Walking a Tightrope

I got a comment on my post from Thursday from someone who goes by 'stoneface.' Stoneface made the observation that a lot of churches are so afraid of being perceived as teaching works for salvation, that they either don't teach works at all, or they underemphasize works. That's an excellent point, and I appreciate him (her?) bringing it up. It occurred to me that there are other topics that churches kind of have to walk a tightrope.

Probably the most obvious is financial. The Bible talks about paying tithes and offerings (in Micah, God accuses Israel of robbing Him, the widow and the two mites illustrates the idea of giving until it hurts, and, of course, God loves a cheerful giver). Of course, there have been a lot of preachers that have preached what is now known as 'prosperity doctrine' which basically boils down to something along the lines of, 'God wants to bless you through your giving. If you aren't giving to the church, you should be. If you giving to the church, but you don't have money left at the end of the month, it's because you aren't giving enough to the church.' You can usually tell churches that teach prosperity doctrine because the pastors of those churches drive foreign cars and live in multimillion-dollar homes and have their own private jets (or soon will have). Other preachers don't want to be perceived as being like that, and wind up with church buildings that are falling apart. It takes money to operate a church. If you are a member of a church, you should be supporting that church. "Oh, God will provide." Of course He will--by making sure that there are faithful people in the church that have jobs and will support (and sometimes are between jobs and find ways to support anyway). God doesn't need your money, but if you don't give, don't expect God to be pleased with that. Don't give your rent money to the church, and then ask the church to pay your rent. God doesn't want you to be homeless, or to have your lights cut off, but He does want you to do your part, even if only as an exercise in faith. If you're mad at the preacher, give anyway. If you think the preacher is a money-grubber, then pray and seek God about it. If He leads you to find another church, then go. If He doesn't, then, you need to spend some time and resolve your feelings.

Another area is the authority of the pastor. Pastors are appointed by God, not by a church board. Now, if the church board is doing their collective job correctly, then God will lead them to hire the pastor that He had in mind; otherwise, the church is going to have problems. Once a pastor has been installed, though, it should take an act of God to remove him (literally). If you really think that you have the wrong man at the helm, then pray about it--but pray for understanding that if that is the right man, that God will help you to deal with him; as well as praying that if he's not the right man, that God will find a way to move him out and move the right man in. I've heard of pastors that were 'called' back and forth between the same two or three churches many times as each church refigured its budget and found more money for the pastor's salary. That's not right, either. Of course, there have also been pastors that have abused their authority in other ways. I don't mean to suggest that I think that it's okay; it's not. If he's done something that could lead to criminal charges, then he should be dealt with accordingly--especially if that involves children.

Sometimes people will decide, "I don't like that preacher; I'm not going back," when the preacher is just trying to look out for their soul. You can probably find a church that will tell you what you want to hear, the question is, can you find a church that will tell you what you need to hear, even when you don't want to?