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A Church of Believers

in Bondage

How the Shackles of Debt

Render Us Captive

ET US IMAGINE for a second that the world is about to end. Perhaps a series of nuclear bombs are on the brink of going off, maybe a meteor is set to hit the earth, or there’s some other catastrophe. Then there is you, the man or woman who can save the day. You could disarm the bomb, or you may have the launch codes to the missile that would take out the meteor.

You are the hero because you are trained in Special Forces tactics, well versed in dynamic nuclear systems operation, or have advanced degrees in physics and astronomy. When emergencies like this arise, you are the one everyone looks to for rescue. Bottom line, you are fully aware of the situation and you are fully trained and capable of doing what is needed to stop the impending doom.

With that being the case, the world will be saved, right?

Not so fast. Let’s add one more relevant piece of information to this story. Last night you decided to go out drinking and got a bit too pushy with a bouncer named Tiny. As dawn breaks the darkness of night, you wake up, only to find yourself shackled to a bed inside a steel cage at the county jail.

As you sit there fighting back the headache, you also fight back a sinking feeling, as through your cell you see on television this impending disaster you are fully equipped to prevent. Nobody else is coming to save the day, as it was you who fate had determined would answer the call. Yet here you find yourself stuck—and the worst part is, by your own doing.

Would you yell to the guards that you knew you could prevent the disaster if they would just let you out? Would you really expect them to believe you? Worse yet, could that kind of talk land you in a Department of Homeland Security detention center under the Patriot Act since your talk seems a bit too “alarmist”?

Would you fight the chains that bind you? Would you inform the others held in captivity with you in an effort to rally an escape attempt? Would you feel guilty about having done the wrong thing by getting locked up, which now places you in a position where you are unable to do the right thing? More importantly, would you actually be guilty of the world’s destruction?

We cannot do the work God has called us to do because we are not operating financially in line with Biblical principles.

As thankful as many of us would be for not being placed in such a predicament, we still find ourselves in a dire situation. Unfortunately, the bad news is that our current situation is eerily close to the one I just described. Because debt is so prevalent in our lives, our financial situation, along with that of our nation and the Church as a whole, is in bondage. We cannot do the work God has called us to do because we are not operating financially in line with Biblical principles. We are over our heads in debt and not making enough to thrive, not to mention we are losing the battle against inflation—all of which is affecting our mission and effectiveness as believers.

Would you like to be the hero in this story who’s not stuck in jail, but who is out doing the work God has called you to? Being an Evangelpreneur is the way to do this. What is an Evangelpreneur? An Evangelpreneur is someone who lives his or her life with the focus of spreading God’s kingdom and will through the empowerment He created in free enterprise. He or she uses the natural and supernatural to control the use of time and money to effectively live out the calling placed on his or her life.

This book will look at why I believe being an Evangelpreneur is God’s purpose for believers and how we start down that path. However, before we can become an Evangelpreneur, we need to get a handle on debt. And to get a handle on debt, we need to see just how much it’s crippling us, how it truly is keeping us in jail and from our rescue mission, just like the hero in the story.

Churches in Foreclosure

In 2010, Crystal Cathedral Ministries, which built one of the nation’s largest and most famous churches, filed for bankruptcy. I have never thought of money as the most important thing in life, but the news of the church’s financial collapse kind of shook me. Here, a church with thousands of members on location, and tens of thousands more watching on television around the world, had just gone bankrupt. My initial response was, “There must be more to this story.” Perhaps a board member was embezzling funds, a pastor abusing the tithes and offerings, or even a robbery. As I waited for further information to come out, I kept telling myself that this must be a mistake. Certainly a ministry that brought in tens of millions of dollars a year would have no reason to declare bankruptcy unless there was some case of abuse or misuse. As a man born into sin myself, I know that an individual will have moments in life where they fall short. So I was sure that a scandalous revelation was going to be appearing on the nightly news any day now.

I waited and waited, but no story appeared. The truth was not only harder to believe than a scandal, but in a way, worse: The Crystal Cathedral couldn’t pay its bills.

How could this be?

I remember thinking this would be easier to accept as true if there had been a misdeed by someone connected to the church. As bad and as scandalous as that would have been, I might have been more understanding. I had never been a donor of the Crystal Cathedral, but that really isn’t the point. The point is, here was a major house of worship collapsing before a national audience, and it was all because the church was broke.

