Canticles of the Unhomed
Monday, November 21, 2005
An Answer
I love checking my email. I love checking my email. I love checking my email. I love checking my email. I love checking my email. I love checking my email. I love checking my email. I love checking my email, etc.
So I got this email the other day. Actually, it was an email notification of a post on this blog. I love getting these emails. Normally. This time, the post was from someone who had visited my blog and read my post/rant about Lakewood Church in Houston, TX, and my rampant dislike/disrespect for Joel Osteen, the pastor of said church.
The link to that post is here.
The cool thing was that this post was from an ATTENDER of Lakewood. Uh oh, I thought. Then I read it. I have reproduced her comment here, since i am sure that anyone who reads my blog does read my entire archive before they read the newest post. Here she is, UNEDITED...
So I got this email the other day. Actually, it was an email notification of a post on this blog. I love getting these emails. Normally. This time, the post was from someone who had visited my blog and read my post/rant about Lakewood Church in Houston, TX, and my rampant dislike/disrespect for Joel Osteen, the pastor of said church.
The link to that post is here.
The cool thing was that this post was from an ATTENDER of Lakewood. Uh oh, I thought. Then I read it. I have reproduced her comment here, since i am sure that anyone who reads my blog does read my entire archive before they read the newest post. Here she is, UNEDITED...
"For the record, our sanctuary holds 16,000 seats not 57,000.
If you had seen the facility that we were in previously, holding 8,000 and bursting at the seams every weekend so much so that we had to have four weekend English services, you would understand the move.
Yes the facility is costing an estimated 75 Million dollars for renovations. Besides providing jobs, Lakewood does so much more.
Yes healthcare is an issue, but why doesn't anyone say anything about a basketball playing spending 5 Million dollars on a house just for himself. You are harping on a minister who no longer accepts a salary from his church.
While bashing this minister, did you happen to research the thousands of Lakewood volunteers who went to the Astrodome daily to assist in whatever capacity we could? Did you happen to research the millions of dollars we poured into the relief effort? Did you look into the fact that our former facility was used as a Katrina shelter? Or are you just focused on the fact that 75Million dollars was spent to renovate a church that draws in the unchurched by the masses and giving them a little more hope than they had before?
If we can spend millions of taxpayers money on SPORTS games, what is the problem is a church wants to spend millions of its own money [and money of those who willingly pledge] to affect change in its city and the lives of others.
Pick on those ministers who drive their bentleys, and have their helicopters, and don't pay taxes on their million dollar homes that they claim as church parishes [none of which are done by Joel].
If you had seen the facility that we were in previously, holding 8,000 and bursting at the seams every weekend so much so that we had to have four weekend English services, you would understand the move.
Yes the facility is costing an estimated 75 Million dollars for renovations. Besides providing jobs, Lakewood does so much more.
Yes healthcare is an issue, but why doesn't anyone say anything about a basketball playing spending 5 Million dollars on a house just for himself. You are harping on a minister who no longer accepts a salary from his church.
While bashing this minister, did you happen to research the thousands of Lakewood volunteers who went to the Astrodome daily to assist in whatever capacity we could? Did you happen to research the millions of dollars we poured into the relief effort? Did you look into the fact that our former facility was used as a Katrina shelter? Or are you just focused on the fact that 75Million dollars was spent to renovate a church that draws in the unchurched by the masses and giving them a little more hope than they had before?
If we can spend millions of taxpayers money on SPORTS games, what is the problem is a church wants to spend millions of its own money [and money of those who willingly pledge] to affect change in its city and the lives of others.
Pick on those ministers who drive their bentleys, and have their helicopters, and don't pay taxes on their million dollar homes that they claim as church parishes [none of which are done by Joel].
Okaaay... where do I begin? Might as well be systematic. Although, I will repeat here what I said in my original post, perhaps the part that Miss Krys did not read.
Let me just begin this rant by saying that I am sure that the Osteens are genuine Christians that love God and only want to do his work, and are accomplishing their calling the best way that they know how. I am confident that God is in their church, and that salvation can be found in their teaching, and that lives are being changed by their ministry that they are making a difference for the good in Houston. Also, I have never been to their church, talked to the Osteens, nor anyone from their church. I have visited their website, read some of their matierals, but that's it. Whew.
Now, back to it. She says, "For the record, our sanctuary holds 16,000 seats not 57,000."
"For the record," I was quoting the CNN article, and Joel himself during the interview, that 57,000 people had attended their opening service; now whether that was over a number of services, or a number of days, I don't know, but that was the number he said. Check out the video of the interview. That number is HIS, not mine. For the record.
"If you had seen the facility that we were in previously, holding 8,000 and bursting at the seams every weekend so much so that we had to have four weekend English services, you would understand the move." This is my favourite. The church was "bursting at the seams" with ONLY 8000 seatings and four services. Oh my. I guess you wouldn't want to, oh, I don't know... PLANT A NEW CHURCH, or anything like that. Nope. Gotta go bigger. I mean, you wouldn't want to spread the resources around a bit, allow new ideas and more creativity. That would be bad. Better to just pile everyone into a football stadium.
