“Blow Out The Candles”

Friday, October 16, 2015

While visiting a congregation in Hawaii, they announced having a birthday lunch celebration in their building after services. They invited visitors. We chose not to take part in this. Is having lunch in the church building right or wrong?

Sincerely, It’s Not My Birthday

Dear It’s Not My Birthday,

It’s wrong unless having the lunch is specifically a part of something the church is meant to focus on… and celebrating birthdays isn’t something the church is meant to focus on. The work of a congregation is a very important subject because what a congregation does tells you what is important to them. Most of us have seen churches that are merely social organizations. These groups talk about Jesus, but they are really only interested in having fun and making people feel good. Christ’s church needs to do what Christ wants it to do. It isn’t about what makes us happy, but about what makes Him happy. We are here to do God’s work (Jhn 4:34). If we want to be God’s church, we need to be busy doing what His church did in the Bible. That means we only spend the church’s time, money (the building is part of the church’s money), and effort on things that we can read about the church doing in the Bible. There are only four things we see the church of Jesus Christ doing.

1. Caring for needy christians. The church has the right and responsibility to spend its time and money to help take care of christians that are suffering financially (Acts 4:35, Acts 6:1, Acts 11:28-30).
2. Teach christians. Any congregation that belongs to Jesus has to teach christians about God’s Word, so they will grow and mature in Christ (Eph 4:11-13, 1 Cor 4:17, Acts 15:35). They also have the right to support preachers and elders who are dedicating themselves to teaching (1 Tim 5:17-18).
3. Preaching to the lost. Perhaps the greatest responsibility of a congregation is to bring the gospel to those who are dead in their sins (Acts 11:26). The church is supposed to preach to the lost because mankind will go to hell without the Bible’s saving words (Rom 1:16).
4. Worship God. The church is supposed to assemble together (Heb 10:25) and worship God. They do this by singing (Col 3:16), praying (Acts 12:5), studying (Acts 2:42), taking the Lord’s Supper on Sunday (Acts 20:7), and taking up a collection on Sunday (1 Cor 16:1).

This is the stuff that Jesus wants His church to be doing. If we aren’t doing that (or if we are doing stuff other than that) – we are no longer His church. His church does what He wants, not what it wants. Everything a church does needs to somehow be specifically involved in furthering one of those four tasks. A church-sponsored birthday party doesn’t fit into those categories. Birthday parties are great, but they aren’t what Jesus’ church is here for.

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