It’s not a small wonder as to why driving down the street in Tulsa, one can find three churches with different names all lined up in a row like businesses. Territorial in location is not as much a problem as ‘sheep stealing’ or ‘sheep grazing another’s pasture’. Why? Because churches, and dare I say most of them, are ran like a business; sheering sheep to store up meat, and make home happy for pappy.
Here’s how the game is played:
Griffin Capital Funding, a specialist in Church financing, has a 2013 financial goal, “to close $100,000,000 in church loans.” For the last two years they have financed roughly 100 churches a year “providing over $100,000,000 in Church loans all over the country.” According to their website Celebration Covenant Church in Frisco, Tx was their largest project with a loan amount of $24,500,000. With over 300,000 churches in America and over 315,364,716 people, in the words of Jesus, “the harvest is great but the laborers are few.”
As a percent of the America people ‘feel’ the ‘call,’ they relapse and with great contradiction of their future word to the people to be the lenders and not the borrowers, they in turn take out a loan to start building a farm house to house the flock that God is 'suppose' to send.
With an average church debt of $75,000, the flock enters and now the pressures of running a church like a business take precedence over running a church like a kingdom.
Seats equal numbers and numbers add up as cashflow to pay for loans, staff, and the Pastors lifestyle. With conviction they preach with boldness and assurance that God will do great things if one gives money into their ministry. Many give, and give, and give, and 10 years later are financially not better off than what they were before. Why? To the Shepherd it’s a business, to the sheep it’s a pasture.
As the sheep increase so do the expenses of keeping the sheep comfortable. The modern church today has more entertaining features such as theater seating, jumbotrons to view animated commercials and the Shepherds big head (lighten up!), and lighting theatrics to name a few - their focus is on running a successful business.
A ministry in Tulsa tells its members to give just a little more for God. Another ministry tells the members to give tithes to the church, and offering for missions, and another offering for the guest speaker. To keep the giving mojo high, manipulation such as saying, “God has given me 3 keys to a prosperous life. God will give these keys to the first 100 people who give 1000 dollars,” adds salt to injury.
The Church Is A Part Of The Kingdom Of God, Not THE Kingdom of God
It starts with the Pastor. Every church, ministry, or organization from God is a piece of the larger whole. The kingdom of heaven, as described by Jesus, is an expanding kingdom that God has now sent to the earth. It is not a business, it’s larger than that. Most if not all businesses are not connected to one another unless a merge happens, but even in a merge there is still separation of identity but unification of income and expenses. When ran like a business, the church remains separate. When we operate the church like a kingdom, when finances run dry in one area, say Africa, the strong financially take care of it and not the banker’s loan.
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