For those of you who have only heard rumours about “the letter,” you might care to read it for yourself. You can download a PDF of the exact letter that was emailed to the bishop on the 28th of April, 2008 here: Letter to His Eminence Re: plans for St Paul’s.

Avoiding the issues

The letter raised some very important issues, and sadly in his response, the bishop failed to deal with any of these.

In the bishop’s Holy Friday sermon he suggested that, since St. Paul’s has finished paying off the loan it took out to buy its current premises, it should now look to acquire new land on which to build another church with a school & child care centre.

In his letter Joseph raised the following issues:

• The perception that spirituality takes a back seat to financial growth in the bishop’s agenda
• The injustice of imposing a new, crippling financial goal on St. Paul’s when they have just earned a well-deserved break by paying off their loans
• The effect that this imposition has on the priorities of the church, eg:
• The continuation of the free-priest policy whereby St. Paul’s have benefited financially from the generosity of Fr. George in volunteering all his time and not accepting a cent of payment
• The need for church members to miss the Sunday Liturgy so as to prepare food for fund raising sales after church
• The poor examples that are being set for the next generation of young people

Sadly, the bishop employs the “shout louder” principle in his response to Joseph’s clearly well-intentioned letter. A screen-shot of his response is attached below (click to enlarge):

Have Your Say….

What do you think - Is the bishop justified in this major smack-down? Joseph has raised some issues that are of personal importance to him and which are clearly in line with Christ’s teachings and the mission of the church, so why the abrupt rebuke?

The bishop’s central arguments appear to be that Joseph:

• is being impertinent to write such a letter, and therefore does not deserve a thorough reply
• is ill-informed and knows “nothing about what is going on”
• has not been appointed to any position and therefore does not have the right to question the bishop

The bishop avoids dealing with any of the issues Joseph raised, and instead rebukes him for his impetuous questions.

Share your opinion on the issues raised by Joseph’s letter. Leave a reply below.

1. The church is providing a service that is needed by the congregation
2. This is the only way that they can get people to give enough money to the church
   

People are hungry after the Liturgy and will buy food from somewhere else anyway, so why shouldn’t the church get their money instead? And the church has financial burdens and people simply don’t give enough in the collection for the church to be able to pay it’s debts and bills. Right?

Let’s answer these two points in reverse order, because it will make more sense that way.

The secret to inspiring generosity in church goers

³¹ “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:31-33

Jesus says that we should not worry about the bare essentials in life, rather we should concentrate on the kingdom of God and attaining righteousness, and by doing these two things we will find that all our needs are met in abundance.

Since this comes straight from the mouth of Jesus, I for one certainly think it is true. So perhaps if we stop worrying about trying to suck money out of our people, and instead invest our time in educating and inspiring them, to be better Christians by being better Christians ourselves, then maybe they’ll want to give money to help us continue our good work. If we give money to the poor, feed the hungry, and preach the gospel, then maybe people will want to help us.

Instead we worry about our financial security, and place our trust in the principles of business and profit and turn our hands to the wrong tasks. And our people do the same thing.

Which is the odd one out: (a) Service industry, (b) Franchise, (c) Church

Lock in (c) Eddie! The argument that people need food after the Liturgy, and that everything else the church sells afterwards is only being provided as a service to the congregation, loses all power as soon as you mention the word profit.

If our aim is to provide a service to our congregation then why aren’t we selling things at cost price? Because we need the money (point 2 from my list above). Well I’ve dealt with that now, and Jesus dealt with this sort of thing to. I’ll let Him speak for Himself:

¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹³ He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” Matthew 21:12-13

Scoring points for kicking own goals

Just like in soccer, where players need to know which goal they’re supposed to be targeting in order to score points, churches need to have the right goals in mind in order to make any progress.

But what if the referee started awarding points for kicking own goals? That wouldn’t make sense but in a way that’s what’s happening in our church. When our bishop demands asset building and slaps our committee members on the back for their ingenious fund-raising ideas, but forgets about the spiritual needs of the people in the church, it’s like scoring points by kicking own goals.

Do you agree?

Let us know what you think about this issue?