Elaborate churches

Jim, perhaps you didn't get my meaning...I wasn't talking about extravagance...I was talking about the vast resources large churches typically have. Like these things smaller churches may envy about large churches:

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• a trained music leader</font>
• a trained youth worker</font>
• their nice shuttle buses</font>
• their pastor does not have to double as the janitor, sound technician, and security guard</font>
• their sound system is less than twenty years old</font>

There are many things that may come to the mind, but to pretend that envy plays absolutely no role is ingenuine - at least for most.

I would congratulate all churches who know where God is leading and are following Him...and are not sour about the "wealthier" churches that are doing the same.

However: I have absolutely no idea about the church that is the subject of this thread.

 

Prestonwood is a great church that wins souls, disciples the saved, reaches out to the community, and gives millions to missions. Their Pastor, Dr. Jack Graham, is a personal soulwinner, a conservative, bible believing preacher and author. Prestonwood has not built to grow, but they have built because they have grown, and are continuing to grow. Not only that, they have also started other mission churches around the Plano area.

The argument that they could have spent some of that money for missions, the needy, etc., does not hold much water. The church with 25 in attendance in a 50 seat sanctuary could have used the money they spent on that extra large pulpit Bible to help keep a missionary on the field as well. The amount may not be the same, but the sacrifice can.

I Pastor a growing church in rural SC. We are a congregation of middle class folk. We have been in the midst of building/growing programs as long as I have been there. I anticipate continuing to win souls, teach them to win souls, and provide the facilities for them to come and be ministered to. In the midst of these building projects, we have increased our missions giving 600%.

If the world can give their best to lead people to destruction, then the church of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to give it's best to lead them to life everlasting.

 

Prestonwood looks somewhat like Bellevue Baptist in Memphis. I agree with izzaksdad, Prestonwood has around 25,000 members, and Bellevue has close to 28,000. It is a pure joy to go to Bellevue, their preacher (Adrian Rogers) is a wonderful man of God. I personally would love to be able to be a member of a church like Prestonwood or Bellevue. They have their own little league, soccer league, softball league, and many others. It would be wonderful to go to a little league game where everyone was a christian, and parents and coaches acted like adults.
In fact, I am going to to travel about 2 1/2 hours to go to Bellevue tomorrow morning. Dr. Rogers is going to retire in March, and I want to go as much as I can while he is still there. It is pure joy to walk into that beautiful building, I can feel the Spirit of God from the parking lot.

 

Quoted by IZZAKSDAD:The church with 25 in attendance in a 50 seat sanctuary could have used the money they spent on that extra large pulpit Bible to help keep a missionary on the field as well.

Notice they bought the Word of God in your example. Not fancy expensive man pleasing, resort hotel types of fixtures.

I agree with av611jim. How much more could you give and promote the gospel by building Billy Sunday type of buildings that held thousands but were inexpensive?

Jesus was homeless and you think He would condone this type of extravagence? Shame on you!!

Men sure like their little empires dont they?

 

This is part of my problem. These establishments remove all need for folks to go out "into all the world." In a sense they become some kind of opulant "neo-monastaries."

 

I looked into quite a bit of thier site. First it is quite a facility. If I did'nt look any deeper than that I would have jumped on the bandwagon with a bunch of you guys and bad mouthed the spending on this opulent palatial building.
First it seems everything in that facility serves a purpose.
second this church has many functions it performs. It provides for the poor in the community, not only food and other material help but also education,counseling,job assistance,and training in several areas. this church supports many missionaries and also has facilities for missionaries who are on furlough. they have bus ministries,visitation ministries,unwed mother ministries, and a whole bunch more I did'nt dig deeply into.
They have discipleship classes as well as teaching an excellant class on personal evangelism. I also checked to see how many attended services last week, it was over 8,000.
I don't know about you but until I can do more than that I am not up to critisizing them.

 

I am preaching (in my living room, to a VERY small crowd) this week from 2 Corinthians 4v1-10. I am finishing the series with verses 7-10 today. Having a hard time reconciling that with what I see here.

If you want to call me jealous or envious, that is fine. You don't know my heart or my burden, just as I don't know the hearts or burdens of the folks in this church.