Keep in mind that we are talking not about an individual, but rather a church: a group of believers coming together to worship, instruct, and grow in their faith. This means there is a poor-leadership aspect to consider as well. To those who attended the Crystal Cathedral, either in person or via television, their church placed the needs of the people and the calling given in the Bible on the back burner in favor of worldly financial desires. The church is now sold and has become property of the local Catholic diocese, which has renamed it “Christ Cathedral” and will use it as a place of worship. Those who counted on the Crystal Cathedral are now left in the proverbial cold because the debt gamble (yes, it was a gamble) did not work out.

When a church has debt, including a mortgage, it is usually not just one person who made the error but rather a board of people who are mature in their faith, who all have to sign off on placing themselves and their church (including all other members) in bondage—I mean debt.

To the reader who does not have a belief system based on the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you may be asking yourself, “Why does this matter? What’s the big deal if a church has a mortgage and debt?” The question is a great one from the perspective of a person outside of that belief system, but to someone who does have faith in the Author of the Bible, that Author clearly states, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have suffcient to finish it?” in Luke 14:28, and “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” in Proverbs 22:7.

My response to learning of this gross mismanagement of funds and poor stewardship as it relates to the Crystal Cathedral left me thinking what I hope you are thinking, that certainly this is a one-case situation. Surely there are not many churches in this predicament.

Then I started doing some research.

It turns out that the bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral is not an anomaly at all. In fact, I learned that the Western world is facing record numbers of church foreclosures!

As I mentioned in the Introduction, church foreclosures are at an all-time high, according to CoStar, and individuals in the lending industry say that this crisis may be even worse than what those official foreclosure statistics suggest, because nobody wants to look like the bad guy and go after a church.

This was confirmed by Scott Rolfs, managing director of religious and education finance at Ziegler, an investment bank, in a 2011 article on the Huffington Post. “Churches are among the final institutions to get foreclosed upon because banks have not wanted to look like they are being heavy handed with the churches,” said Rolfs.⁹

Now the average reader may be asking themselves, “Why does any of this concern me? I am not a board member of a church. I’m not a pastor of a church. Heck, I don’t even regularly attend a ‘traditional’ church.”

The answer, unfortunately, is even worse than what happened to the Crystal Cathedral. First, we need to realize that the Bible considers the true “Church” the body of believers, not an actual building or denomination. Second, when we look at the body of individual believers, the story, as I said, gets even worse. The leadership of Crystal Cathedral still had their own personal income and finances to sustain their lives and families. However, when it comes to financial failure in our personal lives there is much more at risk.

Here is where faithful individuals find themselves: Not only are their churches in debt, not only is leadership embracing faulty financial strategy that threatens the growth of existing believers and prevents the advancement of the Kingdom to those yet saved, but as individuals, believers are being bound as well!

The Shackle of Debt

Yes, bound. And while debt in and of itself is not technically a sin, Paul reminds us in Romans 13:8 to “owe no man any thing.” The Bible is extremely careful to warn against, even going as far as bringing it up in the Prayer of all Prayers, The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. ¹⁰

Notice how we are to pray for God to forgive us our debts! Notice, too, how we mention in our prayer “as we forgive others.” After this prayer the Messiah continues to say: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you”¹¹—referencing plainly the text about being forgiven as we forgive others.

Now there may be some that say the Messiah is clearly not talking about financial debt but rather sin, as sin places us in a spiritual debt to those we have sinned against. This is why some translations state “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

When we look at that in depth, we find that the Greek word used here is opheilema, a derivative of opheilo, which means to owe in debt morally or financially. This means that Biblically speaking, to owe someone financially is akin to sinning against them. Meaning that having debt is not something that would prevent you from Salvation, it is something though that goes beyond our thought of just money. Debt has moral and spiritual consequences to it, so much so that even sin that does require God’s salvation is referred to in financial terms. So with this truth in mind, when a church of all entities enters into a debt relationship with a bank, it is willfully placing itself, its members, and its mission in a position of willful servitude and obligation to the lender. Now we could add in there a bunch of stuff about entering into an obligation with a lender who is not of the same faith, which the Bible calls “unequally yoked,” and no, it does not refer just to marriage. However, I think the point is clear enough that debt is a major concern to the Father. And when a body of believers places the purpose and objective secondary to their desire to secure debt, not only is immature leadership a given, but sin is also a legitimate concern.

