What Would Jesus Buy? A couple articles on Church Economics
A few links:
What Would Jesus Buy? The Rev Billy encourages making today" buy nothing day." Fortunately, I've got leftovers.
Via Alternet.
the NYTimes has an interesting article on megachurches going into business. I think this could be a good idea, generally, although in these cases churches hire their own, which seems to establish a new sort of tribe. People might join the church simply because they need a job; non-Christians become excluded. The latter is not a problem for me (after all, if you aren't a Christian, would you always want to work with them?), but its easy to invite hypocrisy if you are hiring only Christians. Anyone can say they are a Christian anyway.
We do things differently - as we are volunteer based, we also take the work of Jews and Pagans. My secretary is Catholic. My organist is a Catholic married to a Lutheran. My associate priest is Hindu.
Just kidding on that last one, folks.
But churches should think entrepreneurially about the needs of the local community and find ways to serve in a way that creates value. Paid staff should enable volunteers rather than suck money away from mission. That churches are filling in voices in smaller communities makes sense given the blight created in the divestment of smaller, local, economies.
Personally, I think we should open a small micro-brewery.