A Tough Week in the Office

MATTHEW 6:19-21, 24                             

On Monday of this week I knew it was time to write a stewardship message. Yet I really was not in the mood for either developing a sermon on stewardship or inventing a campaign slogan for this year’s emphasis. Instead my mind was pulled toward the theme of the Reign of God. Sometimes people speak of it as the Kingdom of God, but I call it the reign of God.

Specifically I was considering the merits of words like “build” and “spread.” These are the typical words we use to describe this Reign. God’s kingdom is being “built” or we are “spreading” the Kingdom. As I searched the scripture I never ran into these words. Instead I kept reading “receive” or “enter” the kingdom. Which of course is a different picture altogether.
Most certainly, I tell you, whoever doesn't receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, he will in no way enter into it."
 
The kingdom instead being something I build or spread is something I receive. Like a gift, I become a kingdom person because I’m invited to come. God graciously allows me to enter the Kingdom of Life.

By Tuesday I was feeling a little pressure to develop this theme and stop all of this looking around for words related to the Reign of God. Frances provided me with the year-to-date giving, this year we have given back go God for the general budget 252,360. In 2005 at the same time we had given 264,997. On the building side we have given back more this year than in 2005.

Weeks ago I received a mail out from some consulting firm that helps churches with “faith-raising” as they call it. I took a few moments to look through it, thinking it might provide an idea for a stewardship theme. I felt so out of touch. The company used words like “multiple revenue streams” and “customer relationships.” It wasn’t like I was lost; I knew exactly what they meant. This is what was sad, at one point I was joyfully ignorant of such words as revenue streams but now I know as much about revenue as I do about the words of the Kingdom. Which in some way makes me thing I have abandoned my call to preach gospel.

Multiple revenue streams as I have learned are various ways churches receive money. Some churches have book stores where t-shirts, coffee mugs, books and anything else which can be ordered can be purchased. Then of course there is faith-raising” where we appeal to you for a certain specific need. Then the tithes. Of course if a church has property they may rent it to produce an additional revenue stream. Of course as I turned back to the Bible on Tuesday afternoon and stopped reading the consultants bible all I could find was the revenue stream “give back” to God.

The Bible has all of these thorny verses about money.
In Timothy we read we should not be a “lover of money.”

Then Jesus himself preached "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."
On another occasion Jesus reported this to the disciples. As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.” I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

Another day with the Bible, still no theme or even a sermon, at least now I had something to think about so I turned off my computer and went home.

On Wednesday I was still wrestling with “Not loving money . . . serving God instead of money . . . and giving all I had.” When another rabbit had to be chased. I was asked to speak at a youth function at a local high school and I needed to prepare for this opportunity. I had in mind a story that Os Guiness tales but I had to find the story to tell it correctly. So I searched through my library for the story. I was looking in The Call when I ran across this line “‘Either we serve God and use money or we serve money and used God.” Once I read that I never looked for the story again.

By now I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to be able to develop a polite non offensive encouraging stewardship message, instead it was going to be filled with difficult but truthful words like.
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

I don’t think any of us despise Jesus even thought our bank account may say otherwise. We may choose things other than Jesus or find it more pressing to have certain status symbols than to be a sacrificially giver but I’m not sure we despise Jesus. Someone said and I have remembered the quote, “The most truthful theological document any of us own is a checkbook.”

Still no theme for the stewardship emphasis, but maybe Thursday will be better.

