Why do wealthy suburban churches not plant more churches in under-resourced areas?
All of God’s people experience Him differently. I often experience the Holy Spirit in a conversation, and recently He led me to start posting some of our conversations. I speak in italics, and our Lord in bold print. click here to read about how this series came to be.
Why do wealthy suburban churches not plant more churches in poor and under-resourced areas?
They are scared. They don’t like being associated with failure, and they don’t like things they don’t understand. They like order, reason, competence. These are not bad things. But your inner cities, the areas where the poor are massed, are chaos, hopelessness, sin, disorder. All of these things exist in wealthy areas as well, but they are better clothed, and not so in your face. Needless to say, the church’s fear of what it does not understand and its tendency to play it safe has had devastating consequences. And due to the governmental structure of protestant denominations, there is no accountability for this mismanagement of resources. In truth, each church only answers to itself, so it is paralyzed by the desire for safety, comfort and ease. There is no regional or national “bishop” that can objectively ensure that the church’s resources in each city are justly deployed for the good of the Kingdom. Each church simply looks out for itself. In isolation, this is sad. Spread across thousands of churches and millions of Christians, it is a tragedy of epic proportions. Is it any wonder your country is in chaos and my Kingdom there is diminished?
What do we do, Father?
Repent. Deeply. And follow me wherever I lead, even if it is into places you don’t understand doing things that are difficult if not impossible to do…apart from me. But be thoughtful about it. And wise. You have abandoned your inner cities and impoverished areas for more than a hundred years. The Enemy is strong there, unchallenged for so long. Listen to me. Trust me. And enter fully armed for spiritual war.