I don’t believe I have ever seen this before, and it caught me off guard.
I went to pay my AAA Visa (through MBNA America Bank) today and saw that I owed nothing. Since I have been using the card and this is always the time I pay it I knew there had to be something. There was a “Last Statement” balance listed there so I searched through my payment history to see if I had just paid in advance by accident (I do that occasionally). Nope, my last payment was $100 less than my last statement balance.
After digging around a bit I noticed a link about a “Payment Holiday” which meant I did not have to pay at all this month, but I would get finance charges on what I left in my account.
So, instead of the typical $15 minimum payment they were letting me go with a $0 minimum payment. I am glad I am not a sucker.
This credit card (and many others) urge people to just pay the minimum. Spend $15 this month, that is all you need to pay. The next month, of course, you are deeper in debt even without spending anything.
So, what does this have to do with a church?
No credit card company cares about its customers. They are only interested in getting you to pay more.
I feel that with with many companies.
Toy companies don’t care that the toy is good for your child, they just care that you buy it.
Food companies don’t care about your health as much as they do about your money.
Churches fall into this as well. When we measure the growth of a church based upon attendance or offering we are looking at something that benefits the “incorporated church” (the institutional or business aspects of a congregation) and not necessary the “corporate church” (the people who are the church body).
How can we measure the benefit received by the people in the church.
It isn’t in the hipness or volume of the wroship service or the number of “Amens” during the sermon.
It isn’t how much fun was had at the last youth event.
It isn’t in how “spiritual” you have made your vocabulary.
I think it is better measured in how much solid Bible knowledge the people have.
I think it is better measured in how they put that knowledge into their life.
I think it is better measured in how they organize their lives to put Christ foremost.
The problem is that it is much harder to track the real measures. You can’t just have a counting team in a back room or a guy with a clipboard standing behind the pews.
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