It is my pleasure to report a very encouraging story that I recently read. it is about a church making radically misisonal choices about how to treat their property and finances. Considering the nature of my last article, in which I was ranting about a church that was abusing its resources, this story was renewing and hopeful for me to read.
The church is Brook Hills, located in Bimingham, Alabama. The pastor is David Platt. In addition to pastoring this church, David Platt is also the author of two very popular books: Radical and Radical Together. They are books that have been very transformative and encouraging to me. In his last book, Radical Together, Platt tells the story of a cross roads that he lead his church through. Their church is quite large. It has a multi-million dollar annual budget. When Platt took over as the pastor, the church had some grand plans to build on to their church...a new and better lobby, better parking lots, more class-room space and sports fields just to name a few. But as they discussed these potential investments Platt had some second thoughts. As they were going through the budget process for their church, he asked some very critical and risky questions for a new pastor. Here is an excerpt from his story,
"As a pastor, I believe that is when (setting the budget) the church comes face to face with how prone we are to give our resources to good things while ignoring great need. Christians in North America give, on average, 2.5 percent of their income to the church. Out of that 2.5 percent, churches in North America will give 2 percent of their budgeted monies to needs overseas. In other words, for every one hundred dollars a North American Christian earns, he will give five cents through the church to a world with urgetn spiritual and physical needs. This does not make sense."
These kinds of questions and thoughts kept on plagueing him as he attempted to lead his church through the budgeting process. So Platt and his leaders began to seek God through prayer and studying scripture. They laid all their plans before God and asked Him if their plans were God's best for their community and the world. And as they studied Scripture, God answered. Here is another excerpt...
"As we took this question to Scripture, we saw a clear plan from the mought of Jesus: Make disciples of all nations. Take up your cross, follow me and lead others to follow me in the same way. Jesus never told us to build lobby space, create more class rooms, or design sports fields. Not that it would be necessarily wrong to do these things... When it cam to our plans then, the question was, Is this the best way to align with the plan Jesus has laid before us? Is building a nicer, more comfortable lobby the best way to use our resources to lead people to take up a cross and follow Christ? Is building more space for classes the best way to help people obey Christ?"
He goes on to report how they answered these radical questions...
"And as we asked these questions at Brook Hills, our decision became clear. Instead of expanding the lobby of our church, we would use that money to start planting other churches. Instead of constructing more classrooms where we could listen to more lectures, we would become more intentional about gathering in our homes, where we could better share our lives."
This story restores alot of hope for me in traditional churches with huge budgets around the U.S. And this is not the only good story. There are plenty others. It is also not a story about how great David Platt was to lead his church through all these decisions. Many pastors would have been fired for asking these kinds of risky questions. Really, all of the leaders in this church deserve credit for making radical decisions about their money and resources. I think this is what encourages me the most about this turn around. We don't have to wait for incredibly gifted leaders to change things. They simply sought God through prayer and study of His word and asked God how they could best use their resources. And they said yes to God's plan!
I highly recommend this book. It is a great and challenging read. Platt raises the questions that we should all be asking of ourselves and the ministries that we lead!
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