I teach Karate at a church. It works out nicely. After we beat the crap out of each other we pray for each other to get better. My father started the Karate Club at the church in 1990 and I helped out as best I can. With his retirement and moving from the area I took over since I'm not only his son, but his senior student. I run and adult class and a kids class. I charge a small fee per month which is less than half of what a person would pay anywhere else. I also offer discounts for people with multiple family members in the program. It's not about the money. It shouldn't be.
So, what happens when someone else decides that it should be about the money?
I've been affiliated with this church for a very long time. I grew up there. The church grew with me. Additions were built onto the building because the church kept attracting new members. The pastor at the time was very well liked, was good at tending the needs of the congregation and knew the value of fellowship.
However, things change and so do churches. Pastors get reassigned. A new pastor was brought in and it did not go well. You see, it doesn't take all seven of the deadly sins to kill a church. Pride and greed did a very good job on their own. The church was no longer about fellowship and the Word of God. It became about getting the money out of the people's pockets. I stopped attending church services there after a month long series about how we need to give more to the church.
Events like out annual Bazaar and Vacation Bible school were continued but diminished. Things like our annual talent show and Halloween party just went away. People left. Most of my family did. My father and I continued to teach there and continued to make monthly donations to the church from the fee we charged out students.
So then I hear complaints about keeping too much Karate gear at the church. Valid complaint and I took much of it out of there. Then they decide that I need to pay more rent. I don't pay rent. We've never paid rent. We made month donations. We were never asked to pay anything. I raised the amounts of my donations. I continued to tend to the upkeep of the areas we use. I continued putting together Karate shows for the annual Bazaar. I continued to donate months of lessons to Church fund raising events.
And I show up last night to find all the doors locked to every room that has a lock on it. Including half of the bathrooms. I confronted some of the people in charge. They told me what I was going to be paying weekly and that was going to increase next year and that I would not be allowed access to other areas of the church.
And I told them that wasn't going to happen.
I'll be appearing before a committee meeting in a couple weeks. See, unlike the vast majority of the people would run these meetings, I remember what made the church grow and I remember what nearly killed it. They want to keep using the same methods that broke the church to fix. Honestly it's not their fault, because they don't know any better.
You don't demand more money from programs that are serving to bring new faces to the church. You don't put the squeeze on your supporters.
There's a new pastor now, the second in about as many years. She seems to be a good egg. Quick to pour oil over troubled waters. She seems to be the type of person I can work with to keep not only the doors of the karate Club open, but the doors of the church as well. Like I said, I grew up in that church. Despite much of the drama that's reared it's ugly head there recently, it's still very dear to me.
Churches need money to survive. This is true and unavoidable. More than money, it needs people. You don't keep people by demanding their money.
Seems I may have to teach more than just Karate very soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment