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So, odds are no one really cares at this point, and this ends up on page 11 by 4 PM.
However, this debate used to drive me insane, and I figure as sparingly as I've been posting, if everyone hates it, oh well. Let the TL;DR's begin!
So a friend of mine is doing an internship with a campus ministry. And she was telling me how it was so surprising how there is so much business that goes into running a church. If you don't have a building, people don't come. If the building doesn't have air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, people won't come. If there isn't electricity, people don't come. And, if you can't get people in the building, you can't get them to God. Of course, a church isn't the building, the AC, the heat, the electricity. The church is the people. You can have a church without all of that except the people...but you can't have the people without all of that. Spare me the "If you were a good Christian..." That doesn't apply. Unsaved people aren't going to sit in a cold dark room for an hour to listen to some right wing nut job ramble for an hour about.
And lastly...if you don't have a preacher, you can't deliver the message. Yeah, Brother Bob can get up and testify, but really, you want souls saved, you want a preacher. Well, the message is the message. The preacher is doing God's work whether it be at your church or someone else's. You want one, you gotta suck him in. That involves...$. That often involves a parsonage, sometimes with most house-related expenses paid.
Preacher man is a direct servant of the lord. Yet, he gets to make a living in doing so. People NEVER complain about that. He's our preacher, we have to take care of him.
Can I stop it there? Does everyone see what I (tried to) did there? Let's all bite the bullet and make NOTHING off something we spend 50+ hours a week doing, something we spent 25+ years working to learn, something cost us over 200K. Let the preacher man have a decent house, decent car, and put the doctors in a box.
However, this debate used to drive me insane, and I figure as sparingly as I've been posting, if everyone hates it, oh well. Let the TL;DR's begin!
So a friend of mine is doing an internship with a campus ministry. And she was telling me how it was so surprising how there is so much business that goes into running a church. If you don't have a building, people don't come. If the building doesn't have air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, people won't come. If there isn't electricity, people don't come. And, if you can't get people in the building, you can't get them to God. Of course, a church isn't the building, the AC, the heat, the electricity. The church is the people. You can have a church without all of that except the people...but you can't have the people without all of that. Spare me the "If you were a good Christian..." That doesn't apply. Unsaved people aren't going to sit in a cold dark room for an hour to listen to some right wing nut job ramble for an hour about.
And lastly...if you don't have a preacher, you can't deliver the message. Yeah, Brother Bob can get up and testify, but really, you want souls saved, you want a preacher. Well, the message is the message. The preacher is doing God's work whether it be at your church or someone else's. You want one, you gotta suck him in. That involves...$. That often involves a parsonage, sometimes with most house-related expenses paid.
Preacher man is a direct servant of the lord. Yet, he gets to make a living in doing so. People NEVER complain about that. He's our preacher, we have to take care of him.
Can I stop it there? Does everyone see what I (tried to) did there? Let's all bite the bullet and make NOTHING off something we spend 50+ hours a week doing, something we spent 25+ years working to learn, something cost us over 200K. Let the preacher man have a decent house, decent car, and put the doctors in a box.
