Pastors are regularly informed, implicitly and explicitly, of what their position in society is. “Stay in your lane” is often conveyed in various means. Society, of course, is in many senses the project of individuals regulating themselves and one another to “stay in our lanes,” driving together along this highway called life, so to speak. Even so, these lanes are regularly renegotiated and societies continue to respond to changing circumstances.
Once upon a time, clergy were expected, not only to preach and teach, but also to care for dead bodies, to give lifestyle counsel, to educate children. Many functions filled today by morticians, psychologists, and teachers were once filled by clergy. The lanes changed over time.
Likewise, the church often filled social functions that it no longer does today. It was a community center, a school, a place to find a mate, to socialize the community’s children, to foster public civic conversation, to seek legal counsel. It has also been, until very recently, an economic powerhouse.
In the days of normative tithing, churches could sometimes amass large amounts of wealth. While church bodies have often hoarded such wealth for opulence and comfort, they have also supported massive international and domestic mission and works of mercy, redistribution wealth for the good of the poor.
In high school, I remember reading Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, a historical fiction about the building of a cathedral across three generations in medieval Europe. Follett colorfully portrayed how it was that cathedrals spread such great wealth by employing local craftsmen, carpenters, masons, and other tradesmen. These things needed only for the edifices of church communities breathe much into the lifeblood of any given community. In the case of communities like mine, church funds can also start supporting families that then pour their money back into the local community.
For better or for worse, I find myself having to acknowledge, sometimes with a little too much passion, the reality of basic capitalist theory. Namely, that individual free consumers can always meet market needs better than federal, or even state, initiative. When individuals are given the freedom to choose how it is that they will be employed and what they will produce, they generally make better choices than a centralized authority.
However, without the check of a godly conscience, people will govern themselves licentiously, which causes great harm. The current social norm is that the church can advocate for certain broad moral values, but it should not play a significant role in the local economy. Rather, churches are often seen as a sort of drag on the local economy, being excused from paying their ‘fair share’ in taxes.
I find myself drawn to the prospect of an economic institution, overseeing portions of the local economy under the aegis of Christ. Where Christ is, there should be flourishing, right? What if churches were communities that intentionally pooled their funds in order to provide for the flourishing, not just spiritually, not just for their own people, but in very real and material ways for everyone around their building’s location?
A couple of years ago, I pitched to our church board the prospect of creating a part-time position in order to meet the potential needs our church had to reach people online. A man who has now become a member of the church and a personal friend of mine was hired to fill the role. Because of his hard work, the church is now a model for online engagement with the community. Moreover, his ministry is now starting to make money. It is realistic to imagine that someday he will bring in more money than he costs the church.
Three months ago, I pitched to our church board the prospect of creating a part-time position in order to meet the potential needs of local mothers, to equip them to feed their families healthy, delicious, locally-produced food while giving them a community of godly women to encourage one another and grow in confidence in faith and in the kitchen. A local woman who I believed had the gifts and graces for such a coordinating position was hired. It has been amazing to see the energy and joy that now fills our church kitchen on a weekly basis. It is going much better than I imagined it would after only a couple months. They are already able to sell more meals to local people than they make for themselves. Long term, it is a reasonable expectation that this ministry pay for itself.
Some methods of measuring church vitality indicate that it is unhealthy for the bulk of a church’s money to be spent on personnel. The presupposition is that the bulk of the money should be going to local and international poor. Yet several sober analyses, for example When Helping Hurts by the Chalmers Center, have noted how ineffective handing out money without relationship is in combating poverty. Humans, in order for their lives to be changed, need to be welcomed, not primarily to money, but into new relationships. In the church, some of these relationships will result in money changing hands.
Some baby boomers in the church have bad-mouthed the churches they grew up in, saying many folks only came in order to build business relationships. But you know what? I’d rather business relationships be formed with the social norms of the church than at the bar, or the casino, or many other places where people are prone to congregate. And if the church can insinuate itself into the business practices of members, such that they become more honest and gracious in their dealings, that is all for the better. And if we can make it a norm to do business with one another when at all possible, then that rising tide will lift all our boats.
That is not to say that I have no qualms whatsoever about economic activities at the church. I have not forgotten how Jesus felt about the money-changers at the Temple:
Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”
- John 2:13-16
Christians should take care that our houses of worship are never places in which business is done with an eye only towards profits, taking advantage of those who do not have by offering services that nobody else can provide (I believe this was the sin of the money-changers). Even so, I think we neglect our duty to be salt and light in our local context when we intentionally limit ourselves from participating in the local economy. The reality is that there is no way for a local church to avoid the local economy entirely. Church communities need to consume goods just like any other entity. I believe it is better if we proactively engage in the local economy to 1) give dignified and holy work to local people, 2) without an eye to pure profit, but instead towards relationship, 3) such that these individuals likewise participate in the local economy and, 4) generally improve the whole economy of the town.
Increasingly over the course of my ministry, I have taken a lot of joy imagining a future community of Christ in which much money is made, many services graciously rendered, many families supported and equipped to provide for one another, with everything in submission to and glorifying Christ Jesus. Is that not an appealing option for others in the face of an increasingly meaningless and rapacious public life? Or are we so intimidated by the specter of a corrupted powerful church that we instead choose to keep our churches poor and deprived of local economic influence?
I guess I just disagree with the lane modern America has the church in. They want us to shut up and do our good works without condition or pressure, just like the early worldly authorities wanted from the church (Acts 4:16-17). Perhaps the church would be wise to reconsider the lane that we have been cornered in. Perhaps we should play a more active role in our local economies.
Without the church, our world is cruel and selfish. It narcissistically imagines itself to be able to take care of itself just fine without the pieties of the church. It is wrong. Without God’s people, this world descends into chaos and cruelty. The church can and should be a place in which the weak are protected, the ignorant educated, the feeble equipped, the poor ennobled, the juvenile matured, and, most importantly, where sinners are led to repentance and holiness. We lovingly and firmly insist on the ways of the Kingdom. We preach Christ and him crucified. We also model a way of life that is fundamentally ordered, productive, gracious, and quietly powerful.
Let us continue praying that the church rises to the challenge of our present moment. The world is like a petulant child that wants to build a house for the family to live in without any instructions or equipment. The church, like a loving mother, is called to patiently insist that we will require things to be done with certain values, with skill and conscientiousness, if they are to be entrusted with our goods. The church of Jesus Christ is not a beggarly institution, desperate for the scraps of a begrudging and greedy populace. Rather, we are the people of God, joyfully submitting to the Lord and modeling the way that leads to life eternal. If we cannot model that financially, then we are failing in a very basic sense.