I use a system called Google Analytics to keep an eye on my blog stats. It tells me things like how many people visited my blog day-to-day, where people came from, and even what search terms were used to find different posts on my blog. I have found an interesting trend among the Church in these tought times. Because I screwed up my analytics, my stats don’t start until October 6th, but I have noticed an amazing trend.

From October 6th 2008 until December 5th 2008 my top ten searches were:

1. gulshan esther – 21 visits
2. the pursuit – 5
3. jesus talks about money – 3
4. lew ayotte – 3
5. the act of preaching – 3
6. the pursuit blog – 3
7. bible talks about money – 2
8. church covenants – 2
9. compartmentalize thoughts – 2
10. historic church buildings – 2

That represents 5 unique visitors who came to my blog by searching for something to do with money. If you look at all my keywords, there are 16 total visitors who used the keyword “money” to get to this blog.

From January 1st 2009 until February 11th 2009 my top ten searches were:

1. gulshan esther – 42 visits
2. jesus talks about money – 9
3. “gulshan esther” – 4
4. bible talks about money – 4
5. the pursuit – 3
6. the pursuit blog – 3
7. 2350 bible verses on money – 2
8. biblical ecclesiology – 2
9. biography of gulshan esther – 2
10. esther gulshan – 2

That represents 15 unique vistors who searched for (“jesus talks about money”, “bible talks about money”, or “2350 bible verses on money”). For all my keywords that include the word “money”, I have had 54 total visitors more than three times the amount from October-December. For some reason Gulshan Esther is much more popular too!

From October 6th 2008 to December 5th 2009 my top 10 content was:

1. http://lewayotte.com/ – 385 pageviews
2. http://lewayotte.com/2008/03/18/wine-strong-drink-part-3/ – 61
3. http://lewayotte.com/2008/12/03/contract-pastoring/ – 61
4. http://lewayotte.com/2007/06/26/testimony-of-gulshan-esther/ – 47
5. http://lewayotte.com/?p=353&preview=true – 34
6. http://lewayotte.com/about/ – 28
7. http://lewayotte.com/2008/10/10/a-modern-example/ – 27
8. http://lewayotte.com/2006/12/21/the-bible-talks-more-about-money-than-hell/ – 22
9. http://lewayotte.com/2008/10/08/the-pursuit-strip-26/ – 21
10. http://lewayotte.com/2008/02/ – 18

From January 1st 2009 to February 11th 2009 my top 5 content was:

1. http://lewayotte.com/ – 556 pageviews
2. http://lewayotte.com/2006/12/21/the-bible-talks-more-about-money-than-hell/ – 103
   
3. http://lewayotte.com/2007/06/26/testimony-of-gulshan-esther/  – 80
4. http://lewayotte.com/2009/01/26/gods-revelation/ – 78
5. http://lewayotte.com/2009/02/09/sermon-outlines-a-better-idea/ – 51

Five times as many people visited http://lewayotte.com/2006/12/21/the-bible-talks-more-about-money-than-hell/ than they did only a few months ago.

It seems like the church, is starting to ask questions about money. No wonder, given the current recession/depression. We know that church tithing/giving is down. I can only assume preachers are preaching more about tithing/giving. There are probably a number of people who are questioning some of this content, and even questioning whether or not the tithe is biblical for today.

I have written a few posts that touch on the idea of giving and tithing and a few posts that are indirectly related to money among the Church. Here is the list with a brief description:

• The Tithing Pastor – A True Conundrum
  I’ll admit it up front, I don’t think we are called to “tithe”… but many vocational pastors do. And can you blame them, that’s how they make a living, off your tithe. But you have to wonder, is the pastor truly tithing a tenth? This slightly humorous posts looks at the math it would take to make sure your pastor is practicing what he preaches!
• The Bible Talks More About Money Than Hell
  You’ve probably heard this saying, or somethign similar to it. But if you’ve read the bible then you’re probably wondering why you didn’t notice so much financial talk. That’s because it’s not there! The Bible may mention money, but it’s almost always in passing. These statistics about how often the Bible talks about money are tricks and the people who usually use them are just as tricked. Don’t worry, God isn’t going to audit your taxes this year.
• Resources, Conversions, and Priorities…
  Ever wonder where all your money goes, you know, the money you give to the church. Well this survey by LifeWay shows you exactly where it goes. About 5%-23% goes towards ministering to the lost… the rest of it goes to support your building, staff, and vocational pastor(s). I wonder what would happen if we rethought this structure and actually used our resources for reaching the lost.
• Money and the Church: A Fulltime Story
  This post was part of a synchroblog that I took part in. It is intended to question whether or not we should be paying a pastor a salary for the services they render. Since most of their services that we pay for are not biblical, maybe we can cut out the “vocational” part of the vocational pastor and save some money. If we do that, we could use our money, time, and energy towards more noble goals… like actually making disciples.

