Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:07 Hey, welcome to village church, sermon Q and a pastor Michael, here with you. I'm in the studio with pastor Craig and pastor Alex. And on what day was it that we preached guys? It was August 15th, 15th, 2021. We're in a series on the tabernacle and we talked about fundraising for the tabernacle. And so the three of us I've had a lively discussion about fundraising. So I've got a question for you guys. Let me set the foundation. The question is, are there unbiblical methods of fundraising? And here's what we can just agree on. If a spiritual leader uses sinful manipulation, coercion or guilt to extract funds out of people, can we just agree that that's like tenfold? Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:00:46 It seems reasonable. It seems reasonable. So let's, let's get like nitty gritty,
Speaker 0 00:00:49 You know, we're the leaders of the church and maybe we have a vision from God, a project and we want to fund it. So, um, you had some stories actually. Maybe they can like draw out some points. I know you have a couple and I've just got one that I'll share, but there's about a thousand and tip of
Speaker 2 00:01:01 Mine. So, uh, so my wife worked for a person who actually has not returned to church because of this experience. Uh, her church wanted to build statues, uh, and really nice ornate statues. And so what they did is they went to every family in the church and they said, we want every family to give $5,000 for statues for statues. Cool. Okay. So, uh, then those families, you know, if they, if they couldn't give, they said, okay, you know what? That's okay. You can take out a loan for $5,000 and give it to the church and then just pay back the loan over time. So that seems manipulative.
Speaker 1 00:01:41 Doesn't it? What were the statues of,
Speaker 2 00:01:44 Uh, I'm sure. I'm sure they were saints or, um, so it was a Catholic church. Yeah. So saints or Mary or, yeah, I don't, I'm not exactly sure what the statutes were of, but they wanted to build statues and, uh, yeah, that sounds awesome. It's awful. Wow. Just another one. Just real, real short. I know somebody else who, uh, after going to a church for like two or three years, got a letter in the mail and it was a bill for their time. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:02:12 Did they make a pledge to like a fundraiser or something or was it just, I know I, I w I don't know all the context.
Speaker 2 00:02:17 All I know is that they got a bill for their, their title. I don't know if it's blood or not, or, yeah. Do you think we should do that at village church Alliance? Bible church. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 All right. So I, Craig, yours was, uh, your story that you shared
Speaker 0 00:02:32 With me with us earlier was disturbing. Um, I'd love for you to share that because I'm still kind of reeling over the
Speaker 3 00:02:38 Reality. So let me, let me premise by saying this did not happen in our church, but there is a
Speaker 1 00:02:44 Church. There is a
Speaker 3 00:02:46 Church that exists. Oh yeah. This woman, uh, her daughter was, um, living a sinful lifestyle and she was concerned about her daughter. She was afraid she, she might even die in the process. And, uh, and then she would be danger of, you know, she thought maybe, you know, she wasn't right with the Lord. Obviously she might go to hell.
Speaker 1 00:03:03 You want the time to extract money out of that as well?
Speaker 3 00:03:06 Yes. Opportunities. Right. Never let it operate anyway. So she, um, so she went to her, uh, religious leader and, and he gave her a price list and said, if she gives these certain amounts that she could guarantee her daughter would be in at least purgatory and then another other certain amounts, maybe she'd have a better chance of getting her into heaven. Oh my goodness. I've never heard anything like that. The Lord told us. So she had a price list. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:35 Certain flavors of Chris and dumb that is money is a normal way to get people out of purgatory
Speaker 3 00:03:41 Or to reduce time there. So that's really,
Speaker 0 00:03:43 It's really that's. I mean, when your theology of the gospel begins to get that far off, that you can now financially impact people's afterlife.
Speaker 3 00:03:50 Yeah. And that's not, I mean, I don't know if you've heard stories like this, but I'm hearing the more and more, it seems these days where somebody dies and you can pay to have their funeral. And if you give a certain amount, then you can guarantee their gun and go to purgatory, or at least maybe get out of purgatory. Yeah. I
Speaker 0 00:04:04 Don't know if we've ever talked about prosperity preachers. Is that ever come up on
Speaker 1 00:04:08 Maybe a few times? You know what I mean? But that's like fundamentally.
