People are More Important than Buildings

September, 2009

by: Jack Hughes

Let’s say it is time to buy a new car. You do research, shop around, and finally purchase that perfect vehicle after much haggling. Your new car is pristine, has that new car smell, and every time you see it your heart swells up with pride. You find yourself looking for places to drive just so you can be in it. One day, you come out of a store just in time to see a man in a beat up pickup truck pull next to your car. He opens his door with a shove and it rams into your “precious!” You hear the dull thud as his door slams into your once perfect paint job. As he gets out, you see he is really big, is sporting a baseball cap, thin white tank top, and has a mid section that looks like he swallowed a beach ball. Greasy hair, three day stubble on his face, and a mean scowl make you fearful of saying anything. So you let him pass without confrontation.

As you approach your car you see a six inch scratch, a large chip in the paint, and a small dent. Rage, anger, and furry, well up within you. You feel like setting his piece of junk truck on fire! You decide to wait and confront him when he returns insisting that he pay for the damage he has done to your new car. Then something terrible and good happens. Your conscience says to you, “Why don’t you witness to the guy when he comes out?” You feel terrible because you realize that you actually love your car more than that man’s soul! But the conviction is good because it has caused you to realize that the love you have for your car is way out of balance. You then decide to talk to the man in as nice a way as possible to see if he will pay for the damage. If he says, “Yes” great. If he says, “No” you can still bless him by squeezing in the Gospel.

By the time this Calvary Review is published we will either be in our new building or very close! A brand new building, new floors, new paint, new carpet, new kitchen, new, new, new! It looks beautiful! After years of talking, planning, giving, and waiting it is finally finished! Now let me ask you, do you think there are any potential temptations, challenges or trials that will arise due to having a new building? This is what I want to address in this Calvary Review.

Confusing the Building with the Church

Just in case you don’t know, the building isn’t the church. The universal church is composed of all true Christians in Heaven or on Earth. You also have the visible church which is made up of all “professing Christians” on earth. Local churches all over the world make up the visible church. The word “church” means assembly or those called out of the world to assemble. The church needs a place to assemble. As a local church grows it requires a larger building to assemble in. Since the church assembles in a certain location it is correct to say, “we are going to church” which means we are going to the location where the visible church is assembled.

Through the years churches built buildings to meet in and eventually people started calling the building “the church.” In fact, this is the number one definition in Webster’s Dictionary. Biblically speaking, the universal church is composed of born again believers; the visible church is composed of believers and professing believers. In short, people are the church, and we must never forget this. Christ died for the church, purchasing it with His precious blood (I Pet. 1:18-19), which means the church is more valuable than any building, any number of buildings, or even the entire world. The soul of one person is more valuable than all the riches of the world. We must keep this in mind when our new building is finished. We must be careful not to love a building which is destined to perish, more than people, whose souls are eternal.

Warning! The More You Invest, the More You Care

If you had never purchased any stock in IBM, it would mean very little to you if that stock plummeted. However, if you invested all your retirement in IBM stock and then the stock fell, you would be very concerned. If you read in the paper about an abandoned house that has burnt down, it would mean very little to you. Yet, if someone called you at work and told you your house burnt to the ground, you would be very concerned. Why? Because the more you invest in something, the more you care. Those who are highly involved in ministry and who are sacrificial givers care more about the ministry and people. Those who don’t serve, don’t give, and don’t sacrifice for others, declare their true theology. Jesus said, ““you will know them by their fruit,”” (Mt. 7:16-20).

Let’s say from the very beginning you have wanted a new Children’s Building. You serve in the Children’s Ministry and are excited at the prospect of having better facilities to minister to our young people. You have sacrificed many things for the building, given up a vacation, made do, and scaled back in other areas to help pay for our new facility. Beware! Because you have invested much, you will care much. It’s not that your care is misplaced, for you truly value people above the building, but you know that the building is a means of ministering to people so you want to take care of it.

