I do some volunteer work with a Christian pro-life ministry near my home. The other day I was visiting their offices and noticed they’re using some very old Macintosh computers for word processing. What’s worse, even their best computers are only 486s. As I chatted with the director about their computing woes, and about the low salaries she’s forced to pay her very small staff, two thoughts came to mind. First, I bet the government funded (and abortion minded) Planned Parenthood clinic down the road has the latest and greatest Pentium III computers. I’d also bet they have great pay, good medical coverage, and a retirement plan to boot! What a shame it is that many Christian ministries are forced to operate on the front lines with outdated equipment and with little or no pay. As a military officer, my #1 concern is for the safety of my people. My #2 concern is for their well being and moral. I wouldn’t even consider sending people into harms way without the best of the best. Still, how rare it is I even consider the equipment and supplies used by Christian soldiers on the front lines. With my interest peaked, I checked at my church, too. I found that a lot of the folks there also have outdated computers. A few of the staff are clearly operating on the computers somebody didn’t want after their last “upgrade”. My second thought was that I rarely hear of anyone even speak of helping out these ministries. I may be speaking out of turn, but I suspect many Christians are much too interested in their own well-being to even care what’s happening on the front lines. Many don’t tithe, much less present any offerings to the Lord. Although this will surely anger some folks, since I’ve never been accused of catering to the masses, I offer these questions to make my case: 1). If you walked the halls of your church right after your next Sunday service and asked the question, “What do you most want for Christmas?”. How many folks do you think would tell you they wanted something for SOMEBODY ELSE? 2.) Is your pastor able to make ends meet with the salary he (or she) gets from the church? What about the janitor? 3). What speed of processor is in the computer you are using right now?
“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” James 2:14-18
In Christ,
JimKilby @Kilbin8er
Jim@JamesKilby.com
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