Losing the plot

I'm not trying to make a distinction between the two things. I made sure to say that these things that you do are actions, and I'm not talking about actions that better yourself only, but come when considering the effects that it will have on all others.

What I'm trying to propose is that our insignificant actions such as not telling the cashier that he gave you a twenty when he was only supposed to give you a ten. or selling a used car for a good sum of money even though you have an idea in your head that it wont last them as long as it should. It's this kind of mindset, these allowances that we make for ourselves that creates a world in which poverty can exist. Especially here in America where it is all about individual security. We want to 'get our' so that us and our families can live in relative ease and be able to have extraordinary opportunities. We cut every corner, we take every shot that our conscious allows for us and at the end of the day we feel alright about it because 'my family' deserved it.

I'm not saying that this is evil in itself, but it gives us the opportunity to take from someone else if it means we can get it a little easier. It also helps if we convince ourselves that we would expect no less from someone else, who cared for the people they were supposed to protect.

I'm probably trying to say to much in too short a space, but let me know if you're getting what I'm throwing down. It's when we realize that every action we take regarding human kind matters that the world will truly know God. These actions may include but are not limited to giving large sums of money. It's important to give all that we can, and sometimes more, but it's more important that we make sure to never have taken.
.-= Travis Jacobs´s last blog ..Ready To Soar in 2010 =-.

Giving money is great, there are a lot of folks out there who desperately need help. However rallying around our ability to generate large sums of relief is not going to be what has an impact on the world. The real impact comes when we realize how very important every individual decision we make effects the world. When we lie, cheat, get overly angry, have greed, have lust, hide ourselves away, we destroy the very foundation of the kingdom of God on this earth and allow for evil to permeate itself.

Unless we are able to nail down our individual and seemingly minuscule responsibilities it will never matter how much money we raise, it will only be like using a bucket to catch a waterfall. I'm not saying that it isn't vitally important that we give, but our human nature must change for it to have lasting significance.
.-= Travis Jacobs´s last blog ..Ready To Soar in 2010 =-.

I certainly agree that purity of heart and the redemption of our very nature is essential. I did not mean to give the impression that all we need to do is rally around fundraising. James described both acts of compassion and personal holiness working together as "true religion": "...to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." If our hearts were turned toward God, we'd be both less sinful and more compassionate.

But on the other hand, I think compassion will do in a pinch. Let me be frank and say that I hardly think a starving mother with a starving child will care about the "lasting significance" or whether Christians lie, lose our tempers, or have lust, so long as we give her some relief. For God's sake, there are children dying right this minute. I just don't want people to say, "I'll give what I can, but right now I'm just working on building my relationship with God." It's not at all an either/or proposition, and both should certainly be emphasized equally.

Hey Steve,

Interesting thought-point of departure.

I will serve to belabor the obvious, as I am often want, by pointing out that redistributive skew is generally weighted to the popular, powerful, or celebrity while that which is deemed worthy is marginalized. It is not distinctively a religious fashion. We need not look in depth, or far, in culture to note political/government largesse, entertainment revenues and any altruistic cause du juor. If one is to do comparative nuance, I think it would necessarily exceed intramural Christianity (or infighting "churchianity" for those foraging for negative spin).

Examples of fundraising that come to mind would include dead celebrity income such as the Michael Jackson estate and expenditures for animal/pet care. On what level will I lament a vice or extol a virtue? By what measure will one determine a net loss or gain? Do you say of this what is good or of that how it is ill conceived?

I digress here to point to a recent encore segment from the PBS NewsHour --
Eye Hospital in India Restores Sight with Free Surgeries | PBS NewsHour | Sept. 2, 2009 | PBS [Video and Transcript]
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Excerpts:

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight: bringing sight to millions of people who suffer from eye disease.

Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro returned to an eye hospital in India that he first visited in 1989.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Aravind is the largest eye care center in the world. The surgical facilities are as modern, the error rate as low as any place in America.

The big difference with Aravind is that its patients are among the world's poorest people, who rarely get treated for eye diseases. Globally, 45 million people have preventable or reversible blindness. Twelve million are in India alone, where the extreme sun and genetics are blamed.

... Twenty years ago, this much younger reporter came to the ancient temple city of Madurai, where Aravind was founded by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy. Everyone called him Dr. V.

He retired from a government hospital in 1976 and set out to tackle what he called disabling cataract blindness.
...
...

Dr. V.'s business role model was McDonald's, or American chain stores in general.
...
...

Technology has improved care and it's also brought down costs, notably for the intraocular lenses which are implanted during cataract surgery. They used to be imported.

Aravind began making its own intraocular lenses back in the early 1990s. They used to cost between $50 and $100 each. Today, they are made in this factory for as little as $2 apiece. ...

Whether it's supplies or people, the goal is to be self-sufficient. Aravind ... trains thousands of mid-level ophthalmic professionals, mostly women from surrounding rural communities. Some 250 hospitals across India and 40 other countries have adopted Aravind's methods.

