The Church Building and Rising Debt

Not everyone can handle a church building. If they could, they wouldn't routinely ask for church donations to pay for a leaking roof or electricity bill. So why is it that the church continues to rack up outlandish debt in the name of our Father?

The reasons are very simple. Like any secular organization, the church has a business plan. This plan illustrates the expenses to have workers, building utilities and equipment. With rising costs for each, the church has to find a way to finance everyone and everything. In most cases, the church leadership are the only ones who are paid significantly. Therefore, the church will use any means to keep its organization financed. Hosting fellowships, inviting guest speakers and performers to special events such as: National Day of Prayer, Mother and Father's Day, children's activities and similar celebrations.

The bigger the congregation, the more expensive everything becomes. God's will goes out the window and before long, its man's will. With this in mind, God's church is no longer a small church of true believers; instead, His church has become a circus of unbelievers looking for their future mates, tithing for selfish gains, foolishly dancing and singing about a God they don't know and wasting precious dollars on parades, marches and literature on a god whose always asking for money. The church elder will then encourage the board to take out loans to pay for a new building project, community event, trip around the world, or buy he and his family a new car and/or home. If the church can afford to pay the elder a stipend he/she will get that too. But if the church can't afford to pay the elder, without taking out loans to keep up the bills, then there are problems both spiritually and financially. Membership decreases, the pressure to alter messages to keep existing members, create more community targeted programs, and other things not God-focused take center stage.

According to writer, Bernd Neumann and member of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU), “Debt doesn't glorify God.” He writes, “If God condemns the unbelievers for not glorifying Him (Romans 1:18-21,) then certainly the church needs to glorify Him...God has promised that he will provide for all the needs of his people. Debt is a burden, not provision...God does not supply for our need through another need, the need to repay a debt.”

With this statement, churches are way in over their heads. They encourage “donations” and they try to arise guilt in some to get them to pay their tithes. Why should a church body be made to pay bills accrued by church board members? Some members move on to other churches leaving debt behind.

“A church member can vote today during a church business meeting for the church to assume a debt, but that same church member can leave the church tomorrow and not be personally responsible for this debt,” Neumann states. “The church might be burdened with debts for decades to come, and the people who incurred the debt are long gone. The repayment of the loan will be pushed on people who will join the church in the future. Those people are not even told when they join that there is a debt.”

Biblical foundations are designed for the church congregation are being destroyed by the 'charlatan' believer. For instance, the Apostle Paul writes to the Galatians, “Stand fast there in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Debt is bondage, tithing to pay debts is also bondage. Neumann writes, “Anyone who preaches a “gospel” of debt, and how it supposedly is God's will to do his work with debt, preaches a false gospel and brings himself under condemnation of preaching a false gospel. God's judgment in this matter is severe (Galatians 1:8-9.)”

Other Biblical principles to read on borrowing money are listed below:

Psalm 37:21
Luke 6:34
Proverbs 22:7
Matthew 6:24
Proverbs 22:21