Mike,
I understand what you're saying but we all struggle with those same issues.
In my church of 300+, I have 4 commanders plus myself. No one else wants to
help - they've either "been there, done that", have "no patience" or some
other similar weak excuse. I'm just glad I won't be in there shoes when they
answer to God for their lack of participation/ministry.
As for WalMart, the matching donation thing is a corporate program not a
local one. If the local WalMart won't send the letter in, get the address of
the web and send it to the corporate headquarters (probably in Arkansas).
The people in my church don't have a lot of money either - we're out in the
country and the highest incomes are probably one lawyer (A Christian one, can
yuou believe it <VBG>), and a couple of folks who work in telecommunications.
Most are self-employed but we always manage to scrape up the money we need
for things. For campouts, we get ladies in the church to donate the food -
we divide it up so nobody spends more than $5 on any food. They bring it to
the church the Wednesday night before a campout - this probably saves us
about $200 per campout (we eat a lot).
It can tough AND frustrating but you can make things happen - be creative,
try anything that might make a buck (as long as it's legal, moral, and the
church allows it!)
I'll be praying for y'all!
Michael
In a message dated 03/21/2000 12:09:16 PM Central Standard Time,
IronMikeBurke writes:
> Again, we just don't have the resources available. The Walmarts in this
> area will not commit to anything because it is a church group, I have tried
> this, K-marts and Targets are the same way. What seems to be misunderstood
> is that yes that is how the big churches do it, but we are not a big
church.
> My old church was huge, the people there drove Mercedes and BMW and
Cadillacs
> and lived in single family houses and had the money for all of that kind of
> stuff. The old church was beautiful and luxurious and could seat a
thousand
> easily, but we are not that big. We don't have the resources. It is not
> just a matter of getting together for a thing like a bake sale or anything,
> it is a matter of coordinating the resources, gathering the people together
> making sure they can get off work to do it. Then we have to plan it and get
> it on the church calendar, which should have already been thought up in
> advance by at least a year. It is not as easy as you make it sound. We
have
> a lot of difficulties with these things as we have tried them before and it
> never turned out very well.
> I appreciate what you have said, but I just wanted to say where I am at.
>
> Iron Mike
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