Contrarian View From the Pew: Ownership II

In a previous post on ownership within the Church, Derek comments that ”the "ownership" model fails as solution because the "big pot" model fails as an explanation for the failure of the institutional church to do God's Will.”

I agree with Derek here. There is not a budgeting and funding model that will make a Church that is not doing the will of God all of a sudden start doing the will of God. Also, a bad budgeting and funding model will probably not stand in the way of a Church that is completely sold out to doing the will of God.

Of course there are many organizations, some of which are Churches, that are extremely well funded and extremely successful at something. A few even do a fairly good job of preaching and teaching and spreading the gospel, but there really isn’t a corelation between the will of God and the funding of activities. Many cults are well funded and many legitimate Christian ministries get by on pennies.

I never meant to imply that the big pot was the cause of all of the problems within Churches or that an ownership model would solve all of the problems within Churches. In some ways a change of the model will change the problems, not solve every problem.

However, I believe a change of the model will free up believers to use their spiritual gifts and tithes in ways that will provide for more accountability, more enthusiasm, more joy, and most importantly, make the body of Christ more attractive to non-believers. Capitalism works because in capitalism, there is a corelation between ownership and success. The more individual ministries within a Church are owned, the greater the probability of the ministries being successful. Filtering tithes through the fingers of Pastors, and Elders, and Committies, saps the enthusiasm and joy out of even the most committed believers, just imagine what it is doing to those who observe the process without being committed.