Your church (or others in the community around you) may participate in fundraisers. It can be anything from a bake sale or car wash to raffle tickets on a home-stitched quilt.
What do you think about the combination of churches and fundraising?
Why do I ask?
We are about to study an important and well known passage about Christ and the use of the temple. It might be a good idea to look at our own beliefs and practices, and then dive into the study.
I'd like to encourage you to truly give this some thought, and I'm hoping for some good discussions. I will be leaving this post up tomorrow as well, so here is a suggestion:
Close your browser and come back to this after you have thoughtfully considered this question. Be prepared to give reasons behind your thoughts. Do you have scripture that you feel backs your view? Can you cite examples (positive or negative) about fundraisers in the past?
Please be reasonable and thoughtful (no ranting, OK? LOL) and be sure to come back and check what others have had to say, too. I believe this can be a learning process for us.
On Friday we'll have our usual musical interlude, and I'll be back on Monday to address your comments and thoughts.
I just went and read that passage. What struck me in it was that Jesus objected to the men turning the temple into a market. I think that the people selling and changing money were in it for making money for themselves, not for the church, and that was the problem. I don't think there is anything wrong with fund raisers for churches, but I think the type of fund raiser could be a problem. Anything that has elements of gambling, for example, like raffles or bingo, would be a no-no, I would think. But using the church building for rummage sales, or bake sales or bazzars where the proceedes go to the church, dedicated to the Lords work, would be ok, in my opinion. And some churches rent out their spaces during the week, which is another fund raiser, altho I think care would need to be taken regarding who they were renting to.
ReplyDeleteOur church doesn't do any fund raising outside of our particular church. By that, I mean we never solicit from those who are not members. The youth will have a church wide chili supper to earn money for mission projects, we will take a special offering for some specific need, but we never ask those who are not members.
ReplyDeleteGoing outside the church for donations and fundraising can have its pros and cons. Some may see it as Christians always asking for money, but then again it might make a non-Christian curious enough about what's going on to attend your particular church to find out.
I agree with Cathy in that is shouldn't have anything to do with gambling if you are going to try and raise funds.
So, I really don't have a good answer to whether it's wrong or right. I looked at some scripture, but didn't really find anything that approved or condemned it for me. I guess we'll see what you have to say about it tomorrow. :)This should be interesting....