Most congregations attempt to be both The Temple and the Hands of Christ simultaneously. This is the problem. Many of us have large buildings to support. We may have programs to match. But how do we give. I think that a church has a choice…and two healthy options at least. Perhaps three.

They can be the Temple…full on and blessed. Such a life can inspire individuals to give of their time and their resources to the poor.

They can be The Hands of Christ…full on and blessed. Such a life is a life of charity. The building may be neglected etc. But that comes from living simply so that others may simply live, as someone said once.

So, should we insist that every congregation do both? I just don’t know. It’s a hard thing to work out.

In your comments, you focused on the challenge around love for the poor. But I also have some major misgivings about how we spend our money in the work of helping people grow spiritually. (And not just money, but the deployment of all our resources including time, energy and physical space.) It seems to me that in a conventional church, our resources are overwhelmingly dedicated to the large group gatherings e.g. Sunday Worship, while the most effective gatherings for spiritual formation are when a few people get face to face around Jesus. It’s a complete mis-alignment, I think. I have a little napkin drawing illustrating that here: http://feralpastor.blogspot.com/2009/03/twin-peaks-resource-allocation-and.html.

I don’t know anything about your staff, Todd, or how they are deployed, but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the extent to which they work with large groups and how effective their work is in helping people grow in faith. Or for that matter, how do you even approach the challenge of evaluating faith maturity so as to tell if people are growing or not?