tycho wrote:Money and property to be received must be optimized in accordance to the needs. Whether they are 'legitimate' or not.
The options are two; early church communism, or pressing the members to give as much as they can. There's no middle ground.
If members were allowed to give as they deemed fit churches would have to get into illegal or controversial businesses to survive.
No true!!!
There are mainstream churches that are accountable to their congregations. The pastor(s) don't touch the money. They just preach. Full time pastor are given an allowance whose figure is public knowledge. They are given enough to be able to live comfortably
in the same community as their congregation [Not preach in mathare and sleep in Runda - using mathare offerings]
The reason for giving them the allowance is to make sure they are available full time to the congregation. Otherwise they would be force to get another job to make ends meet and preach full time.
What's so hard in saying "we will be paying our pastor(s) Kshs. x/= (A reasonable amount in line with the incomes of the members of the church). Then make everything black and white. We collected this much, paid salaries this much, bills this much, assisting the needy this much...
Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good returns.