"It's the Money,
Stupid!"
Community Church this April
is going through that annual exercise known as
"Stewardship Campaign" or by other similarly anodyne
slogans. In actuality what stewardship campaigns are
about is: "It's the money, stupid!". Naturally,
churches and pastors are disinclined to be so bald and
bold in stating this reality, but, truly, isn't it
about money?
To be sure, there are
nowadays means to support the church, other than
giving money: you can donate shares of stocks or
parcels of land and other real estate. But church
budgets operate on the need for regular monetary
support through the year. It's about money.
And in an affluent
congregation like CCHK where I would guess the average
monthly income is over HK$l00,000, stewardship has to
be about money: how much each person will decide to
give/pledge to the church's budget.
But how about the "stupid?"
That's strong language though it was a popular phrase
in the last two U.S. presidential election when it
came into electoral success under the rubric of "It's
the economy, stupid!"
Of course churches and their
pastors hesitate to call their worshipers "stupid"
especially when they want to motivate them to be
generous. But "stupid" is more or less what Jesus
called the affluent young man in Mark l0:l7. That
fellow was much like upper income worshipers at CCHK:
He was rich, he was successful, he had social status,
and he was sincerely pious and looking for some
meaning to his life beyond his outward
achievements.
Jesus told him what he needed
to do to attain what he sought, and he couldn't do it.
He was "stupid" or, if you prefer, he was silly,
naïve, superficial. Whatever you call it, when
someone says they are looking for more of God in their
lives, and Jesus invites pursuit of a course of action
to attain that goal, and then the person turns away
downcast, it is stupid, and it's also sad.
Pastor Gene Preston