I was drawn to how phil from signposts felt about his talk on money at church and the post message reaction. I think I was drawn to his up and down feeling because I also tried in someway to talk about money and prosperity last Sunday!
____________________
Ah money! You know I am becoming convinced that money is a huge challenge for the Church. We seem to have bought into the idea that it is a subject we can’t talk about or even explore. When we do so we are so much more comfortable making motherhood statements or talking about someone else’s attitude towards money.
And then I see Jesus talking about money quite a bit. I see Jesus saying that the way we use our money is a spiritual issue not only an economic one. When he says that “where your treasure is, your heart is” – I gulp because he is talking about me!
I preached about money on Sunday. It is always an interesting subject. Here were some of the tensions that I explored in how we approach money at Churches – perhaps you have some more.
Tension # 1 – Money is private v’s Jesus teaching on money being a core issue for discipleship
Tension #2 – Collection for Church’s costs v’s offering to God
Tension #3 – Fund raising v’s Spiritual Discipline
Tension #4 – Comfortable v’s uncomfortable
Why is it that we always want to talk about the first group?
________________________________-
Probably one tension I might at is Tension #5 – Guilt v’s Gratitude! 🙂