Frankly Answered Questions - FAQs

What's your view of financial transactions (items for sale) in the church?

Q: I am a might concerned over the posting of financial transactions (items for sale) by your church members. I noticed them posted on both the church bulletin board and in the bulletin. I also noticed you selling tickets to a dessert social. Is the house of the Lord a place of commerce?

A: Our church policy is that we will never use commerce to fund the general ministry of the church or to add to the church budget. The church's reaching up and reaching in ministry should be paid for from the members tithes and offerings.

However, commerce is not a bad word (the Bible encourages it and has much teaching on the subject) and we do allow individual ministries to hold car washes, bake sales, or sell cookbooks in order to support benevolence or missions work (reaching out ministry).

In terms of the bulletin board, I assume that you are referring to the "New Life Family Businesses" board -- it is titled that at the top. We have different boards for different functions in the church and they are so titled: a youth board, a homeschoolers board called "SHEEP", a prolife board called "Life Information", and then we have a general church bulletin board, the big one at the end of the foyer, called "New Life Bulletin Board." I guess in my mind, that distinction, at least, shows that New Life Community Church is not running a business, but the individual members of the church do have businesses that other individual members may wish to support.

A little history: In the past we ran into a problem with church members using Sunday mornings to sell everything from Tupperware to mutual funds. The elders said "no" to that. The "New Life Family Businesses" bulletin board was the elders way of helping to support our church members in their vocations without making Sunday morning a time to conduct private business. Our understanding at that time (and up until the present) was that the board shows support for the individual labors of our church family, while keeping it distinct from the church as a group. I am unaware that this violates any Biblical principles, but I am willing to be enlightened on the issue.

Concerning the church bulletin being used for selling things: (1) As you know from being here, our church bulletin is not really a worship guide, but rather an announcement sheet. (2) One of the goals of the church office is to be a disseminator of information. Our thinking on this has been something like this: "If we can help people in our church body make transactions which mutually benefit each other and it doesn't violate Scripture to do so, then we see no problem with it." We are a family, sharing with each other, bartering, and mutually enhancing each other. If I am going to hire a babysitter or buy a used car, I would rather buy it from someone in the church, than an outsider I don't know. If the church can act as a conduit of information for this to happen, then great! How else will I know that Jack is interested in getting rid of his sofa? Why should people outside my church family get all of my commerce and money?

One example of this is that you will see "For Sale" items on the homeschool bulletin board. This helps homeschoolers find the curriculum they want and helps those selling to have the funds they need to purchase other materials. I'm unaware of any Biblical principle that this practice violates. Money in itself is not evil -- only the love of money. Capitalism is a Biblical concept. We are a family mutually edifying one another.

Finally concerning the selling of tickets in the lobby, I have to admit that I always feel a bit uneasy about that too -- simply because I can see how it may appear to a visitor walking in. Two points on this issue: (1) The tickets being sold are for the "Dessert Bake Off" before the congregational meeting. All proceeds of the "Dessert Bake Off" are going to Habitat for Humanity which is building a home in Fredericksburg for a needy family -- a reaching out ministry. No individual or church is profiting from this. (2) The purpose of selling the tickets on Sunday morning is so that we know exactly how many are coming. We have had problems in the past with getting a hand count or having people sign up on a sheet and then only half the people show up and food has been prepared for twice that amount. The tickets provide a "sure count."

So what am I saying:

(1) We encourage individuals in the church to have commerce with one another, as long as this is not done on the Lord's Day, when our focus should not be on our work, but on our Lord.

(2) We allow individual church groups to provide services in exchange for money as long as the collection of funds is for a "reaching out" purpose.

I'll be glad to hear more on this from you, because I would think it unlikely that I would have satisfied all your concerns. As you can see, it is an issue we have wrestled with in the past and it is certainly possible that we have missed the Lord's mind on this.

Grace and peace to you,

Dennis