R.D. Thulasiraj manages the teaching facilities.

R.D. THULASIRAJ: In this institute, we train organizations to become more efficient. We -- we completely give our intellectual property... .

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It's the ethos set by his uncle. Dr. V., who was single, never took a salary. In fact, he mortgaged his home to start Aravind. And he coaxed or inspired 34 members of his extended family to work here, starting in 1976 with his sister Natchiar and her husband. Both left surgical careers in America to work here for about $20 a month.

DR. G. NATCHIAR: Today oh, my God, we are very, very happy. In fact, at that time, in the '80s, we were not happy. Even though Dr. V. was happy, in a family life, you know, like me and my husband, two children, it was not easy for us. We couldn't even buy a cycle. At that time, we didn't appreciate his far vision.

MAN: God bless you, madam.

DR. G. NATCHIAR: God bless me. Yes, God bless the surgeon.
[emphasis added]

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: She says the satisfaction of seeing patients like Angenealou restored to full lives makes up for any material privation, although, over the years, salaries have greatly improved for the 220 doctors and some 2,500 other Aravind staff.

...

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: He's one of 27 million patients who have been treated at Aravind and 3.4 million who have had surgery, surgery that now costs just a few dollars more than a meal at McDonald's.

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Sorry to get lengthy here, further redaction just seemed to reduce too much of import. Note the "God bless" above. These people are of India. I can't help but fixate, to some degree, on what their qualifying vision, value and valence of "godhood" is. And that thought also leaves me with some self-censuring perplexity with a chewy bit of chagrin filled humble pie. I hope a little self-reflection and extra exercise in vocabularity is not so much off-putting as demonstrative of how such topic is hardly one dimensional.

If there is one query to mete with such standards of success or funding achievements, it would have to come by evaluation of whether any such windfall "good" realizes escape velocity from the gravitas of *collateral theft* that I premise as our primal human condition (a variant in perspective and terminology to original sin if you will). What is not theft? (Ephesians 4:28)
This is a glimpse of an anchor of contemplation that I am currently fleshing out as you may have seen in other posts related to Genesis 3 -- a while back with interchange at Sam Frost's Musings: The Serpent was more subtle......

Anyways, if not ever tightened up into a more formal thesis, this is another outlet to test, to feel out the heft of such an idea.

Wind

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.-= Windpressor´s last blog ..GidjaJuan Wind added a video =-.

Your comments always take me a week to read, but I always enjoy them, Wind. ;)

Hi Cliff,

I guess the pot-shot about the "hoi polloi" (which Steve says he regrets) must have thrown me off. Implicit in that statement is the idea that Saddleback isn't a "worthy charity" to begin with.

Scripture teaches that our first responsibility is for those closest to us (see Galatians 6:10, 1 Timothy 5:8, 1 Timothy 5:18) so I don't have any particular problem with a majority of church expenses being spent within the church.

But there really is no scriptural mandate that says how much percent goes where, so I believe it's a matter to be left to individual congregations. In other words, I wouldn't presume to tell them what to do.

Don't forget that individual Christians can and often do contribute on independently to global ministries. Not all giving is filtered through the church.

Hi Steve,

I didn’t say Saddleback gives away most of its money. I wouldn’t expect it to—its first responsibility is to its own membership. Neither did I say that Christian churches in America have no problems with prioritization.

I appreciate your clarification that you used Saddleback simply as an example of fundraising ability, since that really wasn’t clear in the original post.

The greatest “social need” is the gospel of Jesus Christ, who came to save sinners and adopt them into the family of God. What could be better for people than that? It’s quite telling to me that when you are tallying up charitable contributions, you would exclude ministries with evangelism at their core.

I guess my experience is quite different from yours. Seems to me it’s just those churches that truly care about reaching the lost, that also desire most to care for the lost in other ways as well. Or do you have a specific counter-example to bring to the table?

Kaffinator,

You have offered some helpful corrections and constructive thoughts in this thread, but I when you say, "I appreciate your clarification that you used Saddleback simply as an example of fundraising ability, since that really wasn’t clear in the original post." I must respectfully disagree. Steve's point was very clear to me. I understood him to know little about Saddleback's intentions (maybe he presumed more than he should) but it was clear to me that he used the example to highlight the enormous fund-raising capacity of the church in America. I read recently that less than 3% of church giving leaves our country. You suggest that a church's first priority with its funds is its own people. I don't know on what you base that premise (I would certainly disagree), but do you think 97% of the church's giving is appropriately spent on itself?
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.

Hey Steve,

Just saw your response…you suggest that Warren could have scraped together $900,000 from his massive pile of wealth. But were you aware that 90% of Warren’s book profits already go right back to Saddleback and the charitable causes they sponsor?

