Chets post.

I found this post over at Chet Swearingens blog and it's something that I've been a little concerned about lately. The very first line caught my attention.

“We Don’t Build Churches, We Build People”
The above quote was from a ministry partner I met with last month in Asia. Christian ministry in hostile nations prevents the freedom to build buildings, so the church is forced to focus on the higher priority of building people. That is one of the reasons why the churches in the East are so much more effective in building the Kingdom of God than we in the West; we find it necessary to to spend time and money on buildings, and all the strappings associated with them.

Look at the Budget!
Building program
Building maintenance
Utilities
Sound system
Lighting
Projection equipment
Chairs and furniture
Insurance
Computers,
software, etc., etc., etc…..

Several weeks ago I was discussing our "future" nursery room our church is putting together with a woman from our church. She mentioned that if there wasn't an a/c vent in the room we'd selected for the nursery that we just would put the kibosh on the nursery and stop putting it together. I remember thinking then about how very spoiled we are.

I'm glad I'm not the person responsible for my churches physical growth, it seems like a very fine line. It's easy to jump up and say to people we need to build people and not churches, but sometimes you have to make room for the people you've grown. It is an issue that has me concerned. I hope this quote from Chets blog makes you stop and think just as it did for me. You can read the whole thing here.

If you do go and read his whole article, I want you to know my answer to ALL of his questions at the end of the post would be "No!".

Think about your church and answer this one question for me:
Is your church growing physically to allow more people of your community into your church buildings or is it growing physically to bring more of the church body into your community?