Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A church tax? (part 6 of 6)

This is my last post about church taxes, and I want to finish with a pastoral comment.

When staff and students visit villages, we find that many people are not active in their faith. They don't come to church very often and their spiritual lives are very weak. Many may not be Christians. We visit them and try to help. We pray with them and encourage them to trust and obey Jesus.

This work will be very hard for pastors if there is a church tax!

At the moment the message we take to people is:
"God loves you. He gave his Son to die for your sin. He is Lord and Saviour. Come back to him and trust him, and he will forgive your sin. Then your life will be able to glorify God as it is meant to."

But we will have to add at the end:
"And come back to church with money for each person in your house."

People will not hear the Gospel message. They will just hear us asking for money. Weak members of the church will not come back. They will leave the Presbyterian Church and may not go to any other church. I am concerned that a church tax will be a disaster pastorally and will cause many people to leave the church.

Do you think this could happen?

1 comment:

  1. It would definitely happen in Australia. I am interested to know what others think about what would happen in Vanuatu.

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