Public Good or Private Club
Does your church matter beyond Sabbath morning?
Four months ago, I was in the U.S. pre-clearance line at the Toronto airport, the kind of line that tests your patience and your faith. When I finally reached the counter, the officer asked, “Where are you heading?”
“I’m attending a religious conference for our worldwide church,” I said.
“What do you do?” she asked. “Are you a priest?”
“I lead and manage pastors,” I replied.
She leaned in. “I’m not religious,” she said. “But I’ve seen too many preachers in the USA driving luxury cars while their members are poor. What is the church for, if not for public good?”
That question landed like a verdict.
What Is the Church For?
It’s a question the world is asking, and in Canada, it’s a question our government is legally asking every single day through its definition of charity.
As leaders of churches and faith-based charities, we face a critical identity crisis. Are we a private club for the saved, a holy huddle protecting our own?
Or are we an engine for the public good, a force for “abundant life” in our communities (John 10:10)?
We often forget that the “Great Commission” was born in fire, a direct challenge to the powers of the world.
To understand Jesus’ words, we must understand his world. It was not a serene Sabbath School picture. It was a land under brutal military occupation. Foreign soldiers patrolled the streets. Crosses lined the roads, not as symbols of hope, but as gruesome warnings. The emperor was referred to as “Lord” and “Saviour” and the “Son of God.” To speak of another king was treason.
This was a world choked by fear, steeped in hatred, and haunted by despair. Into this pressure cooker, a resurrected Jesus appeared to his traumatized followers. And what did he command them to do?
He commanded treason: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19). In a world where Caesar was Lord, this was a “revolution of allegiance.” Every baptism was an act of civil disobedience.
He commanded them to be reckless: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem” (Acts 1:8). This was the “lion’s den,” the very city that had just executed their leader. It sounded like a suicide mission.
He commanded reconciliation: “…and in all Judea and Samaria” (Acts 1:8). This was a command to love their most bitter racial and religious enemies by making them their mission field.
But look closely at the text. As Jesus gives this impossible, world-changing command, the narrative notes: “When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.” (Matt 28:17)
The Great Commission was not a reward for perfect faith. It was a command given to a group that included the hesitant, the traumatized, and the doubting. Jesus didn’t wait for their doubts to clear. He gave them a mission despite their doubts.
The mission is not for the certain; it’s the antidote to uncertainty. It was given not only to those who worshipped, but also to those who wavered.
From Legions to Legislation
Today, our reality in Canada looks different. We aren’t fighting Roman legions; we’re filing paperwork with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
But the core question from that airport officer remains: “What is the church for, if not for public good?”
The CRA’s “Four Pillars of Charity” are the government’s secular version of her question:
The Relief of Poverty
The Advancement of Education
Other Purposes Beneficial to the Community
That third pillar—“The Advancement of Religion”—is the one we’ve taken for granted. But it is publicly and aggressively under attack .
Why? Canadian law is clear: A Registered Charity serves the public. In exchange, it can issue tax receipts. An organization that only serves the private benefit of its own members is a “club” (a Non-Profit Organization). A club is tax-exempt, but it cannot issue tax receipts.
Here is the brutal contradiction we are ignoring: We are legally registered as public-benefit charities, but we are operationally functioning as private-benefit clubs.
Think about your Sabbath morning. If 99% of your church’s budget—your building’s mortgage, your new sound system, your livestreaming, your utilities—is spent to produce a service that is exclusively attended by your existing members, you are not delivering a “public benefit.” You are delivering a “private benefit.” By the CRA’s own definition, you are a club.
This is the legal time-bomb we are sitting on. The threat isn’t persecution; it’s reclassification. It’s an auditor or a journalist looking at our multi-million-dollar, tax-exempt buildings, used five hours a week by the same small group, and calling it what it is: a tax dodge. The greatest threat to the gospel today isn’t persecution; it’s our insulating, numbing comfort.
Our Spiritual DNA
Our Adventist pioneers understood the mission was public. When the Fugitive Slave Act ordered citizens to return escaped slaves, Ellen White declared, “That law… we are not to obey” (Testimonies 1, 202).
We love to put our first General Conference president, John Byington, on a pedestal for turning his home into a station on the illegal Underground Railroad. But would we today use church property to harbor a person without status—an 'undocumented migrant’ facing a deportation order—in direct violation of Section 117 of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act?
Or would our board, after a 'prayerful’ discussion, cite 'insurance liabilities,’ 'political neutrality,’ and the 'risk to our charitable status’?
You don’t have to harbor an undocumented migrant to prove you’re serious. What about a 'legal’ request? What if a single mother from your community, facing eviction, asks to sleep in your fellowship hall for two weeks while she finds housing?
Will it be an immediate 'Yes’? Or will it be, ‘We have to check with our insurance broker?’ ‘I’m not sure the fire code allows that?’ ‘That’s a violation of our zoning bylaw.’
We celebrate Byington for breaking a federal law, but we won’t even challenge a municipal bylaw. That is the true measure of our comfort. We have traded the courage of the Great Commission for the compliance of our insurance policy.
To reclaim the spirit of service over comfort, we must move from good intentions to holy intentionality.
For leaders, this requires a strategic, focused framework:
Identify Your “Jerusalem” (Not Just Your Pews).
A mission that only serves the people already inside is a country club, not a church.
Trying to be everything to everyone makes you “good for nothing” to the community you’re supposed to serve. A fundamental mission starts with a specific “who.”
Who is your specific “Jerusalem”?
Not the person you’re comfortable with, but the one whose needs make you uncomfortable? Who, precisely, in your postal code needs the “abundant life” you claim to possess (John 10:10)?
Define Your “Abundant Life” (Tangible, Not Just Theoretical).
“Abundant life” is a cruel marketing slogan if it doesn’t result in a tangible “public good.” Your community isn’t asking for your theology; they’re judging your usefulness.
Stop listing what you can’t do.
Other than the simple advancement of religion, on which one of the CRA’s pillars—poverty, education, community benefit—will you stake your reputation? What specific, measurable impact will you actually deliver with the resources you have, instead of hoarding them for your own comfort?
Review your church’s last annual budget.
Draw a line. On one side, list all expenses that serve people already in the building (e.g., salaries for internal programs, building maintenance, new sound systems, and lights). On the other, list expenses that exclusively serve the 'Jerusalem’ outside your walls.
If that ratio is 90:10, 95:5, or even 99:1, you are not a mission; you are a club. I’d like to challenge every congregation to publish its mission ratio on its website. Not to shame anyone, but to establish a baseline. Because you can’t improve what you won’t measure, and you won’t measure what you’re afraid to admit.
Stop Confusing Busyness with Faithfulness. Measure Your Impact.
Businesses track metrics to survive. We must track them as a matter of spiritual integrity. We love to celebrate our busyness because it feels like faithfulness, but without impact, it’s just self-congratulation, just vanity, not accountability.
Stop being afraid of the answer. We must know if what we’re doing is actually working.
The critical question is: Are you being productive, or just busy maintaining a club?
The risks have changed, but the choice remains.
The challenge is to answer the three questions that lie at the heart of our mission:
Who is our “Jerusalem?”
What is our “Abundant Life” (in dollars and cents)?
What is our actual impact?
Because if we don’t answer these questions ourselves, the CRA—and the society—will answer them for us.
Charles Ed II Aguilar is the president of the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church