I'm a homeschool mom of 3 daughters. My aim in life is to glorify God by loving and serving my family, grow personally in my walk with Him, and being a Titus 2 woman to those younger than me. This blog is to share what God is doing in my life and in the life of our homeschool.
Princess is 9 years old . She was born a princess and continues to hold the title. She loves all things girlie and is talented in all things crafty.
Pixie is 7 and a half. She has a passion for truth, loves rocks and shells and has a huge collection of them.
Peanut is 5. She is fun loving, happy all the time and can make anybody laugh.
I've heard of churches charging for weddings and non-ministry type activities, but not for ministry oriented activities. Is this church struggling financially and honestly needs the funds for the electricity/gas costs??
On a different note, I answered your seven-sevens on my blog today. Thanks for your comments yesterday.
Definitely for a wedding, but I think it's not a good idea to charge for Bible studies and other church activities. I think they'd foster more love and less harsh feelings from members if they just say no activities period due to financial restraints or whatever. But charging for church related activities to actual members is just asking for trouble and bitterness.
This church has probably either got a management consultant somewhere in the church or hired one. What they tend to overlook, however, is the basis of a church.
A church is a gathering of Christians to worship God. At some point, it became mandatory to own a building to do that. Okay, fine, whatever.
That building, however, is owned by the Church (that is, all the little people that go there, not just the Elders or whatever managing entity they've put in place). It was built and paid for (or is still being paid for) by the Church.
And now they're going to charge Church members to use the building when it would normally be sitting empty?
This church fits into the mega church category. It operates on a budget that is to take care of operating expences and salaries of full time Mon-Fri staff and Sun for pastors. The charge for a 1st grade Sunday school room is $100 for 2 hours during a weekday morning for a homeschool group to use for a Christmas get together for crafts and fellowship.
Susan
That makes a huge difference...one thing to have a Bible study by members and another to have a Christmas party. But I still don't like it very much but I think it's okay. Churches have to be careful or people would be wanting to use their rooms for everything under the sun-- both good and not good! Plus, charging a fee does help defray costs of electricity which can be pretty high for most churches.
If the homeschool group was a christian or faith-based group, then perhaps the church could be convinced to consider it a ministry? Especially if some of the hs group members are also members of the church...this could be an outreach to non-members. I know our hs group uses a church for meetings and another one offers it's facilities at no charge for our kindergarten graduation every year...all for free. It has been a great blessing to many families...both christian and non-christian.
In my opinion, it is never good. If a church is needing to charge for use of the things, then maybe they should rethink the reasons why they are in the ministry. If people are needing to be paid for their ministry, then they need to rethink their reasons also. Something that is sad about the whole mega church movement, is the fact that they look at church as a business, or a corporate entity. There is a well known christian author who is making tons of money off of this idea, and churches are eating it up. It is sad, and not biblical. What was the whole reason behind Jesus turning over the money changers tables? That's my take on it.
