Furthering my thoughts on my last post, I want to submit that there is a great danger to the big church building projects especially as it relates to non-Christians.
Take a look at your Bible. If it’s the same as mine the scriptures are full of a call for Christians to pour themselves out on behalf of others. It is a totally reversed idea from what culture says. We are called to sacrifice for the sake of others, to put others needs before our own, etc. And most non-Christians know that, at least some of it.
What message does our huge fancy buildings send to the world? It says that we are very interested in our own well being. It says that we some how reconcile the call to care for the poor, the poor on our streets, and our big building all together in this religion of ours. How does any of this make sense?
I’ll tell you, this is a struggle for me, and I guarantee you it is something non-Christians wonder too. Those who come to our comfortable, fancy churches and like it stay, not because of the radical call of Christianity, but because of the comfortable, country-club style church we’ve created (not everyone, but I would submit a lot of people). I’m gonna get in trouble for saying that.
I ran into this problem near the end of my time at the Christian college I attended. This is “fancy” place. They just spent $21 million on a new student center for the 2400 students that go there. In the classes we talked about the radical call to care for others, but we do it all the while with this underlying presumption that we can follow this radical call and at the same time maintain this extravagant lifestyle that we are offered at the college. Now, this is not to say my education was worthless, or the people there are horrible. I had an incredible education, and the people (staff, peers, admin) are wonderful, this does not take away from that.
What I am trying to say is that our buildings send a message about our values, and I think they send a message of values in the wrong places.