Many of the criticisms of Christianity I have written about have been in response to challenges I’ve encountered online. This one, however, is personal. Because it affected my family directly. And caused me to mistrust any institution that asked for my financial support.

Humble Beginnings

I grew up in a small farming community in central Ohio. It was (and still is) a very blue-collar town. The “well-off” families there would be considered upper-middle-class anywhere else. Most of the town’s residents would fall into the lower-middle class or below. That was us.

We weren’t poor. And I never went without. I always had clothes, food, and things to keep me occupied. We were a single-income household. Mom had the same job for 40 years. She worked at a bank helping people open checking and savings accounts. She had no college degree so she couldn’t advance very far. My Dad became disabled when I was young and couldn’t work for most of my childhood.

Send Me Your Money

I grew up in the 80s and early 90s. This was the era of the televangelists. Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Baker would be on TV every week, imploring people to send them money so they could get blessings in return. One guy offered to send you a prayer cloth that he had anointed and prayed over to help with any malady you were suffering from for the small fee of 5 installments of $19.99. Others did the same with bottles of “holy water”.

The thing that made this hard to swallow was the images of the palatial compounds these guys were living in. The limos, the private jets, the expensive watches. They were getting a lot of blessings, to be sure. But the people sending them money didn’t seem to be.

I know because that was us. Since my dad was now unable to work, he spent a lot of time in front of the TV. Watching televangelists. Who convinced him there would be blessings if he sent them money.

My parents never talked about our finances in front of me. I knew Mom went to work, we had food, I had clothes, and the lights were always on. So, I thought we were good. I knew Dad was sending these guys money, but I had no idea how much. I thought it was dumb and a waste. But our life didn’t seem to be affected one way or another.

I was wrong. I just didn’t know how wrong until recently, when I started going through my parents’ financial records. Both of my parents have passed away. And as I was going through their things, I found the receipts of how much Dad was sending them. Hundreds of dollars every year. That may not sound like a lot today. But to a single-income family in the 80s, it was.

The other thing I found was loan payment books. I had no idea this was going on. I found out that Mom had taken out loans on several occasions. Nothing huge. And we didn’t have anything expensive or go on many vacations. So the loans were to cover the bills and pay for the necessities.

Now, I don’t have any evidence that Mom had to take out loans because we didn’t have enough money due to Dad sending money to snake-oil salesmen. But it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that.

Lights! Camera! Fog Machine!

Even though that era is largely over, the imagery lives on. I live in Southern California now. There are two megachurches within 10 minutes of me. At least 10 if I expand that radius to an hour. These places are HUGE. And they don’t have just churches on their campuses. They have big parking structures, gyms, community centers, coffee shops, and book stores.

While the era of pastors in suits and ties may be mostly over, pastors wearing expensive clothes is still a thing. Expensive sneakers, jeans, button-down shirts, and the latest wearable gadgets. Televangelists may be in the past, but “celebrity pastors” are everywhere.

Like most things in life, we tend to get our impressions of a thing based on the news media and entertainment industries (film, TV, and music). We form our opinions about a people group or an area of the country without ever being there, and move on with our day. And the opinions we form that way are rarely flattering. I certainly had when it comes to churches asking for money. But then a couple of things happened.

First, I grew up. I received hard life lessons on how money works and how much things cost. Second, I started to attend a church. And, I saw what they use money for.

Why Churches Ask For Money

Do churches need my money? Yes, yes they do. And here’s why. The money that I give as an offering at my church goes towards several things. First, things cost money. This is just common sense. Churches have mortgages and salaries and phone bills and electric bills and postage fees – just like everyone else. This is how life works.

In a recent video, Tim Barnett – aka “Mr. B” – outlines a lot of services that churches either donate money to or provide themselves; things like counseling, substance abuse programs, food banks, summer camps for kids, marriage counseling and seminars, community services (cleaning up streets, cleaning up schools, etc), crisis pregnancy services, overseas projects, and spiritual mentoring. All of these services are provided to the recipient FOR FREE. How are they provided for free? Because the people who go to the church pay for them so they can be free to those in need. Churches don’t want people’s money because they want to get rich; they want it so they can serve people.

Thirdly, people give money towards things they value. I value the phone that I have and the cars that we own, so I chose to give money for them. Christians value helping others, so that’s why they give money to their churches to make that happen.

Giving an offering is not required, either. It’s strongly encouraged, but it isn’t a requirement to sit in the pews and listen to the message. The message is free.

Other People Want Your Financial Support, Too

This last point is not exclusive to churches, by the way. Take, for example, the college I attended. As an alumnus, my college routinely asks me for money even though I am not using any of the school’s services, nor will I get anything of equal value in return. Why do I donate money to my prior college? ‘Cause college kids are BROKE and they need help from people like me to fund things like scholarships and special programs. In other words, they need my charity. It’s not a loan. I don’t expect financial repayment. I hope they can receive something that improves their life.

If you’ve spent some time consuming content from YouTube, you will inevitably run into someone who asks you to donate to their Patreon page or something similar. Even some atheist YouTube channels have Patreon pages. Why? Because they know that if they want to reach more people, they require support from other people, like their followers.

Mega-Churches Are Not The Norm

All of the churches I have ever been a part of have been small. A hundred or fewer during worship services. I used to be very critical of the mega-churches, wondering why they used so much money on their facilities instead of giving it to community services. But then I realized that the reason they need big churches and big parking structures is that there is a demand for their services! The pastor didn’t start from day one with a 3,000-seat sanctuary. That church started out under a tent or in a small building. And there was so much demand for what that church was doing, it needed to build bigger buildings and add more resources.

If you think about it, that’s a good thing! And as for the other “non-church-y” structures, like recreation centers, the churches often make these available to the community for events. The church wants to be at the center of the community, so it has facilities to make that happen.

Are there some bad apples that DO appear to be in it for the money? Sure. Guys like Benny Him, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, and Creflo Dollar preach what is known as the Prosperity Gospel or “Name It and Claim It”. This message is false, it’s completely unbiblical, and it’s easy to spot. It usually looks like this: “You give me YOUR money and God will bless YOU with (insert material good here)”.

While these people DO exist, they are the vast, vast, VAST minority of churches. The vast majority of churches aren’t in it for the money. They are in it to serve the community. And this requires financial resources.

So, the next time someone tells you that churches are reopening to make their wallets fatter, ask them to consider these points before painting all churches (even all “mega-churches”) with such a broad brush of generalization.