“Can you pay my bills?” What Destiny’s Child might ask of the e/c model

Andrew’s note – Approx read time – 7 minutes – also the fictional figures in this aren’t worth debating – that isn’t the point.

I think one of the key steps in becoming an adult is beginning to get funny bits of paper through your letter box with your name on – demanding payment for things like water, electricity and gas – stuff you always thought was ‘just there’. Then a tax bill comes and you work out how many hours you had to stand behind the till just to make that – and suddenly you realise a bit more the real value of things… stuff that was always ‘just there’. This can be compounded by travelling to a place where the ‘just there’ stuff isn’t just there – and people struggle for clean water and the electricity is intermittent at best. Stuff like that pushes you to think about the cost of stuff that’s ‘just there’, we’ll come back to this shortly…

If you’ve been following my critique of the e/c franchise model (sunday service = children’s work + sung worship + sermon), you’ll have noted in my last post in which I was trying to find different ways forward that I proposed an alternative model of common meal + prayer – as one of many alternatives there must be…

Zoe then responded with a great question, which somebody else has also asked me recently – why not do both? That is big celebration (inc children’s work, sung worship and sermon) on a Sunday, and midweek small groups in homes with meals and prayer. Why contrast the models when you can bring them together?

This indeed what many churches do, and it often works brilliantly! I’ve been part of churches that have pursued this way of doing things and participating in both midweek groups and sunday services has been excellent for me and others I know – and both have made a positive impact on the community. So my intention isn’t to maul the sunday services – just ask a few questions… I’ve already given something of an overview of my concerns about the sunday services here – but let me hone in on what for me are the big doubts:

Let’s take a typical town, in suburban UK (for that is where we’re mainly talking about no?), we’ll call it Northton, population 100,000, number of churches around 30, number of regular(ish) church goers about about 2,500. Now, lets look at one of its mainstream, ‘average’ churches – Northton Family church. It’s one of the larger churches in the town – getting about 120 people most weeks including children, and about 150 people would say it’s ‘their’ church. They own a building near the centre of town, which a previous generation of faithful givers paid for in full, and although it needs a bit of doing up – it has a good meeting room; a hall; toilets; couple of offices and a reasonable kitchen. They are slightly heavy on staff – Pete the pastor (who lives in the house down the road – also paid for by the previous, founding generation) with his wife and two kids; Ryan the youth worker (+ worship pastor + school’s worker) (who lives with his new wife in a flat the church bought 5 years ago, and pays a mortgage on); Simone the children’s worker does a half week for the church; and Valerie is a retiree who faithfully performs the secretarial work as a volunteer. They have a classic sunday morning service each week, youth work most sunday nights, toddler groups midweek, Alpha course once a year, links into local schools – they do loads of good stuff. You get the picture…

Now, (I don’t really have a proper job at the moment – so I’m very into budgeting)… Let’s say NFC’s giving totals approx £75,000 a year (it used to be more, but the older generation of tithers are moving further into retirment, and the new generation, well, let’s just say they aren’t tithers). Where does that 75K go?

£7,500 on foreign missions (Missions Board led by one of the founders)
£7,500 on youthworkers house mortgage
£25,000 Pete the pastor’s salary (everyone’s a bit embarrassed at this amount – but hey, he didn’t sign up for the money)
£20,000 Ryan’s salary (older generation think this is a bit generous, but Ryan did threaten to quit if it was cut)
£7,500 Simones salary (has a wealthy husband so no big deal)
£10,000 buildings maintenance + bills etc
£5,000 general ministry expenses

Yes, they are running a bit of a loss, but there are reserve funds (that previous generation were good weren’t they??) and it’s difficult to see where to cut back – although the youth work seems a bit extravagant.

Ok, with all that in mind, let’s try and think through the cost of the Sunday service…

We drive to the church for 10.30am and manage to nab the last parking space. Cost Question: how much is the body of Christ in Northton spending on petrol to get to church? Now, they aren’t paying a mortgage on the main building, but the maintenance and bills are about £10,000 per year… the building is used for other things, but maybe £200 a service for building costs? And then think but how valuable is the land + building? Easily a million tied up in that there building….

Also, each week, one of the small groups spends the morning cleaning the building – cost approx 20 man hours a week. Even though many of them pay to have their own homes cleaned – how bizzare?!

We walk in and are handed a nicely printed service sheet – cost – Valerie’s 8 hours + £20 for paper, ink, photocopying etc.

We can hear the band – 6 willing volunteers + mr disgruntled on the sound desk. The band are good – they rehearse each week (15 man hours), and the PA was the subject of the giving day 7 years ago – it wasn’t cheap – but it’s important to give our best to God isn’t it.

The people come in, fresh from their arguments in the car, and of the hundred or so there – 90 people will simply sit, stand, sing, then shut up. Cost – man hours, let’s say 2 hour service all in – bullseye – one hundred and eighty.

After the singing the children are dismissed, and the 6 childrens workers faithfully perform their duties. Man hours – 15 including prep time and monthly team meetings.

