"Perspective Is Everything"

Our church has been in a building program going on 6 years. The Lord has been good, though at times it has been a slow and tedious process. Over five years ago we went to a two-service format, which enabled our congregation and visitors to be less cramped in our Sunday morning service. Our church owns 11 acres of prime real estate (worth over $1 million) here in West Bend. It is all paid for; but, in order to build, we were waiting for the city to approve water/sewer and for our current building to sell. It seemed that things would be on hold for a while. But in February we received an offer on our building and were told the water/sewer was likely to be approved in April. It appeared the Lord was opening doors that had been closed for some time. We had a special meeting to vote on selling the church. This then raised the question, “Is the church financially ready to move forward?” Giving had been slightly down for the past few months, but it was in keeping with the trends we had seen in the past. Our financial officers are very involved in the business world and tend to see things through that lens. While we respect their business expertise, a church is not a business but a ministry. The financial officers felt we were not financially ready to move forward while the pastor and deacons recommended selling the church and moving forward. The vote was 85% to sell and move forward. One big issue for the financial officers was staff salaries. We believe God provides for all of our needs, and we would much rather see the church built than to have a raise. We had to explain to one couple in our church (who told us we had a responsibility to ask for a raise) that the Bible tells us that having food and raiment we should be content. As long as God is providing for our needs, we will never ask for a raise. Obviously, having a little more money every month would make it easier to meet our budget, but somehow the Lord always sees us through. The more we trust Him, the happier we are. One loving person brought up the fact that we were being paid below poverty level. Ironically, the very next week we had a missionary to China point out that we live in luxury compared to the rest of the world. Our family has been blessed and though there are times when we go without things we would enjoy, we remind one another that if we only had our children we would have been blessed beyond measure. Keeping perspective is so incredibly important! Dad has an incredible sense of perspective on every topic I discuss with him. I remember the many times he reminded us that we had no choice about where we were born or what family we were born into. The first time that struck me, I was riding on a bus through Poss homes (the projects) in Chattanooga. I was incredibly annoyed at the behavior of some of the children on the bus, when God seemed to say, “think of your upbringing ----- now think of theirs.” It is so easy for me to forget that and be judgmental. I am reminded of Luke 12:48, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” It is a humbling thought that though God expects a lot more out of me than what I’m giving Him, He loves me anyway.