I know these times are tough for everyone. So if you find that your preacher is telling you that you need to give 10%… just look in the bible, you may be surprised what you find — or — what you don’t find.

I recently had a wonderful conversation with one of my co-workers. She came into my office to give me something and noticed my digital picture frame displaying on my desk. Then I showed her a picture of my wife and we spent a few minutes looking on Facebook and MySpace to see if my wife had any pictures up of the kittens. While browsing through the pictures she saw one that Kati had of me at my graduation. My co-worker asked where I graduated from and I told her, “Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.”

She said, “WOW! I’ve gotta stop cussing in front of you…”

I explained to her that I didn’t want her to censor herself in front of me. Then we started talking about “church” life. She and her husband aren’t really church people. They both went to Methodist churches from time-to-time growing up though. Recently her husband expressed interest in going to a local Methodist church. He wants to go somewhere that he can hear the word preached without feeling pressured into anything weird. She said that she wasn’t really into the idea, but wanted to go with her husband anyway.

Up to this point in our conversation, I had already explained that I am a heretic and defined the word for her, as “a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church.” I explained a little bit about my history, what I believe, what I don’t believe, etc. Basically just enough to let her know what I am all about.

Knowing this, and having her recent church experience, she had some questions/concerns for me. This is what they were (in her words).

1) During one songs, they sang about Immanuel… who is Immanuel? I thought they were suppose to worship God?

2) When it was time for prayer, everyone bowed really low with their heads down. Why did they do that?

3) After the community prayer, instead of everyone saying “Amen” they all started to say their own little personal prayers – is that normal?

4) After the service a couple cornered us and asked if we were saved, it was really ackward.

5) The husband of the other couple convinced her husband to fill out a vistor’s card. Then they received a call that afternoon asking if they were going to visit that night.

6) They had “children’s church” during which they took up an offering/tithe. Our little girl felt bad because they were trying to build a new church building and gave 10.00$ to the offering. I feel like that’s wrong, that should be up to the parents, not pressured little kids.

Hearing some of these questions and concerns, I had the feeling that I knew exactly what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthins 14, “Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?” Granted, this is about “tongues” not about Christian Music, Childrens Church, Prayer Stance, etc. I think it still relates though.

Last week I wrote a post called A New Addition – where I recounted a recent sermon I heard about the requirement of tithing.

Tuesday I was able to sit down with the speaker of that message for lunch. We were able to discuss what took place, and how I felt about it. I am not going to share with you everything said, but I will give you an idea of what occurred.

He asked me what I thought about the past two Sundays (the Sunday I wrote about, and the last Sunday – a similar topic was preached). I answered by saying, “Actually I need to talk to you about that. Do you want me to remove myself from my teaching position in Sunday School?” (You see, during his two messages he pretty much said that if you were in a ‘leadership’ position – which in his eyes includes me – than you either needed to repent and start tithing or you needed to remove yourself from that position).

He asked, “Why?”

I said, “Well I don’t tithe.”

He said, “Well, you should tithe then.”

I said, “I’m not going to.”

He said, “Why not?”

I said, “I do not see that it is taught in scripture…”

And the conversation went on from there.

He brought up the “store house,” the “first fruits,” etc. I brought up pretty much everything I have discussed here and maybe a little more. I will not bore you with repeating myself.

What I found interesting was his idea that if you use the building (which I do to help teach and to meet with others) than you should help pay for that building. In a way, I agree with that idea. I recommended that a better solution though would be to charge admission. He didn’t like that idea.

What I found VERY interesting was the dilemma he was in. You see, he wants a teacher for the Sunday School that I teach. But I know he does not trust anyone else to teach it. The dilemma of course was, go against his “conviction” and allow me to continue to teach OR remove me and be out a teacher. I urged him, more than once, that he should not go against his conviction and that I would have no hurt feelings in any way. But as it stands, I am still the teacher of this particular Sunday School class. Which is only like 3-5 people on an average Sunday morning…

Anyways, the best part of the meeting was that through this discussion it opened a door for us to meet again next week, to specifically talk about these issues. He kept telling me that I have given him “a lot to think about.” I do not know if that is good or bad, but either next week he will come guns-a-blazing or he will be where he is or he will have changed his position. Regardless, I look forward to discussing this with him further and I wonder what he is going to speak about this coming Sunday.

P.S. When we first started talking about this he said, “You don’t believe in supporting the Church?” I replied, “Absolutely, of course I believe in supporting the church.” His reasoning then became, “Well the church wants to meet in this building, so you should help support that by helping pay for the building.” I hope next week the church decides to meet in the Caribbean, I’ll be voting for that at the next “business meeting.”