I hate to always sound like an apologist for a church with which I’m unaffiliated, but 90% of the internet criticism I see directed their way is patently unfair, this post included. Steve, you chose to mention them as exhibit A of the *lack* of “concerted efforts to bear the burdens of the neediest” when they are really a church to be respected in just that area.

Should members who donate hold their churches accountable? Yes. But I don’t really see any evidence that this isn’t happening in this case.

Should we care for the poor in the name of Christ? Yes. Can we do more? Always. But you say we have “lost the plot” to an “utterly shameful extent” – this while American Christians donate more money to help the needy than practically anyone else on the planet. How is that shameful, exactly?

To be clear, even though I did not know about 90% of the books' proceeds being turned over to the church, I honestly didn't expect that Warren pocketed huge sums of the proceeds. But still, I was not aware that they are known to be a church that gives away most of its money. I did not see Saddleback as the charity mogul you know it as.

Even admitting all that, I wouldn't change but two sentences in the post: I would remove the quote about Warren's hoi polloi being galvanized to give to a charity, and I would correct my own remark to say, "I'm sure Saddleback is a shining example of a church doing outreach." But I was already very careful not to make them Exhibit A for anything but amazing fundraising, upholding this remarkable feat of fundraising as a clarion call.

If you think that just because Saddleback does lots of wonderful outreach that the American church has nothing to be ashamed about in terms of prioritization, you and I are on hopelessly different pages. Even if 90% of the world's charitable giving comes from American Christians, it's not as indicative of a spirit of cheerful giving as it is of our relative wealth; I'll warrant that the bulk of our giving comes from 25% of our churches, and less than that if you exclude money given specifically towards missions with a high priority on evangelism and only incidental priority for addressing social needs. Most churches I know of fall under the two criticized church types: the ones that spend all their time making sure everyone believes the right stuff (as defined by them) and the ones that don't care what their people believe or do as long as they feel fulfilled and loved by God. So despite notable and laudable exceptions (and sincerely, thanks for the info), I am still convinced that most of the Church in America have indeed lost the plot.

Feel free to be critical of my posts, I can handle it :)

As to your question, I've no idea. I'm not a Saddleback officer or anything. I just know that this particular church is known for outreach.

I would ask you in return, do you think those salaries were earned? Is there something unscriptural about paying them? Are either of us in a place to shake our fingers at the people who voluntarily donated, or the church that received the money, or how they spend it?

And again to Steve, how can any of this possibly be taken as an example of "blithely content" Christians?

Kaffinator,

How much of the 2.4 went into the salaries needed to maintain the leadership of all the groups and ministries in the church? You were careful to write "in part" in your post, but I'm curious if you know what the actual breakdown of the "parts" will be?

Please don't take my post as one that is critical of yours. I'm just a wonderin'...

Saddleback has VERY active local and international outreach programs. This $2.4m will, in part, go to fund them. The money was donated, voluntarily and rapidly, by Saddleback church members to respond to a general budget shortfall. They gave in the belief that their contributions would further the cause of Christ.

Yet, for you Steve, it's an example of Christians who are not doing *enough* in the world? This makes no sense at all.

Kaff,
Although I must marvel that a mega-church whose pastor has authored multiple mega-selling books can't pull together $900,000, I did not intend to single out Saddleback as a church that's not doing enough per se, since as I stated I do not know what their allocation habits are. It is definitely not a church preoccupied with heresy hunting, or devoted single-mindedly to sending out door-to-door witnessing brigades; nor is it really the other type of church I criticized, the type that exists primarily to ensure our best lives now. I certainly don't believe all of this money's going to be wasted on the administration's frivolities (especially given the visibility of the sum they raised); I do wonder about how much overhead is necessary, and how efficient a mega-church can be in that area.

My point was certainly not that Saddleback was "an example of Christians who are not doing *enough* in the world", but that it was an example of how much more Christians *could* be doing in the world. I was quite clear what my point in singling out Saddleback was: "Where are the concerted efforts to bear the burdens of the neediest in our own cities, let alone the truly destitute Third World?" Saddleback might well be a grand player in those efforts already, but as I said in the post, it's just one church in the mix.

A sentiment underlying a lot of my tone is that I think we need to be more careful in determining which ministries actually further the cause of Christ before we send them money. Sending beaucoup mula to a large charity without figuring out where it's going is all too common, and an unwise waste of resources. My experience with mega-churches suggests that a large number of attendees won't be watching the budgeting (salaries, state of the art facilities, flashy multimedia technology, etc.), but simply trusting their famous pastor and his leadership to do what's right with the money. If we've got the heart for social welfare that we ought to have, we're going to be pretty insistent on responsible allocation of money.

Being admittedly ignorant of the details myself, I will take your word that Saddleback doesn't waste resources -- good for them! We could use their name and money-raising ability to mount some impressive systematic efforts. But what about the rest of us? My main point is still the same: "Where are the concerted efforts to bear the burdens of the neediest in our own cities, let alone the truly destitute Third World?"