Well, from one who has been in church leadership for a number of years, I can say this about church finances: The church is not making money a big deal and finances are usually not a problem. Most churches pay the utilities for the building, repairs, pay salaries for the staff (which is generally about what the local kindergarten teacher makes at the local public school), uses about 10% for Bibles, Sunday school materials, and finally sends about 10-20% to worldwide missions. No one is getting rich at your local church or making money a big issue. I think you are confusing the local church with the televangelist on your cable programming.
Neither party on either side of this conversation can paint a broad brush and say either, everything is fine or everything is not fine. We can only look at contemporary practices in modern Christendom and compare it with the practices of the Early Church and the NT.
So, lets review. About 60% of the finances that go to the local church are dedicated to teaching the Word of God, and ministering to local Christians (Bibles, class material, minister salaries), about 10-20% goes to worldwide missions and local ministries, and about 20-30% goes to pay the light bill, fix the windows and keep the heat on. No grand conspiracies here. Just good ol' ministry and caring for the sick, teaching the Bible, and giving to the guy in Africa who is teaching the Word of God in a 3rd world country. Pretty simple...and good.
This is not accurate. Essentially, the only thing a church has to do as a 501c3 organization is record minutes in leadership meetings. First, the government never actually looks at these minutes. Second, the government does not demand anything from the local church. No rights are lost. The government only asks that you not campaign for a particular candidate by name from the pulpit. However, the teachers are fully able to teach on political issues such as abortion, homosexuality, etc. Perhaps one day, the government will try to dictate what churches teach in order to be a 501c3, but that is currently NOT happening today. Preachers can teach whatever they want and churches can do whatever they want with the donations given...and they are not taxed on those donations. If the government did decide to try to dictate what churches teach....no biggie. You just forfeit your 501c3 and pay taxes on the charitable donations. There are no deals with the devil here or surrendered rights to be a puppet of the state. Simply not true.
What I said was that a body of believers puts themselves into a position where the government can threaten them and control them. They do not "ask" that the Church not campaign for a particular candidate, they "tell them" not to and churches are threatened with having their tax exempt status pulled and many have had that done.
Paul received donations for his ministry at times, as did Jesus. Budgets in themselves are not evil. I am sure every wise family has a budget. I would hope the church has a budget if they take seriously the fact that they are about doing the Lord's work. A budget ensures that money is used wisely and the church is ensuring that certain amounts go to various ministries (which is helpful for missionaries and other ministries planning for their own work!). Most competitiveness amongst churches has to do with differing doctrines or traditions. Not money. Sure, there are pastors who get caught up in the numbers game and there are churches that get too business-oriented. There are also Christians working at the local department store or law office who get caught up in careers, money and success as well. Lets be fair here. Yes, sometimes each of us needs a kick in the pants, but we also need grace. There are a lot of good-hearted church leaders who live paycheck to paycheck and have passed up on more lucrative lines of work in order to serve, teach and love on messy, complaining and combative people. Lets not try to fit all churches in the one-size-fits-all bag.
Let's be clear here: this is not about being good-hearted because if it was about having good intentions and being good-hearted and not following the scriptures that have been given to us, then many more things about the scriptures can be ignored and in fact are being ignored. If you want examples from non-televangelists, from local, "good hearted", churches I can give many, but I was hoping we would not have to go down that road. It should be enough to compare the Word of God with today's practices.
Also, we are not talking about individuals or specific church organizations, we are talking about practices, conduct and behavior that is not in line with Christ and the Apostles.
Axehead