Debt Keeps Us from Being Our Mission

Let us go back to our story of the hero who can save the world, yet due to his or her own actions (and maybe ignorance) finds himself bound in a jail cell. As an ambassador for Elohim, the Church (as a collective and as individuals) is called to be a solution to a doomed world, to bring rescue from an unwanted future. They are charged with bringing the lost to Salvation and to bring leadership to the Saved on how to live in the world but not be of it. The Church cannot answer the call if it is shackled with debt. Regardless of how heartfelt the desire to save, believers cannot focus on the rescue of souls when they’re held in bondage by debt, just like our hero could only sit in jail wishing and hoping he or she could do something.

The father of lies has been telling the elect that if they build a bigger church, bigger temple, or bigger synagogue, then more people will come. A large church usually has to compromise on what should not be compromised to “draw a crowd.” This fact is amplified by the obvious call from the Word to go out to the world, not to bring the world into your building.

The astute will point out what I have already stated—that the Church is not a building or a denomination, but rather a body of believers. Some may inappropriately assume that the failings of many church buildings may be of no consequence to those believers who do not participate in corporate worship.

Strategically, that mindset is faulty. Yes, it is true that the Body is the actual church; brick and mortar are just things that will decay in the erosion of time. However, there is a need for a place where believers can come together, and that need is supported not only with historical evidence, from the first European settlers of North America to the persecuted Body of believers in places of modern-day persecution, but also with Biblical support as well—the disciples all knew coming together was vital to strength and strategy. Scripture reveals (Ezekiel 40–48, for example) that in the future there will be collective corporate worship in a designated temple building.

Also, while it is true that believers know that it is the individuals that make up the Body, nonbelievers do not. When they see church after church obtaining mortgages, filing bankruptcy, and renting space to nonbelieving companies to raise money, these nonbelievers who only see the building as the “church” are subtly turned off to your message of salvation—why would they believe you offer solutions to eternal problems when you don’t even know how to deal with the financial problems and the ruin that comes from them, even though “money is not that important”? Instead, they see a body of people who seemingly cannot even handle the unimportant issue of money, while seeing no evidence of God’s instructions in your professional efforts. So why would we even expect them to believe us when we talk about how to get rewarded in Heaven? This is true whether you attend a cathedral or a home-based church with family.

If nonbelievers do understand that the Church is composed of individuals, their perception of “the Church” actually gets worse, not better, because the majority of individual Christians are in bondage financially. Believers are called to be holy—set apart—but by and large we’re not doing that financially, which prevents us from being an example of how His ways are different (and better) than the ways of the world. The majority of Americans have debt in the form of mortgages, student loans, car payments, credit cards, and the like, and with 80 percent being at or near the poverty level,¹² getting ahead of the debt is like swimming upstream . . . up a mountain. Missing just one paycheck would put most families into a financial tailspin, as two-thirds of American families live paycheck to paycheck.¹³ What impression will non-believers have of the Church and the financial teachings offered therein when the average parishioner cannot write a check for $500 because, like most Americans, he or she doesn’t even have that much saved?¹⁴

A constant battle with poverty. Very little, if anything, in savings. Paychecks eaten up by debt. No control over your time or decisions. No means to be generous, even to one’s church. That is bondage!

Please understand that if you find yourself in this form of bondage, I don’t mean to offend you. Lord knows that I have had times in my life where five bucks in my pocket was akin to feeling wealthy. My point is that as a body of believers we cannot ignore this any longer—we need to swallow our pride and humbly admit that there is an epidemic placing believers in bondage. Poor stewardship of money has placed nearly eight out of ten readers of this book in a financial jail cell—and a spiritual jail cell, because it hampers your witness and your work.

Forget the conversation about how to use money for good. Forget about talking about the love of money being the root of all evil. Forget about telling others that money is not the most important thing. When you are in debt, you have no real ability to participate in the discussion of money, be it for its good or evil uses.

