The Church and the Country Club

In this weekend's Gospel reading Jesus teaches,

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In a sermon on this passage I told of a woman I knew in another church who had been given a revelation at the country club pool in the form of someone thinking through how she lived out this passage,

I remember a Bible study in which a woman told of a life-changing conversation. She was very involved in the life of the country club. On Sundays, as soon as church was over, her family would be at the club. Everyone would eat and then change clothes. The men would golf, the women and children would lounge by the pool.

One Sunday morning, a friend confided that this would be her last Sunday at the club. The dues had recently been raised and she could not afford to pay those dues and also increase her giving to the church so that she would offer the church more than the country club. It was a line this second woman could not cross. She could not give more to the country club than to church. For the woman who related this story to me, it had been a revelation. She had never seen the church and the country club as related in any way. She gave the church a bit of her time and money as if doing God a favor. The rest she spent on the country club and her family.

The poolside encounter caused her to question where she was storing up her treasure. She did not change her giving patterns for some time, but she began to study scripture, to spend more time at the church. She began to invest in her relationship with God.

The same sermon also tells about The Disney Tattoo Guy whose website I just checked and he has 300 more Disney tattoos since I gave the sermon three years ago (he's up to 1,900 total now). The full text of the sermon is online here: Where your treasure is....

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor