Every church I have been a part of has spent the most on salaries for their employees, usually about 50% of the total budget. A survey of mega churches showed in 2005 there were 20 full-time leadership staff, which is up from 13 in 2000. A growing staff seems to be the focus of many landlocked churches that I’ve seen. If you can’t enhance your facilities, then go for a lower staff to member ratio. In my experience, this is a much more effective strategy than just building a bigger church that’ll fit more people. But a building can usually be built a lot faster than deep, meaningful relationships.

Of the three churches I have gone to recently, the missions budget was 6%, 10% and 30% of the total budget. The most recent survey shows that the average missions budget in American churches is 5%. Of course many churches consider their entire budget to be missional. This is a great mindset to have, but I prefer a church that recognizes the “all nations” part in Matthew 28:19 and gives away a lot of money instead of adding luxuries for their members.

Another graph to consider is this one relating to the average number of baptisms over a year. Maybe all those people who were baptized in August decide to start tithing for a few month, until the spiritual high passes in January. Or maybe people are just conservative budgeters and underestimated their giving ability until later in the year. While those are nice thoughts, it more than likely people just trying to get in a tax deduction for that year. As for the baptism trends, its pretty obvious…who wants to get dunked in water in the winter.

My one complaint is that at no point did they clearly lay out the Gospel. I wanted to hear, “This is what is necessary for you to believe for salvation.” But in both the Newcomer Gathering and the Membership class, this was never said.

In the Membership class you are broken into small groups with an elder in each and you share your testimony. One of the couples in our class was a little vague in their conversion experience, dropping questionable lines like “I’ve always believed in Jesus.” It is very possible that the elders or someone is responsible for following up on this or perhaps it is covered in the baptism class (the couple requested to be baptized). I think there are going to be a lot of instances that are missed and by laying out the gospel clearly (clear like crystal pepsi…funny title right?) they could set that straight with everyone right then.

They do give you a booklet that lays out the beliefs of the church, but how many are going to read through it? When I was in youth ministry we got a new group of 7th grade kids every year. The first month of small group was all about what is the Gospel. I usually took 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 and said this is what you believe to be a Christian. I think this is important with all of the differing theologies and backgrounds out there that we at the least present the basics and make sure our members are getting those right.

UPDATE: Jennifer, who is in charge of new membership, emailed me to let me know that more than likely the elder would be following up with someone whose testimony seemed unclear.

The elders are very careful on ensuring that those seeking membership understand the gospel and are truly Christians. We have had folks who were denied membership as well as baptism because they didn’t understand, at which point the elder would share the gospel with them as well as make sure they knew about Alpha (an informational class about Christianity).

I’m still convinced sharing it upfront with the group is probably best, but people can zone that out easier than making up a doctrinally-sound testimony I guess.

If there were life on another planet, how is their approach to God different? Does Christ’s death cover their sins as well? Were they even subjected to the Fall or did they get it right the first time? Does the Bible apply to them or has God revealed different things to them? Perhaps Christ died for their sins on their planet long before (or after) He did here?

Of course this conversation can in the end come to no conclusion. You will notice I didn’t quote any verses and my stats came from Wikipedia. Many people will (probably wisely) just ignore this discussion all together for these reasons and the most surprising thing they learned was that the Vatican has a chief astronomer.

Pilate does not benefit from a huge amount of ancient evidence outside of the Bible. The first reference we have of him is from the historian Tacitus in one of the popular extra-biblical references to Jesus. It just says that Christ was “put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.” There was also a stone with Pilate’s name carved in it found in the 60s which is the only archaeological evidence of Pilate with his title in the New Testament (prefect).

Then we have various stories from Josephus about Pilate’s failure to effectively deal with the religious society that was Judea. In one story, Pilate used sacred treasure to pay for aqueducts to bring water into Jerusalem. When a crowd gathered to protest, Pilate ordered some soldiers to dress in civilian clothes and sneak into the crowd. When Pilate gave the signal, the soldiers turned on the crowd and beat them until they scattered.

According to Josephus, Pilate’s downfall was when a Samaritan man claimed to be able to show the Samaritans where Moses hid some sacred vessels. When a large group assembled to climb the mountain where they were hidden, Pilate’s calvary attacked them and many were killed. The Samaritans complained to the legate of Syria, Vitellius, that Pilate was guilty of murder. Vitellius removed Pilate from office and ordered him to travel to Rome to stand trial under the emperor Tiberius. During his journey to Rome Tiberius died, so Pilate escaped judgment in the confusion.

That is the last somewhat credible source we have on Pilate. There are various later writings from the 3rd to 5th century where the stories of his suicide come from. That story says that Pilate arrived to stand trial in front of the emperor wearing Jesus’ seamless robe from John 19:23-24. Because Pilate was wearing the robe, Caesar could not say a harsh word to him. However it was later taken off of Pilate and the emperor sentenced him to death. Pilate didn’t wait and committed suicide.

While it would be a nice sermon additive to say that the anguish over allowing Jesus’ crucifixion was too much for Pilate, we just do not have enough credible evidence that this is true. I respect the pastor that made this error, so I guess I’ll let him slide….this time.

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• Women and men were created equal, so positionally a woman is not less than a man
• However, their ROLES are different, and this is much of what Paul speaks of in his writings, esp. regarding marriage
• I do not believe women should be elders…this is made clear in different places, but the scriptures are all mentioned already in the PDF…in the original language, there are times you can tell gender differentiation, and in the passages for rules on elders, it is pretty blatant it is referring to men only
• Because, of this, I DO NOT THINK at any point a woman should be welcomed as an associate pastor, because associate pastors (including the head pastor) are ELDERS…when the Bible speaks of a woman not teaching a man, I believe it is in this context
• Which means I have no problem with a woman serving in the role of a teacher in certain contexts; what if woman gets up during the service to give testimony from the pulpit about a ministry she is a part of, and ends up teaching a biblical lesson in the process? I have no problem with this. She is not LITERALLY acting as an elected ELDER at that point, she is simply sharing truth about God in her life
• So, positionally I would not give biblical warrant to a female associate pastor, thought I would not deny women the right to teach small groups that have men in them/youth services that have men in them, etc.
• The main issue I have with the arguments arising out of this discussion is that women starting feeling ENTITLED to certain things, and thus lose what the Bible defines as their ROLE as a woman; it is not subservient, it is a glorious role; but women, being subjected in authority over time, are jumping off the other side of the wall (so to speak)