February 5, 2010
Lessons Learned from River in the Desert, p.1
So several months now have passed since Riverwood conducted River in the Desert, our formal capital campaign last Fall where we as a church looked at what God has given us at Riverwood and what he is calling to in this particular season in the life of our church, particularly our church’s construction project of a new sanctuary space. Since this last Fall, I’ve had a significant amount of time to reflect on what God did and is currently still doing in and through River in the Desert and the following are just a few thoughts about a few of the unique ideas and lessons that have come about for me through the whole thing.
First, as someone who has a role in the capital campaign committee, I am still amazed by the whole sense of process that the whole committee and leadership in general and myself in particular experienced.
To be honest, myself and other members of our committee had a significant amount of skepticism about the whole of idea of a “capital campaign,” and I myself, (along with others I suspect) was even skeptical about the whole notion of talking about money so openly and unashamedly in church. As the months progressed last year as we worked towards and planned for River in the Desert, I just kept wondering, “Where does this deep-seated fear and anxiety come from when it comes to talking about money and giving in the church?” I believe the answers to this question are complex and important. Most of are probably skeptical of talking about money in the church simply because we’ve seen it done in some ways that are pretty ugly and manipulative. We’ve all probably seen the emotionally manipulative tele-evangelist plea for cash and have had enough of our fill with “health-wealth-and-prosperity” gospel preaching (it doesn’t take much of this stuff to become disgusted quickly). I attended a church in Birmingham (of another denomination) where I once heard a preacher give what I thought was a very emotionally manipulative sermon (that had little to do with the Bible) that was about why we should give to the church. The church then sang “Amazing Grace” while everyone present walked to the front of the church and presented their pledge to the church. I seriously struggled that day to understand how anything we were singing had anything to do with what we were doing. If any of us have experienced anything like this, then we simply don’t have much if any category to fathom how we can go about talking about money and giving in a way that is biblically faithful and Christ-centered.
However, I’m convinced that our anxiety about talking about money and giving cannot just be attributed to bad experiences or examples that we’ve been exposed to in the past. It was only over the preparation for River in the Desert that I began to see that perhaps there was much more going on underneath the surface of my anxiety over the issue than I had originally thought. The Bible, in its customary fashion, says some things that are extremely good and helpful, but also a bit painful at the same time. During last summer and fall, I kept thinking about and turning over in my mind several things. First, the words of Gordon Bals, the person who did my pre-marriage counseling with my wife and myself, once said something to the affect that couples will most likely fight the most over sex and money because these two things always have a way of exposing our hearts. Second, I kept thinking about Jesus’ words in Matt. 6, “For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think Jesus is saying the same thing that Gordon told my wife and I several years ago (and a few years of marriage has certainly confirmed the truth of Gordon’s words!). I really began to wonder if a lot my anxiety that came with talking about money was really a way of God revealing a part of myself that I really would rather ignore. As last year progressed and I became more and more entrenched in River in the Desert, the more I really began to just how true Jesus words are, that my heart and my treasure are always connected. Jesus’ point in Matt. 6 is simple but very important, that whoever or whatever I treasure will expose my deepest loyalties and my heart’s sincerest love and devotion. So in other words, one good way to tell what my heart treasures the most would be to take a look at my checking account history and see what exactly I spend all my money on.
At this point, I’ll take a slight but much needed digression in order to say that Joe Brand, the consultant from Generis that Riverwood hired to assist us with River in the Desert, was enormously helpful here. And the hiring of Joe Brand was also another area where our committee also experienced a real sense of process as we worked through whether or not the hiring of a consultant would we be a wise decision for Riverwood. I think very few of us were really excited about idea of brining in a consultant at the beginning of last year. When we thought about the words “consultant” and “capital campaign,” most of us thought about a schmoozy corporate business-like salesperson that would give us some slick, “time-tested” business model of how to get the most money from a church, a person who would have a “lock-the-doors-until-you-give” approach to a capital campaign, as one of our beloved elders put it. After two lengthy meetings with Joe Brand, we all began to discover that Joe Brand was none of these things and that all of his goals were identical to our goals throughout River in the Desert. Joe really helped us see the very real biblical and spiritual aspects of how we think about money and giving and his concern for biblical fidelity and helping us do River in the Desert in a way that was consistent with our church’s gospel emphasis was apparent. When I think about River in the Desert last year, one of the things that stands out most for me is how the Lord really brought our committee to a sense of unity and clear purpose and how our skepticism about Joe and Generis really began to melt away as we built a friendship with him and discovered his pastoral heart for God’s people.
O.k. so back to our issues and anxieties about money and giving. As my wife and I began to consider last year God’s work at Riverwood and the clear need for additional space so that we can better minister the gospel at Riverwood, I increasingly began to see just how pitifully little my heart is when it comes to giving to the work of God’s church and his Kingdom. As I think back again to the worship service at another church where I witnessed a guilt-ridden sermon, a call to give and singing “Amazing Grace,” I can still clearly remember my strong aversion and anger and how disgusted I was with the whole thing. But as I went through River in the Desert this last year, I began to see that perhaps my aversion to this previous experience at another church had just as much to do with my own heart-issues than the poor way in which the whole thing was conducted. If I’m really honest, I’ll have to admit that anybody, anywhere asking me to consider giving up any of my hard-earned money doesn’t exactly make me jump for joy. And this is true even if I’m being asked to give to something I really do love and believe in, like River in the Desert! And again, if I’m brutally honest, this is because I usually think of all my resources, whether it’s my time, physical and emotional energy, money or other things, as things that I would really rather spend on myself, things that I would love to give as long as there’s something in it for me.
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