The pastor stands up, this is his moment, and he delivers his message. Prep time, 8 hours (he wanted at least 12 but that’s not how life works). Cost, well, although he does other stuff during the week – what the people are looking for is really a weekly sermon – he does it about 40 times a year – so let’s say that’s about £500 a pop.. or is it? You see, our preachers need to be educated to a certain standard, so 3 years of bible college went into that talk, as well as a lot of reading expensive commentaries. And, as well as paying Pete, we also house him! The alternative would be to rent the house out – maybe £1K per month income, or even sell it – 1/4 mil easily…. Is the talk value for money? After all a worker deserves his wage…

After the talk and final song, and a brief coffee – cost minimal (NFC offers eternal salvation for free, but COFFEE – that you have to pay for) the people go their separate ways. No one has said it, but we will be back next week to do it all again.

In the evening, Ryan ploughs on with the teenagers. He seeing some signs of encouragement amongst the dozen or so gathered – but knows the church treasurer is thinking – “£20K pa plus a flat for 12 teenagers and some school’s work – this kid needs some results and fast”.

Now, this is obviously far from an exact science, but lets try and add this up – man hours into ONE service – approx 250 hours. Sterling – approx £1,000. Over 1 year – that’s about 12,500 hours and 50 grand – and don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of pounds tied up in the real estate. Now, lets also bear in mind – this time and money is basically spent on those who are already Christians, people who have done it hundreds of times before and can predict 90% of what’s about to come in each service, and already agree with atleast 98.5% of what they are being asked to sign up to.

AND not only that, but in Northton – this is being repeated by 99% of the other churches – who are doing, (give or take an octave and a hallelujah or two), exactly the same thing at the same time in 25 other locations around the town. Now, NFC are one of the larger churches, but that means, each Sunday morning – team Jesus in Northton is investing over 6,250 man hours and 25 grand – every Sunday morning!! Collectively in Northton the body of Christ has about £30,000,000 tied up in buildings – yes, millions.

Now, earlier this decade, fresh boundary breakers ministry decide to plant a church in Northton (as if push came to shove they’d rate the other churches 6 out of 10, and they think they can do 7.5). Now, even though there are 25 versions of the same thing in the one suburb – they think it will be a good idea to make it 26. And it’s gone so well, that now they are starting a building project to add to the £30 mil team Jesus already has invested in bricks and mortar (most of which is currently well underused). Also, also last year there was a church split in the town, half the people went to the other side of town to do, you guessed it, another sunday service in a different location – that takes the total up to 27.

Now, I’m not saying that these churches aren’t doing good things – THEY ARE, and God is using them. But do you see what I’m getting at? How can we justify pouring so much time and money into Sunday services? and all that go with them, when

Around 2 billion people in the world live on less than 2 dollars per day – (so their yearly income = less than the cost of one Sunday service in Northton.)

The bible has yet to be translated into every language (how many Bible’s are there floating around in Northton?)

There are still over 6,000 “unreached people groups”

There are still people in Northton who haven’t yet heard the gospel.

When we honestly ask the question, “given our resources (time, money, gifts etc), how can we best seek the Kingdom of God in Northton?” Is the best answer we can give really, ‘another sunday service’? Really?

So what am I advocating?

Well, imagine if NFC simply sold their buildings and gave the money to digging wells in Africa? I think it was Shane Claiborne who said, “Imagine if the church was known for digging wells in developing nations.”

What if the churches in Northton, said, ‘it’s silly to be doing this all over the town 27 times, let’s take the best preachers, the best youthworker, the best children’s ministry, from each of the churches and rent the local sport’s stadium for weekly (or monthly) meetings, and gather 3,000 of us for sing song?’

What if Pastor Peter self funded, and they put the money saved on his salary towards a bible translator, or wells, or even an evangelist in Northton?

What if all the churches in Northton just sold their buildings and gave the money away? Good press? Better than this? I think so.

Is this idealistic? Yes, but hopefully in a Joshua and Caleb way, not realistic like the 10 others. As implicated above – the money for NFC will run out eventually – in 10 or 20 or 30 years time but why not give it away now? Who said, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor”? Or are we not into that anymore?

So when you ask, why not do both a Sunday service and small midweek groups? Think about the cost (and unrealised potential) of the stuff that’s ‘just there’ – the building, the pastor, the coffee… if it is truly worth that investment (and in some cases it definitely is) – great – keep doing it for the glory of God. But, if you think there’s a better answer to the question – how can we seek God’s Kingdom here? Then go with that, rather than doing the same things again and expecting different results (the definition of insanity?) – why repeat the same thing 25 times over in the same town? Surely atleast two or three of the churches could do things differently?

Asking, why not do both sunday services and midweek small groups is a good question, but it isn’t like, why not have a chocolate scoop along with your strawberry? But rather is this the right thing to do with the hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds at our disposal?

Or, as Destiny’s Child said it,

“CAN YOU PAY MY BILLS?”

As ever, would love to take questions and comments.