps me be a better disciple of Jesus Christ than I would be by myself. I suppose to sum it up, when I regularly worship in a church, it not only reminds me to love my neighbor but most importantly, it reminds me that I am not God.
B/NB: That may be your strongest point. Most of the problems in this world occur because we forget the universe doesn’t center on us. I think I could relax more if I learned to let go of some of my concerns and trust God.
CM: It’s not easy and it doesn’t just magically happen if you are a part of a church, but as someone once said, “when you can’t always believe, it helps to practice until you believe.”
YOU ARE PART OF THE CONVERSATION
How would you add to this dialogue? Why is it important for you as a Christian to belong to the church? When you can answer that question for yourself, you have good news to share with others who are on a spiritual quest.
