What does money allocation and preaching emphasis tell us about a church?

[James Nored]

Here is a good article from Ed Stetzer on The Missionary Mentality of the Local Church. In this article, Stetzer, says that how a church spends money, what it spends it on, and what is preached show what a church believes is most importance.

[Lynn S. Nored]

The admonition in the secular world when trying to discover the source of any enterprise --whether crime, terrorism, or politics-- is "Follow the Money". As the referenced article above indicates, one can tell the where the heart of a congregations leadership is by seeing where money is spent. Notice that I said the "congregation's leadership" as opposed to the membership. It is usually the leadership that determines money expenditures. True, member are complicit in this. Unfortunately, the development of the assembly over the last millennial has led to the perceived need for large expensive physical structures in order to "do church". This in turn has led to an inward focus instead of an outward focus.

As far as preaching is concerned, it takes a bold courageous pulpit minister who will oppose this inward focus ( and corresponding focus on where money is allocated ---usually already committed--).

[Darin Hamm]

Personally I get tired of hearing it. It often comes from people who are not at a church or from people whose church has spent millions over the years on facilities and are only now saying wait a minute we need to look at our budget. Easy for you to say when you have already paid for the fancy building that people like and want to go worship at.