In my 50s I’m still an enthusiastic Catholic, but... I remember entering my teens and thinking it was wrong to make us bring money to school to donate to the poor, while up the street at the church they were spending a fortune on remodeling. It shook my foundation and faith and it really took until I was in 30s and had kids to really get back “into” the church. A lot of my colleagues never recovered.
Agreed. Churches have to put their money where their mouth is on this stuff. God does not want us to build Him palaces while poor people suffer or His Word stagnates.
This is also not to say that I do not understand the value of good facilities for worship, study and outreach.
I am Baptist, not Catholic. I go to a HUGE Baptist Church in Houston. We have over fifty-thousand members, several large campuses throughout Houston, and an international television broadcast of weekly sermons. Our campuses are large and expensive — but they are functional, not ornate, and they serve a purpose of spreading the message and doing the work.
There is an automotive maintenance garage where mechanics in the church do free repairs to the cars of the poor. There are dozens of Bible Study classrooms. There is high-tech broadcast equipment for spreading the message worldwide. Parking and seating alone for a 50K-member church is daunting ... and that money needs to be spent to keep membership growing.
But, we must give in proportion to what we have ... and there needs to be a functional, Biblical, Christ-centered purpose for every expenditure.
I’m just not sure architectural beauty qualifies.
SnakeDoc