"...did you happen to research the thousands of Lakewood volunteers..." Nope, I didn't. Good on you though. Volunteering at your church is good, godly, and spiritually formative.
"Did you happen to research the millions of dollars we poured into the relief effort?" Nope, cause I wrote that post in July. The hurricanes hadn't happened yet.
"Did you look into the fact that our former facility was used as a Katrina shelter?" Uh... nooo... are we just not familar with the whole idea of the spacetime continuum, that events happen in a sequence, and that events usually have to happen BEFORE you write about it? I mean, I'm no prophet like Joel... (now, that was a bit offside now, wasn't it?)
"Or are you just focused on the fact that 75Million dollars was spent to renovate a church that draws in the unchurched by the masses and giving them a little more hope than they had before?" Yep. Pretty much. Ask Kelly how much good that 75 million could have done in the Sudan. Or Indonesia. Or Mexico. Or the Ukraine. Or Brazil. Or maybe, just f*$#ing maybe the streets of Houston, or Washington DC or Chicago or New York, or Los Angeles. Maybe you should go to the five year old orphan living in GARBAGE in Manila and tell her about the fancy building. I'm sure she would really love it. Or maybe talk to Shirley, who was in Ethiopia, immunizing children; she might have some ideas about how 75 million dollars could be spent. Or maybe you should talk to Ruth Hussein, the Iraqi widow, whose husband was shot to death in a Christian bookstore. I'm sure she'll have a lot to say about hope. Or maybe talk to John Cardinal who lives on the streets of Edmonton, who has to beg for food due to a combination of mental illness, bureaocratic red tape and hopelessness. I'm sure he'll agree that the money was well spent, that is, if he even cares. Its pretty hard to care about church buildings when you're starving. How about all the missionary organizations that barely scrape together tiny budgets to build houses, create adequate drinking water sources, buy medication, and so on. Perhaps you should talk to the folks over at the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County. They might have some use for 75 million dollars. By the way, according to Joel, the number, including the purchase price, was $91,000,000. I could go on.
"If we can spend millions of taxpayers money on SPORTS games, what is the problem is a church wants to spend millions of its own money [and money of those who willingly pledge] to affect change in its city and the lives of others." See previous paragraph.
Alright, that's enough. I think I'm starting to get a little mean-spirited. (Starting?)
It comes back to the question of mission. What are we here for? To hoard money and then buy/build/renovate lavish buildings that only serve to further alienate us from the hurting people that are already around us? Safe hidey holes where we can go and pat ourselves on the back, listen to inspiring messages and lift our hands and sway ecstatically to incredible music? Nice, good-smelling places were the rough, bad-smelling people won't/can't go? I seem to remember Jesus kicking over tables in places like that.
I'm sorry, I just can't help but get emotional about this. I work with Habitat for Humanity; I have met the families that can barely afford to RENT, let alone own a house. I work with UNICEF. I have worked with food banks and homeless shelters. I have built houses and dug wells. There are several times 57,000 or 18,000 or whatever, children who will starve in the next month or so, under the age of five. How DARE we defend our entitlement, our avarice, our affluence, when those lives will be snuffed out without us here in North America even noticing? How DARE we when people will die TONIGHT on the streets of our own cities while we fall asleep in front of our TV's watching Desperate Housewives? I count myself CHIEF among these sinners. I am no better.
I will pray for Joel and Victoria. Not because I pity them, or disagree with them. We are on the same side. They wield TREMENDOUS power and influence, more than I ever will in my life, even if you take all that I have ever had and ever will and add it together. I will pray that they wield it thoughtfully, prayerfully, and with as much Christ-likeness as possible.
:: written by Matt Thompson, 5:42 PM
10 Comments:
hhhhmmmm...then I suppose you won't be signing up for the missions cruise offered by TACF. Go to jamaica on a 5 star Princess cruise ship and you get to spend a few hours a days doing outreach to the poor, and then get back on board the 5 star cruise ship. I'm not kidding.
Man, I was with you up until the Desperate Housewives crack. It just reminds me that even though I don't have many material possessions, I'm still well off. I would hate to ever be in a place in my life where I could justify $75 million on a building. Especially when those who have nothing can be happy with so little. Try offering to buy a sandwich for someone on Whyte, most of them show more gratitude than anyone else you will run into that day.