Speaker 0 00:04:11 Yeah. It is coercive. It's manipulative. And, and they hold a carrot out that you actually never get. But I shared it. It's so funny because there are so many illustrations that I could not share because it's like, you can't talk about people when they're alive. Yeah. You got
Speaker 1 00:04:25 To wait till their dad got a principal, but I did share one. <inaudible> it's going to be lots of sermon, illustrations, mental note, mental note don't die until he's dead. But that being said, I share, I did share
Speaker 0 00:04:44 One. And, and I took a bunch of students. It was down south, you know, down south, like crazy things happened down south rules. Kind of go out the window when you get to like rural south of the United States of America. My wife's from West Virginia. Yeah. Well, is that south?
Speaker 1 00:04:56 It is. It's Southeast, south it's south, like culturally, but it's not, I know you like
Speaker 3 00:05:01 Canadians too. So obviously there's a little strip in there that your favorable
Speaker 1 00:05:05 Suit, better submissions. But anyways, that's different story. So it was so the,
Speaker 0 00:05:08 Uh, the band started playing and I had my students with me, we were visiting like different kinds of churches. And so
Speaker 1 00:05:13 The band starts playing and this person gets up and
Speaker 0 00:05:15 They, like, they start waving their hand and they've got like a check or something to cash or something like that. And like, yeah. And everyone's like dancing and singing and they walk up the middle aisle to the front and there's like a cauldron. I almost felt like, like, it was like, which is burger or something.
Speaker 1 00:05:29 And he puts in the culture and everyone's applauding and another person gets up and they're like, they got like a check and they walk in and everybody gives their time by walking down. And, uh,
Speaker 0 00:05:39 It was funny because in my sermon, I said, I imagine somebody
Speaker 1 00:05:41 Comes up with like a blank envelope, you know? And they're like, ah,
Speaker 0 00:05:48 But like the social coercion and then like, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And, and like the fact that the worship leader and pastor you're facilitating this kind of stuff know, and
Speaker 3 00:05:57 I was at a church where the pastor did exactly right. Similar thing. He would always introduce the, the giving moment. And then he would reach in his jacket and he would pull out an envelope. And he said, I've got mine. Have you got yours? And then he'd go and put it in the off every
Speaker 0 00:06:12 Time. Can we like agree? We understand why people have PTSD, because if you come from a Catholic church, Orthodox church, a crazy Southern church, a weird Southern Baptist church, um, or like a Methodist church,
Speaker 1 00:06:29 It doesn't matter where you come from.
Speaker 0 00:06:30 But like, if you're in the circle of Christendom generally. Yeah. And one experience, because it is like these, then anywhere you go, and this is what we have to overcome, like we get up and preach. We're like, Hey, let's talk about giving her like really? Yeah. Another one. Yeah. Because people filter everything through their experiences. Right? Most healing things
Speaker 2 00:06:50 That you can do too in this case is like every, every week when village churches, I know every time we talk about the offering or anything like that, it's, uh, if you're new or visiting here, this is, this is for our people. Yeah. This is
Speaker 1 00:07:02 Not for you. I mean, if you're one to <inaudible>. So like, it's even interesting to
Speaker 0 00:07:12 Think about like fundraisers, like a matching gifts. We've talked about this quite a bit. Uh, matching gifts can be fine. Like somebody might have the gift of generosity and they're like, I see what the Lord's doing, celebrate that. And then, but sometimes though people can use these things to manipulate and you don't want to do that. But as a church, you know, we get to be above that
Speaker 4 00:07:29 And that'd be wise with that. So God
Speaker 0 00:07:31 Willing, we bring healing and
Speaker 4 00:07:33 Redemption. That was one of my, so Watts is, I hope your time at village church brings healing and redemption to this. So that's our prayer. So we have many more sermon Q and A's coming up for you. I hope you enjoyed our antiques and tip of the iceberg of crazy stories, crazy password.