P.P.S. He also asked me if I thought pastors should get paid. I said no. He said that I would feel differently when I was in the ministry. I didn’t get into it with him over his vocabulary (I have in the past) but I assured him that I would not.

Here is the average church budget according to Lifeway (HT: Alan).

49% – Staff Personnel
9% – All Other
5% – Missions Evangelism
7% – Computers, Office Supplies, Literature
9% – Denominational Contributions
9% – Utilities
13% – Buildings, Rent, Mortgage, Capital Funds, Projects

To simplify this, I will group, “Computers…,” “Utilities,” and “Buildlings…” into one group called “Structure Costs.”

49% – Staff Personnel
29% – Structure Costs
9% – All Other
5% – Missions Evangelism
9% – Denominational Contributions

I am going to be VERY generous and say that 100% of the “All Other,” “Missions Evangelism,” and “Denominational Contributions” are used directly towards some sort of discipleship/evangelism/missions/etc. project, which we will label as “Good Works.” Thus making our statistics look like:

49% – Staff Personnel
29% – Structure Costs
23% – Good Works

So, on average, 23% of any money you drop in the offering plate MIGHT be used for some sort of “good work.” And we probably can all agree the 9% sent as “Denominational contributions” is probably cut in half by administration costs, and I have no idea what “All Other” means. To be safe we can say that of the money you give, only about 5%-23% is used for some sort of mission outreach program.

(Here is some more information about where your money goes CP, IMB)

In Masters Plan of Making Disciples, Arn takes a poll of how people “came to their new relationship with Christ and their church.” This is what the poll looks liked: (NOTE: I do not always trust statistics, but I have a feeling these are fairly accurate)

I wonder, if 75-90% of all conversions happen because of a friend/relative, why do we spend most of our resources on building buildings, instead of building relationships?

Think about it.

P.S. Geoff Baggett has some interesting posts with some more information about some of these money issues (The Great Commission (Part. 1) – More than Money?, Cooperative Program $ – Mostly Staying in Your Home State).

No, Kati and I are not pregnant (although feel free to pray for that to happen).

Sunday morning we discovered a new addition to the building that the church meets in. You know those boards where the put up the Hymns we’re going to sing for that day, or what this weeks and last weeks tithes/offerings were, or the attendance for this week and last week (or any combination thereof). Well at some point during last week the pastor put up another board, on the other side of the stage (now it’s symmetrical). This new board is dedicated to the “Building Fund.”

You see, over a year ago (maybe two) the church voted that it was a good idea for them to build a “family life center.” So they took out a large loan from a bank and built a building. The building was only finished a short while ago. Now they have a brand spanking new building, a large monthly payment, and a drop in all of the “numbers.”

This “drop” in numbers appears to have been happening over the past few months. This pattern caused the pastor to preach what he preached yesterday. I have to say, I laughed out loud (involuntarily at some points) more than once during this message. But what cracked me up most was the new board. The following is my impression of the “Building Fund” board.

*The math is not mine – I am not quite sure
how $728.05 weekly gets to $3154.89 monthly.

Yes, that is right, we have 10.00$ in our building fund. And we need 3154.89$! I am sorry, but that just cracks me up – 10.00$!!!!!. Oh and that’s not all! Our “general fund” is about 1000.00$ in the hole!

So we heard a word from God. Specifically from Haggai 1. This is when God warned the Israelites because they spent 16 or so years building their own homes and wasting their money, instead of building God’s temple like they originally intended to do. This was used as an example of what was happening among us. There were references to “sin” being in the “camp” which was causing the numbers to drop (both head count and money count – which is fairly obvious).

Regardless of that fact that I got a good laugh about what was said, I was also very upset. I was saddened and angered over what was spoken. I was not convicted nor do I think I am being prideful. I was most of all upset because I knew there were people there who were hurt and were made to feel guilty instead of being discipled or edified. You see, no matter how many times the speaker said that this was not a message to knock people around but a message to warn them – it seemed like a message to knock them around and guilt them into a paradigm of building buildings and showing up to weekly lectures. At one point he said “If you have ever said, ‘I’d like to come to Bible Study on Wednesday nights but I have to work – God will understand,’ then you know where the Israelites were at here in Haggai.” He gave numerous other examples like, “I’d like to tithe, but we cannot afford it this month” and other nonsensical drab.

At the end of this message, there was an “invitation” to “obey God” in tithing. Many people went up to the stage and did whatever it is they did. The preacher concluded saying that he knew many hearts had been changed.

My question is this, where they changed because of what the Bible teaches, because of a conviction from God? Or where they changed because they were made to feel guilty by someone whom they trust to teach them the truth?