4.08.2008

Rumors, Gossip, and why you think that everything should be free

So we're having this discussion on the forum about how there's a DVD called Free Market Jesus by Don Miller for sale for $29.99.
https://www.rightnow.org/Store/Details.aspx?cid=1001&id=2211&f=&cc=&csc=&ldr=&s=

Someone made the comment on how it shouldn't be so expensive, even though it comes with small group resources or something like that.
Then someone commented that his fee for personal appearances is $4000.
Now, it's not those comments that got me going. It's this idea that because someone is a believer they should be giving away their marketable value.
Only Don Miller can give a Don Miller talk right? So supply is limited.
Not to mention, we don't know if he gets that lock stock and barrel or if he splits that with commissioned agents or publicists or whatever. Does he pay his own travel expenses as a part of that? How much of that does he tithe to Imago Dei, how much does he give to other charities or just people that he's in relation to that have needs?
Does he negotiate with churches that can't afford this fee? Because there are certainly a lot of churches that can afford this unless they have to much debt from their new $20 Mil "campus"
We don't know what the whole story is.

Yet it's so easy to sit on our high horse and look at the wealthy, or semi-wealthy and say that we're more Jesusy then them because we're poor like the people that Jesus spent time with.
I mean, I have a big enough chip on my shoulder towards the wealthy, I rarely need encouragement to think poorly of them...which is also wrong.
Mostly, mine is towards the "mine mine mine" wealthy though. The wealthy that earn and don't bless others and just spend spend spend all the time on crap that is soooo extravagant.

So we're not rich. But we still are more comfortable then we really need to be, most of us at least.
Do you eat regularly?
Do you have access to clean drinking water?
Do you have a home or some sort of roof over your head?
Do you own a car?

Before we get all mounted up on our high horses about the wealthy maybe we should look at our check book and see how much we help other people, ministries, other organizations in comparison to the times we go out to eat, or buy cds, or add that movie package to our already bloated cable selection, or _____ insert any number of other examples here.
This can continue into the ridiculous, but seriously, it's so easy to condemn the rich for what we ourselves do, just on a smaller scale.
How often is what we just HAVE to have a want not a need?
Wants and needs are two different things, but we get them confused a whole heck of a lot (myself included)

It's so easy to spot selfishness in other people, it's MUCH more comfortable for me to point at you all and say, SEE! See your sin and selfishness?!
But the sin I recognize in others, is most often the sin I'm trying to hide from myself.

So what would be the answer here? That every believer with a marketable trade give his/her talents away for free? Hardly. If you're a believer and you're good at your job, then shouldn't that mean you should tell your boss you're more then happy to do what the Lord is calling you to do for free?
Should pastors work for free? How about youth pastors? How then would you suggest they live, retire, send kids to college, support other ministries?

I don't know about you...but that doesn't make a LICK of sense to me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

True.... True....