Just around the corner from my apartment, a congregation of 200-250 gather to worship every Sunday morning at 10:30a.m., and Hannah and I had the wonderful experience of worshiping with them two days ago.
It was intense.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't already have some impression of the demographics of L.I.F.E. Ministries International Church going in. A good friend of mine, Rev. L. Randall Heckert, is close with the pastor of L.I.F.E., and he and I had talked about the church months ago. What I learned in that conversation was the very reason it made the list of churches we plan to visit in the first place; I knew we could expect, yet again, a distinct style of doing church. L.I.F.E. is an entirely African-American congregation.
Hallelujahs echoed through the sanctuary as Hannah and I sat at the end of a pew near the back waiting for the service to begin. Worshipful music played over the buzz of greeting and milling, and two or three women stood down front, clearly moved by the music, shouting, "Hallelujah" repetitively until the service began.
Six or seven vocalists, including Pastor George Dunwoody himself singing and playing the keys, led us in several lengthy, Spirit-powered and soul-felt worship songs. Members of the congregation made joyful noises, shouting and crying out to God and banging on their own tambourines and other instruments. As clearly out of place as I couldn't help but humanly feel, the unity in the sanctuary, within the presence of a Living God, was palpable. We were brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless the tones of our skin.
February is Stewardship Month, and though the majority of the preached message wasn't necessarily grounded in the Word, the members of L.I.F.E. were reminded that "Giving is the engine that pulls the train-load of blessing." Unfortunately, the majority of his message sounded like God is "the Great Mutual Fund in the Sky," and we all need to give to the church so that we get something (hopefully, more) in return. Pastor Dunwoody brought up some good points on stewardship and our mindset toward our possessions, but in the end a lot of what I heard (me, one person, a human) was that God won't bless you, or heal you, or prosper you, or get you out of debt until you give to his Kingdom (which, if that was where it ended, might not be all bad), and that when you do, He will. If that is the mindset we have toward our relationship with God, especially toward giving, I'm afraid we are in for some massive disappointments. I promised to be real with my readers as we journeyed together through various styles of church, and this is one instance where I feel compelled to observe that though the Body of Christ at L.I.F.E. is passionate and unapologetic in their worship of a Living God, the way they portrayed His promises and blessings was less than accurate.
I will probably talk more about stewardship and giving later this week.
God wants to bless us and help us in our times of trouble, all he asks us to do "push the reset button," which was a phrase repeated by a woman at the beginning of the service on Sunday, which I gathered meant something to the effect of "changing one's entire mindset, remembering our salvation, and claiming/calling on God's power." There is so much to be said of the power of this medium-sized congregation like L.I.F.E. living in full expectation that a Great, Holy, Powerful, Living, Loving God is on the move* and doing great things in his Kingdom. For more about L.I.F.E. Ministries, visit their website here.
*These five words should be credited to Bono and his speech/book "God is On the Move," just because Bono is Bono.
Whether or not we agree with what Pastor Dunwoody had to say last week, it has been my experience that the church tends to go about teaching on the topic of tithing in awkward/weird/confusing ways. All churches/ministries typically are funded by the congregation and other donors/donations, and I have been a part of conversations where we have been asked to ask our supporters to give more money because we needed it to stay afloat. Never an easy conversation to have with anyone! Period!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, I hated asking my parents for money. Why? I knew what their typical response would be. “I already gave you your allowance, what did you do with it?” I think we, maybe just me, feel like the parents sometimes when it comes to church/tithing. I gave you some already, why do you need more? What are you doing with my money?
I have only been in one setting where I was impressed with how the church handled this topic. We went through the ABCs of Financial Freedom (don't remember author off top of head), and part of that book was about tithing. If you read Malachi 3:10, you will notice that God tells us to test Him in this..."Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it."
My understanding is this is the only place in Scripture where He tells us to test Him. Pretty cool eh? The pastor of my church went on to say that we didn't need to give to this church and proceeded to put the name and address of about 10 other churches in our community that he himself would give to.
It comes down to the principle of the matter, as many of us know, and that is we need to understand this money we have isn't ours. We are to give back only 10% of what we have earned, when all of it is the Lord’s. I have had life changing experiences since beginning to tithe...whether or not they are directly tied to this, I can't be for certain, but I am not going to test Him by discontinuing my tithe!