Re: [DMCForum] Re: The Church all give away their money for good purpose
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Re: [DMCForum] Re: The Church all give away their money for good purposes?
- From: Ryan Wright <ryanpwright@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 15:19:54 -0700
On 9/19/05, Marc Levy <malevy_nj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Do you have any photos of your church Ryan?
http://www.bethel-church.org/ - there's a partial photo on the front page.
> Any
> expensive stained glass? maybe a huge pipe organ? hand
> carved wood furniture??
No, no, and no.
However, I have seen nice hand carved wood furniture in a previous
church I attended. Said furniture was built by a member of the church
and donated to them. Just because a church owns nice things doesn't
mean it wasted money on them.
> This is what I have seen in
> the churches I have been to. I don't see how any of
> it is to help the poor. The money you give to the
> church goes to pay for all of that crap. Maybe a
> nickle out of every dollar *MAY* get to some charity.
Well, you've been to a lot of churches I've never been to. Honestly,
I've been to many churches and most are pretty humble buildings. Of
course there are examples of extravagent churches, but the vast
majority are not.
> My experience with religious charity has been that it
> always comes with a price... You have to allow
> yourself to be preached to. If I was starving in some
> third world country, I would probably go to church and
> pray to Jesus for food too.
Do you know how I found my church?
A group from the church was washing cars in a parking lot. For free.
No pamphlets about saving souls or going to hell or "you should join
our chuch." Just washing cars for people for the fun of it. A friend
of mine was driving by and asked them why they were doing this and
they said they were just giving back to the community because they
can. He tried to pay them for washing his car and they would not
accept his money. No donations allowed, they said.
There were no ulterior motives here.
Members of my chuch help out with countless community programs, and
never does it come with a price of preaching or handing out pamplets,
etc. If someone asks, sure, we'll tell them, but nothing is forced on
people. If you're starving and we buy you groceries we're not going
to say, "OK, Marc, once you listen to our speech about your eternal
salvation, then you can have your groceries." We'll simply ask if
there's anything else we can do to help you.
As for third world countries, we've helped out there, too. I can tell
you not all of the people there believe our message, but that is not a
prerequisite for us to help them. We help because we can.
Further, let me add that we are not unique. There are churches all
over the place just like ours. I know, I've been to several.
-Ryan
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