The church is not in the banking business.  Or is it?  Having spent the last several years in fund raising for evangelistic works, one of the greatest frustrations I have met is congregations who are sitting on tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that they are not using.  Certainly every missionary and/or fundraiser would like to see congregations support “his” work, but it’s understood that that’s at the discretion of the local eldership.  God’s plan is that each congregation be autonomous, and therefore no eldership is obligated to support any specific work.  On the other hand, they are obligated to support some work.

One is reminded of the parable of the talents.  Though this parable is often used to illustrate the need to use our abilities in God’s service, the “talent” in the text is a unit of money.  The one talent man in the parable is faulted because he dug a hole and buried the money that he should have been using for his master.  The reason he gave for his negligence was fear (Mt. 25:25).  His master attributed it to laziness (vs. 26).  The master then commanded that he be cast into the outer darkness because he failed to use that which was laid at his charge.

Could it be that we have a real parallel in the Lord’s church today?  It is certainly understandable that a congregation would want to have a reserve for cases of emergency. But what could motivate a congregation to stockpile $50,000 or $100,000?  Some elderships have said, “Well, you never know when the roof will blow off of the church building.”  That’s what insurance is for.  And how many souls will die lost over the next twenty years, while we wait for the roof to blow off?  Some elderships sit on money because they have a fear of the unknown.  Was that not the problem of the one talent man?  It’s true that tragic and costly events do sometimes occur.  I am intimately familiar with one congregation which was hit with a financial crisis.  The elders of that good church had set aside only a very small reserve.  The rest of their money was being used for the Lord’s work.  What did they do?  They made an appeal to the congregation.  The brethren gave generously, and the problem was fixed.  In fact, they gave in excess of the need.  The elders then took the excess and immediately spent it on the Lord’s work.

Over the years, I have many times heard a prayer led before the contribution in which the brother leading would say, “Lord, may these funds be used in your service.”  But all too often that is not what happens.  All too often, the funds sit in a bank “just in case” something tragic happens.  Brethren, what could be more tragic than souls dying lost when we could have taken the gospel to them?  What could be more tragic than to have missionaries who want to go, but who don’t have the funding?  What could be more tragic than for us to have the resources to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” but not use them?  One can hardly imagine that God will be pleased on the Day of Judgment with elders who have tens of thousands of dollars in the bank “just in case.”– Don Blackwell