What do you suppose is going to happen? You will discover that some will not care as much for the building as you do because they haven’t sacrificed to help build it. These people will use the building, leave messes, treat things harshly, track in mud, spill things on the brand new carpet, and break things carelessly. How are you going to respond? We all need to avoid two extremes. One extreme is to get angry and bitter at others who don’t care about the building as much as we do. People who don’t understand that our new building is a stewardship entrusted to us by God to take care of and use for His glory. James 1:17 says, “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

The other extreme we want to avoid is turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to those who are not caring for the building as they should. If someone is misusing or vandalizing the building we shouldn’t ignore it. When millions of dollars are spent on a building, it is all our responsibility to care for the investment we have made. There must be a balance. If we encounter someone who is not treating the building with respect, we need to kindly remind them that the building is a great blessing, a gift from God, and that we have a responsibility as stewards to treat the new building as if it was God’s—because it is! Deut. 10:14 reminds us, “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it.”

Possessiveness

Another danger that must be avoided is possessiveness. The new building has many rooms and areas for many functions. Eager to move in to “our” new space we may organize things the way we want them, have our own cupboard, with our own things, and in our own area to do ministry. We can be like squatters, settling in on the best turf and laying claim to what we can get and treating it as if it were ours alone. Then when someone comes and messes up our turf, reorganizes our stuff, or uses some of our stuff and doesn’t replace it, there is a temptation to get angry, grow bitter, and harbor resentment. Then comes demanding things be returned, replaced, fixed in the way we want them. If we don’t get what we want, “We are out of here!” The problem—possessiveness, an unwillingness to share what has been given to us. We wrongly assume that something is ours when it is not. Let’s make sure we guard against laying claim to certain aspects of the building and resenting others who will use it contrary to what we would do. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in Phil. 2:3, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.”

Wear and Tear

Related to what has already been stated is the inevitability of wear and tear on the new building. Like the first dent or scratch in a new car, so each area of the building will continue to receive their first dents, scratches, spills, and misuses. Expect it, because we know it is going to happen. Houses that are lived in receive a lot of wear and tear and you should expect this of our new building because we want it to be very lived in. We want to do more ministry than we have ever done before. We want to have conferences, retreats, dinners, events, gatherings, symposiums, etc. There will be lots of people, many of whom do not even attend Calvary Bible Church. Our building is to be used to bless them, encourage them, evangelize and equip them. The increased use will surely put wear and tear on our new facilities, but this is why we have custodians. Let’s not fall into the trap of being more concerned about the pristine condition of our building than using it to bless others and give glory to God. Jesus reminds us in Mt. 6:19, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

Dashed Expectations

Another temptation some will encounter more than others is dashed expectations. Maybe the space we thought we would get isn’t as big as we hoped it would be. Maybe some of the features we asked for somehow got lost in construction. Maybe the building doesn’t meet up to what we anticipated and our expectations are dashed. Then resentful and bitter thoughts enter into our minds like, “why couldn’t they have …” or “Surely they could have …” or “I never asked for … I asked for … so why is it this way?” We hoped for more than we receive and then we become discontent, grumbling, and complaining. Don’t let it happen to you! We must strive to be like Paul who said in I Tim. 6:6-8, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.”

Inflexibility

As we move into the new building and begin to settle in, some will find great pleasure from the benefits of having a new facility. Not wanting to give up the pleasure and profit of their newly acquired space, they will be tempted to be inflexible. “This is our room,” “this is our time slot,” “this is our cupboard,” “you can’t use this area because we might want to use it ourselves.” Inflexibility will rob us of our joy and steal glory from God. It is a close cousin of possessiveness and makes us unwilling to change the routine that we have become accustomed to for the sake of others. Beware of inflexibility as it will surely sneak up on you. Paul says in Phil. 4:11-12, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.”

Buyer’s Remorse

When we entered into the building project six years ago, we hoped to have a two-phase building process. Yet God had other plans. After committing to what we thought would happen, the city told us that we would only be allowed one phase. Knowing we would never be able to build again without buying more property, we combined two building projects into one. Thus, the price immediately jumped two-fold. As time progressed building costs went up and in the providence of God some of the materials had increased three to five hundred percent. The final cost is significantly higher than the first phase of the original plan six years ago. This will tempt some to gripe and complain at the cost of the new building and have buyer’s remorse. “Look how much interest we are paying!,” “If I would have known the building was going to cost this much…,” etc. Hindsight is always 20/20. If we knew the future we would all be very rich. Yet as Christians we need to accept what God’s providence brings us, be thankful, and trust that God knows what is best. May we all continue to sacrificially give until the building is paid off and the sooner we do that, the less we will have to pay in interest. Let’s be thankful for God’s goodness to Calvary Bible Church!