Nor can you participate in the flow of money. You may hear of jailed believers in Libya who are being milked for bail money. If you are broke, you cannot help. You may be presented with the opportunity to send Bibles into North Korea. If you are in debt, you cannot help. A member of your church prays that God moves someone to give, so her husband can have a lifesaving procedure. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you are not able to give.

Usually, at this point in the conversation, pride raises its ugly head and I hear an egotistical response like, “Josh, I give all I can.” I understand that, and every penny helps, but when someone says that they give all they can, yet they do not study how they could make more to give, it tells the world that it is survival they are concerned with, and if there is something to give after that, so be it. I urge you to look past yourself as there are so many in need, in pain. Is the aforementioned fact that most of us only give of the crumbs left after our own survival true? Yes. Does it hurt your heart to realize you are in this position of bondage? Yes. And is it possible you are a pastor or leader in the Church, and you excuse away the pain of guilt you are now feeling by using Scripture out of context, since your “heart was in the right place?” Yes.

“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”—Proverbs 16:18

We need to swallow our pride and realize there are more than a billion believers around the world being held in this form of bondage, along with tens of thousands of houses of worship. Not to mention the financial and spiritual bondage of innumerable souls needing to hear the Word who will not be able to because we’re allowing our resources to be limited. We all know that since Biblical times, it has taken money to send out missionaries or to distribute the Scriptures. We need to collectively put on our big boy pants and realize it is our lack of proper teaching regarding faith and its relationship to money that has led to a world in need—and has left the hero who could swoop in to save them stuck in a jail cell.

Learn from the Pain

Will the rest of the book cause pain and discomfort? Yes, some of it will. Because we have abdicated our role on faith and finance, the pain of truth will be present for most, but as I’m sure you know, the Truth shall set you free as well as heal the pain. The pain that may accompany learning the Truth is not punishment, but rather the ripping away of the blinders that years of lies have put upon you.

Maybe a half of a percent of the people reading this book can say that they give generously and that they have no bondage of debt. Yet they may falsely assume that they need not partake in the rest of the book. This would be an error that only amplifies the problem.

What about the people around you? What are you doing to help them? Do you realize the gravity of the situation? If you do happen to be in the top half of the wealthiest one percent (the percentage that experts agree don’t personally need to worry about financial issues), and within your sphere of life and influence there are families being bound and torn by debt, your church has a mortgage, and you yourself have poor financial practices, then you are neither living nor teaching your faith. This, unfortunately for you, also means you are not doing what the Father desires; and not doing what the Father desires is . . . sin.

The bottom line is this: The “church,” as individuals and/or a physical building of corporate worship, is in bondage. This bondage comes by our own ignorance and sinful nature. In a sense this is worse than if it were to come at the hands of the Romans, Alexander the Great, or the pharaohs of Egypt. Believers have believed not the Bible but rather the whispers of the evil one when he lied to us about what Elohim wants us to do with our faith and financial lives.

You have free will; the ties that bind are only but shadows of reality. The reality is that your financial solutions are not only Biblical but are within your reach. Not only are the binds that hold you back financially just a shadow, but so are the other ties that bind us in our hearts and spirit. The One who came to set you free did not limit that freedom to after death; He came to set you free in all Truth and we were given the Word to lead us in all our ways, ALL. When we trust the Word we can free ourselves and then set those around us free as well. The truth—knowing it and also acting on it—can set you free.

The good news is that there is hope for all of us. There are ways to break free from the bondage of debt, and yes, you have what it takes to do so. I understand many may be realizing for the first time the reality of their financial situation. Please know that whether you are five thousand or five million dollars in debt, you can do all things through the Messiah who strengthens you. Together we will get there, and the discomfort you may be feeling now will be but a motivating memory.

EVANGELPRENEUR ACTION STEP

Take a moment and do a self-check: What financial bondage do you find yourself in? Do you recognize it or have you grown so accustomed to it that you just see your bondage as part of life?

Take a look at your church, if you go to one, and ask yourself: Is financial bondage there? What does it look like? Is an un-needed expansion being built with borrowed money? Is the pastoral staff hoping a bigger building will be like the promise in Field of Dreams—if they build it, the people will come?

Once you start looking for financial bondage, you will see it everywhere!