Transparency in the Church

“But thank God! He has given Titus the same enthusiasm for you that I have. 17 Titus welcomed our request that he visit you again. In fact, he himself was very eager to go and see you. 18 We are also sending another brother with Titus. All the churches praise him as a preacher of the Good News. 19 He was appointed by the churches to accompany us as we take the offering to Jerusalem, a service that glorifies the Lord and shows our eagerness to help. 20 We are traveling together to guard against any criticism for the way we are handling this generous gift. 21 We are careful to be honorable before the Lord, but we also want everyone else to see that we are honorable.“ 2 Corin¬thians 8:16-21 (NLT)

Transparency simply means “capable of being seen through”. It means to be open, frank or candid; without guile or con¬cealment. Transparency is not about distrust; it is about disclosure which ends up preventing personal agendas from cir¬cumventing God’s plan. Transparency comprises honesty, openness, full disclosure, integrity, legal compliance, and quite number of other things that allow us to deal fairly and faithfully with one another. Paul knew that Christianity without transparency is just another religious exercise which will go as far as the leader of the group can take his followers, not as far as God can take them. This explains why he was eager to have a member of the Corinthian church (chosen by the con¬gregant themselves) to accompany his team to Jerusalem and witness how they use the money which has been donated by the church members in Corinth so that he and his team will not only be honorable before God, but also before men. This is a culture of candor which does not happen automatically but requires a conscious effort and commitment of the church leader. Leaders demonstrate their honesty and integrity by supplying followers with all ministerial information, including them in the making of decisions that affect them, and never using or manipulating them.

The most common area of concealment in the church is in her failure to disclose financial details to her congregation which is contrary to the culture established by the Apostles. The church is expected to show the State an example of how to govern and treat people, but how can they perform this task when they themselves are pre-occupied with building enter¬prise rather than building people? Most developing countries are regressing rather than progressing because the church in these communities has failed in her duty as “people focus” and become “enterprise-focus”. When leaders are open in their dealings with their congregants the result will always be a condition of trust, making followers to go the extra miles in con¬tributing their skills and time, and giving sacrificially to a worthy course without the need for them to be cajoled. Wall Watchers president, Chris Hempe puts it this way “Instilling greater confidence in donors to Christian ministries will result in greater giving to Christian ministries. The end result is to grow the kingdom of God.” Church leaders who are plain, op¬erate transparently and are able to honestly speak the truth to government, thus contributing to a progressive social-economic change within the nation. My candid advice is this: It is time that we who belong to Christ be transparent in our dealings and do things right, so that deceit will become a thing of the past in the church.

Transparency will provide a check, preventing us from issues surrounding broken promises of how money raised to fund a particular project was used to pay for another, or some funds that were raised for particular projects were uncontrollably delayed or never spent for their stated purposes. This demonstrates to us that every Christian ministry has an obligation to be transparent to his donors so that no one will for any reason suspect it of working in darkness. From our scriptural text above, it is clear that it was Apostle Paul’s idea that churches in Corinth appoint a brother who was of high repute among them with the sole aim of accompanying the Apostle’s team to Jerusalem. This was done in order for Apostle Paul and his team to be blameless before the churches just as they have been blameless before God, because this appointed brother is expected to come back and give a report that the money they donated to the Apostle’s team was used for what it was in¬tended. So the questions to ask yourself are:

• Is your church transparent with its finances?
• Do you give or get financial report periodically?
• Is the financial report you give or get detailed?
• Are the staff (including pastors) salaries and benefits disclosed?

If the answer to any of the above questions is “No”, then there is need for correction because no matter how we look at it, the fact remains that nothing is to be a secret when it comes to reporting the administration of the Lord’s money if we truly believe it is the Lord’s money, because this is how the bible recommends that we handle Church finances.

The reservations I have is this: if we who administers God’s money cannot be transparent about how we spend the money, how can we expect those who administer the nation’s money to be open in their financial stewardship? How can we who call ourselves servants of Christ be bold enough to correct those who manage public fund and ask them to be open in their dealings?

It was the grace of God that enabled Paul to be an open person, not resorting to what he calls fleshly wisdom, or a decep¬tive front involving craftiness and manipulation, but rather a man that put the person and way of Christ on display. We also as Christian brothers and sisters should ask for this grace, set our mind on it and achieve it, so as to run the race success¬fully For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 1 Timothy 6:7 (NIV). Peace of the Lord Je¬sus Christ be with you. Amen.

‘Tunji Oreyingbo
www.sanctifiedword.org