(967) Church investment

 I have a friend, we'll call her Sheila here. She has been very involved as a single lady in missions. After she has married and the children came along, she became a stay-at-home mom. By and by she started teaching Sunday School. As her children became teenagers, she actually was roped in as a Sunday School Superintendent.

At some point in her church life, her church has accumulated about two million dollars in the bank. Since the Committee is made up of accountants, lawyers and doctors, the establishment decided to buy a piece of land about 30 kilo meters away from the church. For folks who live in any metropolitan area, no one would blink at driving a measly 30 Km to church on Sunday morning. But you see, these saints are extra blessed by God, at that time they drove 15 minutes in any direction they were way out of town limits. After the title deed was signed and stamped and the church was the proud owner of a big piece of land outside the town, there started the dilemma of what to do with it.

The church leadership realized that even if they raise the needed fund to build a beautiful church in the rolling countryside, half the present parishioners would not move there. And we all know that it is useless to have a half empty church premise.

These creative leaders then thought perhaps they can run the open country land as a wilderness camp. They then did some research and found that a very well run adventure camp of a inter denominational group is still barely surviving in terms of accounting.

Next someone suggested that they raise fund and build buildings to go into eco tourism so that they can serve church groups in housing camps. Again they found that it is a very competitive sector and there is no one in that church that is called to that ministry and is willing to quit his or her job to head the project.

The ideas of running an orphanage or an old folks' home were brought up, but there again no one felt called to lead into those directions. The last I asked, they were still sitting on the piece of land. Perhaps capital appreciation would one day make the purchase a sound investment.

As I was relating this real incident to my husband, I suddenly realize I could blog it. But he laughed at me, "O! Publishing bad things about Christians!" Believe me, that is not my intention. I believe in writing about both the good and the bad about what is true. Not a single human being is perfect except the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a Christian because I have faith and I serve a good God, not because my church or any other church is perfect. If I were to shout about only good things about all churches and Christians from the roof top, would you believe me and think that there is not a single bad thing I can find to write about?