It just doesn't seem to match the kind of service Paul talks about throughout his epistles. It was all deprivation, trials, and suffering.

 

After spending a lot of time in the prayer forum and reading about how much Ray Prince and his family and some of our other brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering, I was very much encouraged by seeing what the people at Prestonwood are allowing God to do in and through their lives. God is NOT poor and I do not find any mention in the New Testament of decaying wrecks of old musty Baptist churches like we have in my community. Churches with broken windows, cracking and chipping paint, doors that need to be varnished, and cracked sidewalks with weeds growing up through the cracks are not my idea of a New Testament church. And non-functional buildings little bigger than a cardboard box are not my idea of a New Testament church either. A church is not just a room with pew in it—a church is a facility where Christians can come together and celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ and enjoy being together as the resurrected body of Christ.

Little and jealous men who have nothing better to do than be envious of what God is doing in and through other people’s lives need to get down on their knees and repent so that God can do something in and though their lives.

I pray that Prestonwood will continue to be an inspiration to faithful Pastors and laymen alike around the world as they see what the power of God can do in through people’s lives when they say yes to God and no to the devil.

 

Some years ago I rented the second floor of the oldest surviving building in an inner city. This second floor was such a wreck that it had not been occupied for more than 20 years. My home church thought that I was a fool and they wanted no part of helping me to pioneer a church in that building. I had to work 54 hours a week at a secular job to pay the rent on the building and I therefore had to live in a skid row hotel with a bathroom down the hall. For more than three months the building continued to decay and people continued to shake their heads. My pastor’s wife told me that I was being a poor steward and squandering the Lord’s money. But in another few months that second floor was renovated, furnished, and the attendance was so large that we could not fit everyone in the building and found it necessary to expand into two additional buildings and began to make plans to acquire the entire city block so that we could do more than just preach and teach the Bible, but actually be a living, breathing New Testament church.

We were not a missionary church, and we were not supported by any other churches. Our Lord Jesus Christ added unto out congregation people with a large variety gifts, talents, abilities, and incomes, and we were entirely self-supporting.

 

This type of judgement on men's views and opinions does little to edify the body of Christ. You make the assumption that anyone who questions the mega-church mentality needs to repent, that is unfortunate.

There also appears to be an implication here that if a church is not a mega-chruch somehow it is because the church is saying no to God and yes to the devil.

 

Thank you for sharing your opinion with me. However, edification of the body of Christ is only one of the many responsibilities of Christians, and sometime it is necessary for some of us to tend to some of the other responsibilities. And of course that would not have been necessary in this case if the attitude of some of the posters to this thread had been what it should have been. God has called each one of us to be the steward over what He has given us a stewardship over, and that stewardship does not extend to belittling the stewardship of others. In this very thread a church of thousands of Christians was directly accused of abusing their stewardship—and such accusations need to be rebuked.

 

Rebuke does not extend to saying things like "little and jealous men." That is a human judgement, not based on Scriptural principles.

Some have what they, rightly or wrongly, view as valid concerns about the "mega-church" mentality. To accuse them of being "little and jealous" is to judge their hearts, something no one but the Lord is able to do.

 

I respectfully disagree with you, but since you are a moderator I shall respect your authority and not argue with you.

 

Craig,

In every forum my moderator status should have nothing to do with a debate, much less here where I am not a moderator.

We can differ over the wisdom, the mentality, or the Biblical basis for this type of ministry, but I think we take it too far when we judge men's hearts. I don't think anyone has judged the hearts of the folks at this church. Only their methods are being debated.

Off to church now. May the Lord give you a great day of worship and fellowship today.

 

av1611jim:

You have not offended me by your postings on this topic, nor did I intend to infer that one MUST attend the service(s) of a particular church before forming an opinion about that church.

My point was that there are some folks in this world that will readily take someone else's word about a person or church or ministry without first examining for themself whether what that other person told them about some one (or some thing) is really an accurate and unbiased opinion of that person or church or ministry.


http://www.baileysmith.org

is Bailey Smith's official website.

--ktn4eg
Lamentations 3:21-23

[ February 13, 2005, 07:46 AM: Message edited by: ktn4eg ]

 

After reading the latest posts in that thread I am reminded how little all of this really matters.