I'm suprised you didn't address the one real justification for fancy church buildings that she made. (I'm not going to consider the argument that because the government wastes taxpayer money on sports teams churches should build expensive buildings as an actual argument, although I would appreciate it if someone could explain the logic of that argument to me). She states that the building will attract non-Christians to the church. You disagree with that and say it will exclude those who most need the church. I question the motive of the argument regardless of its effectiveness. Using fancy building to attract people to the church of Jesus Christ is preaching a false gospel. The people that were attracted to Jesus for these types of reasons are the one He offended and sent away. It is Christ alone who attracts people to Himself (hopefully through us), not money or buildings or programs or whatever. Anyone who comes to the church because they like the building comes for all the wrong reasons can be exused (they don't know any better yet). Anyone who uses the building to attract people to Christ cannot be exused (they should know better).
now I personally dislike this idea cause I have never been to a super church and can not figure out why people like the anonoynity they allow. However i majored in math in university and the following 2 calculations must be done before any future conversation occurs.
1) 91 Million divided up into 16000 parts is approximately $5600 per person using the most conservative numbers (i.e 16000 instead of 57000). Now of course the whole thing is finanaced so the reality is that is like $100 per person for 50 years or something like that. But everything is financed so lets stick to acutal numbers BIG ASS CHURCH= $5600 per person
2) one average edmonton house divided up by the population of a small church = what.
1) 91 Million divided up into 16000 parts is approximately $5600 per person using the most conservative numbers (i.e 16000 instead of 57000). Now of course the whole thing is finanaced so the reality is that is like $100 per person for 50 years or something like that. But everything is financed so lets stick to acutal numbers BIG ASS CHURCH= $5600 per person
2) one average edmonton house divided up by the population of a small church = what.
Two weeks of vacation and all we get is this bitter diatribe. Good to see that you're back in fine form!
Bigger churches will never be as effective as smaller ones for the same reason that governments don't. The amount of waste (time, money, energy) increases exponentially with the size and returns are diminishing, it can't be helped no matter how efficient or well-intentioned.
I'll definitely agree that bigger churches can provide opportunities which smaller ones can't. Things like Second Cups right in the church and ATMs (Automated Tithe Machines). Seriously though, programs offered by mega churches can reach more specific groups or areas of peoples' lives, but they tend to remove the emphasis from community to individual. "Oh, I don't really know much about X. Why don't you talk to our churches X specialist?" I for one would way rather have a small community around me that really knows me and cares about me and, even though they don't know jack about X, they will struggle with me to help me through it rather than passing me off to some payed professional of well-funded program.
Example: a program like Alpha is a wonderful idea, works really well, lots of success. You know what it is? It's having people over to your house for dinner and answering any questions they might have or, better yet, simply having them over with no expectations or pressure. Yes, that's what Alpha does, but do we need the huge organization and build-up and advertising? Skip the middleman of giving to the program so it can do your job and encourage people to open their homes!
PS Matt come home soon!
Bigger churches will never be as effective as smaller ones for the same reason that governments don't. The amount of waste (time, money, energy) increases exponentially with the size and returns are diminishing, it can't be helped no matter how efficient or well-intentioned.
I'll definitely agree that bigger churches can provide opportunities which smaller ones can't. Things like Second Cups right in the church and ATMs (Automated Tithe Machines). Seriously though, programs offered by mega churches can reach more specific groups or areas of peoples' lives, but they tend to remove the emphasis from community to individual. "Oh, I don't really know much about X. Why don't you talk to our churches X specialist?" I for one would way rather have a small community around me that really knows me and cares about me and, even though they don't know jack about X, they will struggle with me to help me through it rather than passing me off to some payed professional of well-funded program.
Example: a program like Alpha is a wonderful idea, works really well, lots of success. You know what it is? It's having people over to your house for dinner and answering any questions they might have or, better yet, simply having them over with no expectations or pressure. Yes, that's what Alpha does, but do we need the huge organization and build-up and advertising? Skip the middleman of giving to the program so it can do your job and encourage people to open their homes!
PS Matt come home soon!
but I like big shiny buildings...churches have an architectural responsibility to the community.... ummm i tried
To be fair, check out this article 'Ranter sent me.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051122/us_nm/religion_megachurches_dc
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051122/us_nm/religion_megachurches_dc
For the record, I don't have a problem with big churches. I don't even think it's neccessarily a sin for them to build a big building. The church I attend has chosen not to have any building and we have missional reasons for that, but there can be missional reasons to build a structure. My problem is with churches that see buildings as a way to attract people to Christ. It's the old bait and switch. They will come for the building (or programs, or whatever) but then we will secretly slip them the gospel while they're here. Here's an idea, how about we try to attract them with the gospel itself. That way we don't end up with all these Christians who think Jesus is about being rich and having nice buildings etc. (cf. Prayer of Jabez conflagration etc.)
This may not be true, so weigh this as the Berean's weighed Paul's words -- against Scripture (I have only begun to give this limited thought). Church is for Christians, not non-Christians. Christians are for non-Christians.
This may not be true, so weigh this as the Berean's weighed Paul's words -- against Scripture (I have only begun to give this limited thought). Church is for Christians, not non-Christians. Christians are for non-Christians.
LOUD NOISES!
Is Matt waiting to hit 100 again?
