A talk about the need for future thinking and building a war chest for our new building. Life Church, 2nd September 2012.
I think we have a good church but we could be a great church. We are using our building well most of the time. But it has shrunk. Well it seems like it!
I can recall as a boy school being brought shirts that were too long in the sleeve. I’d have to roll up the cuffs. If I didn’t my mum would tell me off for fraying the edges. But the reply was always the same, “You’ll grow into it!” And she was right. But then something else happened too. I’d grow out of them. By the end of the school year my shirts wouldn’t reach my wrists.
What had happened? Had my shirts shrunk or had I grown? Some of us have this dilemma most years – trousers or shirts that used to fit that seem tighter than before. How many of us have blamed the washing machine for shrinking things?
The truth is, we outgrow things. Our building has not shrunk. It’s just been outgrown.
Let’s first acknowledge the faith of the generation that saw this church move from Mildmay Road to Hall Street. What enormous steps of faith and hard work were required to take us here. And in its day this place would have been state of the art.
Generous ‘construction’ gifts of the past need to be matched by generous ‘maintenance’ gifts of the present just to stand still. But we want to move forward.
Over the years, the church has developed, grown and new demands are being put on our building that were not there 30 odd years ago. This leads to the building being tweaked, rearranged, and in some areas falling into disrepair.
Now all that said, what I am not announcing is a new project – yet. The truth is we don’t want to chase after a dream or possibility without the resources to move quickly. It seems to me that in this period what we should be thinking about is how we prepare for the moment when the opportunity presents itself.
People do this in other areas of life.
- Olympians spend four years, sometimes longer, preparing for the bang of a starters gun.
- Academics study for years for the opportunity of a job interview.
- Military prepare for war even in peace time.
How do we do this? We establish a building fund. We do this creatively. In the early stages of a fund it is really hard to ask for offerings when there is nothing visible or tangible.
So I am going to ask you today to commit to a few things without asking you for more money!
We’re going to dip into two passages briefly this morning.
2 Kings 12:1-15
1. Planned Process:
Joash planned.
4-5: Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of the Lord—the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows and the money brought voluntarily to the temple. 5 Let every priest receive the money from one of the treasurers, and let it be used to repair whatever damage is found in the temple.”
There was something in this young King’s heart, a love for the house of God that wanted to see it restored.
He is only seven years old when he becomes King (1 Kings 11:21). He has something in his heart that is bigger than himself, but in some respects is probably treated as a figurehead due to his age.
Queen Athaliah and her sons had raided the temple and presented the dedicated Temple things to Baal (2 Chron 24:7), they’d tried to annihilate the royal family and Joash had been in hiding for over six years; the Temple had fallen into disrepair being roughly 140 years old and the priests seem to have lost their enthusiasm.
For Joash it was one of these things he’d see happen in his life and then make a vow to change it when he could. He’d grown up in the Temple and longed to see its repair.
This was planned. There is an old saying, “Plan the work and work the plan.”
Many people just wait for something to happen. "One day I will do this or that," but do little to prepare for the moment of opportunity. Then they say, “If only I had been ready.”
Christians talk about God’s timing. There are two words used in the Bible used for time in the Greek NT: Chronos and kairos.
- Chronos speaks of chronological time, days, weeks, months, years.
- Kairos speaks of opportunity! It speaks of the window of time when something that was once impossible becomes possible.
Our responsibility is to use our chronos, so that when kairos overlaps we’re ready!
2. Monitored Process:
Joash monitored it. Having set the wheels in motion Joash wanted to see some results. But these things take time! It wasn’t going to happen overnight. So he is patient, he is only seven years old when he gives the command.
6-7, 10: But by the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests still had not repaired the temple. 7 Therefore King Joash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, “Why aren’t you repairing the damage done to the temple? Take no more money from your treasurers, but hand it over for repairing the temple.”…. Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the royal secretary and the high priest came, counted the money that had been brought into the temple of the Lord and put it into bags.
You see when you monitor something you begin to take a responsibility for it. People begin to held accountable for it. The priests have not even started the work because they don’t know how. It’s been a low priority for them.
Joash is now thirty years old. So he restructures the building programme and gets the money to go to the ‘scribes’ or ‘royal secretary’ to administer. Then things begin to happen.
I don’t want us to be sitting here in 23 years’ time asking why we have not progressed with plans for the church.
We need to monitor what is happening, hold ourselves accountable for it, and restructure as necessary to make it happen.
