“Well here's my advice to these donors: Get a life. After all, why did you give in the first place? To build something significant for God and for humanity or to get your name engraved on a sidewalk brick?”
– Phil Cooke, filmmaker and Christian media consultant, to donors who are upset that bricks with their names on it at the former Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove are being replaced with new landscaping courtesy of the now-owner, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County.
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Cooke continues on his blog (hat tip to Christian Post):
“The truth is, most of these ministries knew what they were getting into back in the '70s and '80s. They knew that people loved recognition, so they named college buildings after donors, or created special gifts or 'ministry premiums' for donations-and how many ministries have you seen with the big tree painted on the lobby wall with donor names on the leaves? It was a two way addiction-ministries wanted the money, and donors wanted to be recognized.
“Maybe it's time for a donor reset. Let's rethink why we give and what our expectations should be. The era of the '70s and '80s was the prosperity theology period when people were erroneously taught that God will bless you (when you give to my ministry of course.) The truth is, God does bless givers, but that's not why we should give. It's not about getting our names on a plaque, it's about making a difference.”
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.