What Does the Church Value?

There is much talk about the need for churches to have a set of core values. These are the things that guide the church and make up who the church is. They are rather constant and are meant to anchor a church. For a new church, values are "wish to be" statements. Thus, when a new church lists its values they are listing "wish to" statements about how they want to be some day since they have not had any life yet to live out those values.

But, once a church does have some years how does one determine what values they hold? There are three things to look at in my mind.
1. The church calendar. What does the church spend its time doing. Is it putting on chicken dinners and gospel sings or doing servant evangelism and Habitat for Humanity?
2. Talent. How are persons deployed in the church? Are person's spiritual gifts discovered so they can serve the institution or serve Jesus as they do life in the workplace, on the ball field, or at school?
3. Treasures. Where is the money being spent? Do we say we value youth and give them $500 dollars in the budget and then tell them to hold a car wash and sell fruit to raise money while we spend $40,000 to restore the pipe organ?

Incidentally, or not so incidentally, these same measuring sticks (which are admittedly not exhaustive) can be used to determine an individual follower of Jesus' values. You can tell a lot about what people and churches value by looking at the calendar and checkbook.