3. Focussed Process:
Joash stirred them. There is something about the king's passion for the house of God that is infectious.
But passion without a focus is frustration.
8-9: The priests agreed that they would not collect any more money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves. 9 Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid. He placed it beside the altar, on the right side as one enters the temple of the Lord. The priests who guarded the entrance put into the chest all the money that was brought to the temple of the Lord.
At this moment the project becomes everyone’s concern. It becomes a designated offering.
The resource being used was three-fold:
• Census money (4). This was half a shekel each year paid by each male over the age of 20 (Ex 30:13).
• Personal vows (4). This is what some translations call ‘assessment money.’ Kind of like a property tax based on the personal assessment of each individual living at a house (Lev. 27:2).
• Freewill offerings, a voluntary gift (4).
So the King knew where the money would come from, but he also set up business like procedures to deal with it – his secretary and the high priest would count it and separate it (10).
This keeps thing focused, accounts could be produced, and focus was maintained.
It is important to keep focussed when things take time. It’s also important not to lose heart.
Joash had waited 23 years for something to happen but nothing had. Perhaps naively as a young boy he felt having issued the command then things would happen. But in truth without continued focus things fall apart.
This meant breaking the goal down into bite sized pieces. They paid for the work as the money came in (11).
4. Creative Process:
Joash did it differently.
Daring to be different is quite a remarkable quality. .
They set up a box and would account for what was in there, which paid for workman who were honest people!
They did not even ask for invoices of hours worked. People worked with complete honesty (9-15)!
We want to do two things here to kick start our Joash Fund! The first one is quite passive and is similar to Joash, in that you won’t feel it. It has to do with how we allocate funds. The second one will involve many of us.
Designated Offering
From this month we will be designating an offering for the Joash Fund. We are proposing that the third Sunday of the month, anything that comes in through the blue offering buckets, will now be for the Joash Fund. So any cash, cheques, green envelopes (but not S/O) will be designated for the Joash Fund.
That means that we, as a leadership, are redistributing what already comes in, much like Joash did. If you don’t want to give to the Joash Fund, then don’t put anything in on the third Sunday of the month.
Reminders will be in “Life Lines” each month.
Talents Offering
In Matthew 25:14-28 we have the Parable of the Talents where Jesus was illustrating what the Kingdom is like. It’s not principally about money but about the rewards that those faithful to Christ enjoy.
But we also see the principles of sowing and reaping, investing our time and gifts and the benefit of doing so.
We’re going to do something similar. We have envelopes available to members (sorry you must be a partner here with us – next partnership seminar is on 6th October). In these is either £10 or £20. Over the next 12-13 weeks we want you to be creative and use your gifts to go and multiply it.
Then, on our United Service at KEGS we will bring back the original seed money (yes we want it back) plus all the profits made as an offering to the Lord.
Everyone has Some Ability
Matt. 25: 15: To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability
Each is given something, according to their ability. This means that the servant who hid the money doubted his ability. If he had no ability the Master would have given him nothing!
There seems to be an ability to make money work for the Master
Make it Work
Matt. 25: 16-18: The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
Now some will hide it under the pillow, but some will increase if five-fold or ten-fold. Either way, if we give you it we expect it back. This is from church funds and is therefore tithes, it belongs to God.
Over the next period of time you go and invest it in something. It might be:
• Ingredients for cupcakes that you can sell.
• Buying a bucket and sponges and washing windows of your neighbours.
• Doing ironing for friends.
• Trading on e-bay.
Whatever it is you can use this as seed money and reinvest the profits back into doing more.
On Sunday 2nd December we will bring all the cash we have made plus our seed money back into the United Service and present it before the Lord. This will serve as a cash injection into our Joash Fund.
Ground Rules:
- Don’t sell back into the church – the idea at this stage is to raise money without asking for money from church members. There will come a time when we do ask for direct capital investment from church members, but not yet!
- Money is totally neutral and amoral. In other works it has not moral value attached to it until it is put to a given use. That morality is found in the heart of the one who puts it to work. If it is used immorally it is because of the heart of the one who possesses it.
We’d ask that you don’t’ do anything immoral with it. This is God’s money, not ours. - If you lose it, you have to give us back the seed money at the end.
- This is a worshipful experience too; don’t keep any back for yourself! This is not yours (Acts 5: 1-11).
- Have fun!
Wrapping It Up:
Eccl. 11:1: Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.
We’re going to sing in worship. As we do come forward to one of the elders standing here at the front. They have a sign-up sheet for accountability and will issue you with an envelope
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