Thursday morning. “Give ‘til it hurts,” “Be faithful . . . Be Generous,” “Unto Us is Given,” and “The Courage to Care.” And these are only a few of the stewardship themes I found on the internet. This is when I ran into this campaign from an Episcopal church. The stewardship committee is offering a brief word of explanation and encouragement to the congregation for the upcoming year.
“The question is simple, but the answer is a bit more complicated. Historically, the annual budget has been set according to the results of the Stewardship Campaign. This philosophy puts pressure on completing the Stewardship Campaign prior to the end of the fiscal year so that the budget can be finalized, but it also ensures that the Redeemer lives within its means.
Accordingly, Stewardship does not have a specific dollar goal. That being said, we certainly have objectives. We have an objective to ensure that we have the financial resources necessary to hire and retain the very best clergy and staff people available. We have an objective to ensure that the financial resources needed to provide meaningful and moving worship services are made available. We have an objective to provide our children with the most exciting and stimulating Church school program possible so that they receive a strong Christian foundation upon which to build their faith. And we have objectives to maintain our Church building as well as the other important programs for the parish.
All these objectives cost money, and the funds required have been provided by the Annual Stewardship Campaign (66% of the budget) and supplemented by funds from the endowment (22% of the budget). The problem is that we are currently taking close to the maximum amount possible ($171,030) from the endowment to balance the operating budget. As a result, when faced with unusual expenses (repair work for the tower, repair work for the front of the church, etc.), the Redeemer has needed to undertake capital campaigns or withdraw principal from the endowment to provide the funds required.
What this means is that we are using the Redeemer’s endowment to support our annual operating requirements and relying upon additional parishioner support to meet “unusual” expenses. This approach is the opposite of what most people would assume should be the case.
To ensure that the Church of the Redeemer remains in a sound financial position for years and generations to come, your Wardens and Vestry have adopted a very simple philosophical goal. Our church leadership believes that our operating budget should be met by the annual stewardship campaign while the resources in the endowment are preserved to fund “unusual” or “one time” expenses that cannot reasonably be funded by the annual budget. Put another way, we believe that contributions from current members of the parish should be sufficient to operate the Church. While philosophically this is an easy statement with which to agree, in practice it means that we must substantially increase our Stewardship giving  for 2006! Not a small task, but by no means impossible.
During the same search I ran across an entry from a Methodist church in New York State. A summary of the entry would be this. In the United Methodist Church, local churches make a commitment to pay apportionments, money that supports ministries beyond our local church walls. We at St. Paul's have a hard time making these payments - we pay our own bills first, and by the time we get to our apportionments, we usually only scrape out about 50% of what we owe. They went own to say 50% wasn’t as bad as it sounded because some churches can only scrap together 22% of the apportionments.

By now I was forgetting about the theme, I was wrestling with a more fundamental and disturbing question. Why are churches everywhere from all different denominations struggling to make ends meet. Some relying on endowments others cheating their denominations others not taking care of routine responsibilities. Why?

The simple answer is either the churches need too much money to run or the people do not connect stewardship with their faith. Yet I have never been one for easy answers tomorrow I will think about this.

Friday morning. After some sleep it appears to me like this. I have forgotten the Bible and learned about business. In similar fashion people see the church as a human institution not a divine family. Business and institution have replace the Bible and the divine. Thus we get what we focus on, resources, income verses expenditures, operating expenses, and multiple revenue streams. We spend our energy trying to say things politely and developing campaigns that will unite people. And people, you and those in other churches see it for what it is, a way of saying we are giving you something of value you should support us by giving us your money. It’s almost like we should end the service with “Thank you for Worshipping at Wal-Mart.”

So the bottom line comes down to a re-examination of who we are. We are not customers or even members, we are disciples. Disciples do not give because they get, disciples give because they are thankful. We are not a business with resources and revenue, we are a church and we only exist because of faithful Christians and a generous Father in heaven. We do not have multiple revenue streams, we have one, it is what we give back to God for saving our soul, redeeming our spirits and listening to our prayers. We do not need a theme or need to a consultant, giving back is a spiritual matter it is something that if we prayed about we would address [mention pledge cards].
In the end we are not even talking about money we are talking about being grateful. If we think our life and our salvation are due to our own hard work and good fortune then we respond with a polite gift to the church. However, if we realize from salvation to peace, God has given us everything we need. If we recognize that we are taken care of from the cradle to the grave then we will respond from the heart. So it’s really a matter of revival. Where is our heart?