By Monte Shanks, Ph.D.
Dr. Monte Shanks is an Asst. Professor of NT at Liberty Seminary
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Mausoleums or Ministry Centers
I’m guessing that most of us
have heard of the Taj Mahal. Some may
not know where it is, but the name is certainly familiar enough (it’s in India
if you were wondering). But what most
people are unsure of is what the place actually is. The most that some know is that it is a “fancy
place.” The fact is that the Taj Mahal
is primarily and foremost a mausoleum—in other words; it’s a place to store
dead people. I won’t bother you with a
lot of details, but about 360 years ago a king built it for resting place of
his beloved queen who died during childbirth.
Another very famous mausoleum is the West Minister Abbey, which is where
England buries her royalty and national heroes.
The sad thing about the Abbey is that it originally was a church, but it
ceased to be so hundreds of years ago.
Now it a place for royal weddings and storing dead people.
It strikes me that a lot of church
facilities are more like mausoleums than ministry centers. For some reason we Christians get attached to
the buildings where we worship, and sooner or later we turn them into things of
worship, which inevitably leads them to becoming more like mausoleums—which are
places that people generally don’t want to spend a lot of time. It’s a rather odd habit to say the
least. Jesus knew this about us, he once
said “. . . for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own
kind than the sons of light. And I say
to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness,
so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings” (Luke
16.8b-9). Simply put, Jesus noticed that
the people of God weren’t too smart about using money for the purpose of reaching
the lost for Him, and this is most obvious with respect to how we use our church
buildings.
Most church facilities are
basically cared for like mausoleums that are filled with dated esthetics and
furniture, instead centers for constant ministry activities. Our facilities should be more like college
campuses than places that are primarily used one day a week, or where people go
to get married or buried. Think of it
this way, if church buildings were businesses then it wouldn’t be long before
Christianity would go bankrupt because of lack of use. In order for a retail outlet to be profitably
it must be easily accessible and endure a lot of foot traffic. To put it simply, in order for a store to
make money it needs to have a lot of different people go to it and they need to
do so often. Some may say “how crass,
you aren’t talking about a store, but about the church!” And I say that mindset couldn’t be more
wrong! Those who are in Christ and are
members of your congregation are those that Jesus has made holy, not the
facility in which you meet. If people in
your fellowship start thinking of the building where you meet as something
sacred and requires preservation, then they will inevitably become an
impediment to effective ministry with respect to the use of your fellowship’s
facilities. And if they become the
majority, then your church will function more like a mausoleum than a ministry
center. They will in essence turn your
facility into sterile places of inactivity rather than a place where sinners regularly
come and have their lives changed through the gospel.
It’s tragic that as fellowships
grow more and more people try to make their ministry facilities more and more comfortable,
and inevitably nicer carpet, furniture, and décor begins to show up. This has an unintended consequence, which is
an insatiable desire to protect and preserve the building’s esthetics. The only way this can be done is if those in
charge restrict the availability and use of the ministry’s facilities. In other words, some in your congregation
will become more concerned with preserving everything within the building,
rather than hoping it all gets worn out by constant use. The interesting thing about retail stores is
that they account for the wear, abuse, damage, and theft as part of the price
of doing business, and if they didn’t they would lose money! In case you are unaware, baked into the price
of everything you buy at the grocery store is the cost of what someone else
steals or breaks. Moreover, whether you
realize it or not, all of that furniture, carpet, and décor in your facility
will become dated in about 10 years. In
other words, it will not be long before your facility’s esthetics start to
become less fashionable and attractive to visitors and seekers, so what’s the
use in trying to preserve it all? Why
not allow it to be used and worn out for the cause of the gospel? Moreover, people are messy, especially with
things they didn’t buy with their own money.
Consequently, if more and more people begin to come to your “chapel,”
they will inevitably spill things, tear things, break things, and even possibly
vomit on things—as anyone in children’s ministry can attest. So we should get use to it and realize that it’s
all part of the price of doing effective ministry. I’m not suggesting that we should allow
people to intentionally abuse the resources that God has entrusted to us. Nevertheless, wear and tear as well as accidental
abuses will occur, and when they do, the last thing anyone should do is get mad
or upset because someone has messed up the esthetics of your ministry
facilities. The bottom line is this,
church buildings should be envisioned as beehives of ministry, training, and
worship rather than mausoleums where dead people go once a week.
Copyright @ by Monte Shanks, 2014
