It's All About the Bling

Just the other week our church held a Celebration Service down at the Forum in Harrisburg. We have three campuses throughout the Harrisburg area and among those there are five different services, so it was nice to bring everyone together for ONE service. It really gave everyone a sense of who CrossPoint really is. Sadly, however, there were several people who decided not to join us because they believed it was bad stewardship to rent the Forum when we had a perfectly good church building in Colonial Park.

While I applaud their resolve to serve the poor and be faithful stewards of God's resources, there are two things that those people didn't recognize.

First, it actually cost less to rent the Forum than it did to hold service at our three locations. By the time you add up the cost of utilities at the two churches and rent at the elementary school it was actually cheaper to rent the Forum.

But I guess what gets me the most is how we so often grab onto one part of God's message and overlook anything else that might contradict it. For example, with this service I heard several people criticizing the opulence. And although scripture does warn us that we cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24), Jesus does also praise the woman who showers him with expensive perfume (Matthew 26:10-13). He reminds us, "the poor you will always have with you."

Yes, it's true that some pastors (specifically TV evangelists) have taken this passage to mean that we don't have to give to the poor. They've used it as an excuse for their own personal opulence, but where is the balance here? In the Old Testament, God instructs the people on how to use the best cedars, the fines linens, the most beautifully crafted gold and silver to decorate the Tabernacle. Although that temple was considerably smaller and simpler than other temples of the day, it still took the efforts of the entire nation of Israel to create it.

So the question that we are left to patiently struggle with is the balance between "bling" and honoring God?