7 Questions Churches Hate You Asking but Need to Hear

You do not have to belong to a church to ask whether its beliefs survive contact with its behaviour.

Image by Canva Pro.

During my ministry as a vicar, somebody asked an awkward question about a church-building project: should we accept money from the National Lottery?

It was a reasonable question; you are probably already answering it. The lottery gives money to good causes, but some Christians are uncomfortable with gambling. Could a church benefit from something it might otherwise discourage? If we accepted the money, what were we saying about where it came from?

I wish I could say I was delighted that someone was taking the question so seriously. But mostly, I was thinking about how much longer all this was going to take. Raising the money was difficult enough; now we were going to spend even more time deciding whether we should accept certain funds.

I will admit I was not especially grateful.

But the question prompted a consultation across the church and a study of Scripture. We had to think and pray about which principles should guide us, rather than assume that money would be acceptable as soon as we needed it. That discussion subsequently helped us assess donations from other organisations. In…