Get the Word out!

What does it cost to preach the gospel?

This is something that I’ve gotten to thinking about lately and I’ve come up with an answer.
There are many, many churches in America today. Many of these churches are small churches with small congregations. They have small budgets and few people. Others are so-called “megachurches” with budgets in the millions and thousands of attendees each weekend. Many people would probably say that the cost to preach the gospel would differ between the small church and the “megachurch”. They would say that the larger budget would allow the “megachurch” to do more and make more opportunities to preach the gospel. They would point to the huge attendance and number of potential workers as the most opportune for preaching the gospel.
It’s this line of thinking that I’ve been wrestling with for the past couple days because it doesn’t ring true to me. The more I think about it, the more I feel that it’s this line of thinking that has caused the church to drift far from where it is supposed to be (and needs to be). The idea that every church needs a bigger budget so they can preach the gospel to more people seems like it’s a no-brainer, but is this really true? After looking at it for a couple days I’m beginning to think that it’s diametrically opposed to what the scriptures say is the duty of believers. Watching church after church adopt this line of thinking (and being a part of a couple) has brought some interesting things to light.
Most church boards of pastors (or whatever the governing body of your church is called) continue to look for more money. I’ve heard many people say that “it costs money to preach the gospel”. While I don’t doubt that it does cost some money, I have to wonder if it really costs as much as the pastors are looking for. The reasons given for getting a lot of money are always the same. They want to “reach the lost” and “spread the gospel”. They often include side projects like bigger church buildings (for all of the people that will be streaming to the church), plays, concerts, rallies, VBS, and other “outreach programs”. There are a few things about this that raise flags in my mind. One, much of what churches today spend money on amounts to nothing more than entertainment thinly veiled as “outreach”. There seems to be a pervading thought that if churches can lure people into their sphere of influence with the promise of being entertained and then give them a quick five minute speech on Jesus and how He’ll make their life better if they “accept Him into their heart”, they are doing “outreach”. After this, they continue on with the entertainment and are ecstatic because they’ve “evangelized” those in the audience.
Case in point: A local church puts on an Easter egg hunt every year. They advertize with banners and newspaper ads. For months before the event, the congregation collects plastic eggs to fill with candy. For each of the past three years, they’ve gotten over 10,000 eggs, which they use as a point of attraction (even though it kind of kills the “hunt” part…). They get food and drinks, prizes (including a couple Sony PSPs and a couple Nintendo Wiis) and usually have a band or two to play music. Right before the “hunt”, they present a short skit/drama/sign art/puppet show about Jesus to present the gospel. Then, the kids go hunting for eggs in hopes of finding one of the golden eggs and getting a prize.
This is a common occurrence across America, but is it necessary? Is it effective? I know that people can have an emotional reaction to the gospel and get “saved” but are they soundly saved? Do they understand what’s happened? Could this money be spent more effectively? Is this what Jesus had in mind when He told His disciples to “Go!”? Is it worth the time, effort, and money for churches to look like the world in hopes of luring “unsuspecting” heathens to the “truth”? I put truth in quotes because I can’t help but wonder if churches that spend their time entertaining really understand the gospel. Should we be doing all we can to build a façade of “fun, entertaining, outrageous times” that will be shattered if those coming ever actually get saved?
Let’s take my example above. Just using the cost of the four game systems, I get about $620. With this money, is it possible to do something better suited to what we’ve been COMMANDED to do? For instance, I know that I can get gospel tracts in packs of 100 (from here) for about $6.00 a piece. If I buy 3 packs, that’s a total of $18. If I add shipping, we’re at about $23. Then, if I gather some like-minded people (people who know the gospel, want to obey God and see people get saved from His wrath), let’s say 6, we could each get 50 tracts. Then we could to a crowded place and walk around handing out tracts and witnessing to people. We could share the gospel with them on the spot and know that they heard it. If we spend $20 in gas and $50 for lunch, we are at $93 for the entire day for 6 people witnessing to multitudes. This is a little over 10% of what I started with.

All of this led me to think about something else. A couple of years
ago, in Nashville, there was a “major event” called The Call. Christians
from all over America gathered in Titan’s Stadium to “make their voices
heard” for the unborn who are murdered through abortion. Many of those
who attended had been fasting and praying for weeks before the event.
Estimates ranged from 50-70,000 people being there for 12 hours on
Saturday. It was also televised on cable TV. There were Christian
celebrities (an oxymoron?) singing and playing music, fiery speeches,
and times of “prayer”. The event cost around $1 million to put on (not
to mention all of the pre-Call rallies and other things that took
place). Was it effective? Was Nashville changed? Did abortion stop or
even slow down because of The Call? Did it have any impact at all? I
don’t know what impact it had, but I know that thousands of babies PER
DAY are still being killed in the name of choice.

So, let’s play “what if” again. What if those 50,000 people got together
in Nashville and decided to go witness to people about the truth of the
gospel and tell them about the judgment to come? What if each person got
a pack of gospel tracts and teamed up with others to canvas the city? If
the estimates were correct, the cost for the tracts would have been
between $300 – $420,000. If those people then canvassed Nashville for
even six hours witnessing and preaching the true gospel to people, what
would have happened? Would it have had more impact than The Call? I know
it would. Why? Because it is the gospel that is the power of God for
salvation. Salvation would bring about a change of heart and that would
reduce abortion tremendously more. Not only that, it would impact those
lives and communities in other ways as well. All of this would have been
done at less than half the cost. People would have seen the love of
Christ because Christians were coming to THEM to tell them the good
news. The hearts of countless sinners would have been pierced by the
gospel and they would have at least been given the opportunity to
receive the gift of salvation. I can’t say that this didn’t happen at
The Call, but I don’t remember anything being said about salvation at
all…

The second flag that was raised was one the fact that if a church
decides to drift to the “fun and entertaining” method of living, they
will need funds. They will need new and better ways to bring money into
the church to keep things “fresh and relevant”. In other words, the
church will spend enormous amounts of time and effort chasing money.
They will “reach out” to people because they need people to come into
the church to finance their efforts(this has actually been said recently – at least they’re honest…). They teach this mentality to their
congregations instead of sharing the true gospel. The non-Christians who
can suffer through it will most likely have some kind of emotional
experience and get “saved”, all while being inoculated against the
truth. They will become a stat or number or notch on the church’s belt
instead of a disciple.

Having said all this, it must be made clear that there is a cost for
preaching the gospel. If you preach the truth found in Scripture, the
Lord Himself told us what to expect:

This means that you will lose friends and family. You will be mocked,
laughed at, and insulted. Many “CHRISTIANS” will attack you for being
intolerant and judgmental. If you pastor a church and preach the truth,
it most likely won’t be a megachurch. That doesn’t mean that it’s not
possible, just not likely. To be honest, I wonder if you can preach the
truth and have a huge church? There may be one or two in the entire
nation where this is happening. If you’re preaching hell, sin, and
judgment straight from the Word of God, should you expect a big church?
Should you expect that people (including “Christians”) will like it?
Knowing what it says and going on my brief experience witnessing to
people, I can tell you they won’t like it.

The cost of preaching the true gospel is loss of “friends”, “family”,
image, and popularity. But, you’ll have the peace of knowing that you
are telling people the truth and helping to warn them of what’s to come.
You will know that you are obedient to God, irregardless of everything
else. This is worth any price – even death. Are you willing to pay
it?…