Good morning. I’m Dave Harris, and I’m here to talk about stewardship.
Many of you may know that I am one of those folks who can be called a cradle Episcopalian. I was baptized at 6 weeks old at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Wichita, and have been a member of an Episcopal Church ever since.
During my life, I have been unbelievably blessed to have tremendous spiritual role models in my parents. They lived a life, and continue to live a life, of stewardship to the church.
Let me start by telling you a little bit about my father. He worked as an administrator for the public school district when I was growing up, and later was a professor for a few years before he lost a five-year battle with cancer. My dad was not a loud guy. He preferred to fly under the radar. But everyone always seemed to know who he was. If ever there was a person who led by example rather than outward direction, it was my father.
By contrast, my Mom is a person who is not afraid to stand up and share her views. She is the director of Christian education for a large Episcopal parish in Florida, and will no doubt share her point of view on something Church or education related with one of you when she visits for Thanksgiving in a couple weeks.
My purpose today is to kickoff yet another first in the life of our new church home, our first stewardship campaign.
Stewardship is the way we share our gifts with the church. And this season of Thanksgiving is a great time of year for us to take our first official stewardship journey. And no matter what Wal-Mart says, we are not going to skip Thanksgiving to celebrate Christmas.
There are traditionally three pillars of Stewardship, the first two of which are Time and Talent. How we devote the time and the talents God has given us to better our church. As I prepared for this talk, my mother shared the words a wise priest once shared with her, “You can tell what people value most by looking at two things in their lives: their calendars and their checkbooks.” Time, of course, is a precious commodity these days. Look at how many people walk around clutching blackberries and other types of calendars. Our schedules are so packed that we are stressed out and try to jam more things into a day.
My mother and father set an example from an early age about committing time and talent to serve the church. Growing up, it was typical for my family to arrive at church an hour or more before the service. At different times, both of my parents were members of the vestry, or steering committee, at our church. They often had to check through their mailbox in the office before dad went to the choir room to robe-up and warm-up, and Mom went over to the education building to make sure everything was in place for the teachers who would handle Sunday school after the service.
There was also at least one night a week when we would be at the church in the evening. Usually Wednesday for choir practice; but often, another night as well, when we would play with our friends as Mom or Dad worked to get this or that ready for Sunday morning or a special event.
They showed me how enriching it can be to give of your time and talents to the church. They taught me about the idea of spiritual gifts. I have taken many spiritual gifts inventories. As they taught it, a spiritual gift is something that you already have – it’s not something you have to go to college to learn. It’s not a skill to be developed. It’s just there – a free gift from God, to use to help in the growth of God’s kingdom. Many times the gift is so strong that it just flows out of us. Jesus promised that we have all the spiritual gifts in a church to do God’s work . . . the problem is that some of the people don’t use them!
The gift that has served me most recently here at All Saints’ is the love of worship with a community. I love the community of coming together with others seeking God. I love and respond strongly to coming to the altar each week – the liturgy is very important to me. I understood that with my background in the church, one thing I could offer at All Saints’ was to help in bringing together the community by serving in the worship service each week, especially as our community was just beginning. I get a tremendous amount of joy in helping to put on the worship service even by doing the littlest things…lighting the candles or carrying the cross.
Love of worship in community is one of my gifts – what are yours?
Should you be teaching a class for adults or children? Should you be serving on the altar guild? Helping to organize and run more social events to promote our community? Are you good with young people so that you could work with youth ministry? Should you be singing in the choir? Can you bake bread for communion? Should you be painting or doing yard work to beautify the property?
I don’t know your individual gifts, but I know we all have them – and I know that God expects us to use them. Now. Not when it’s more convenient, or when the kids are grown, or when we retire. Although we are young, All Saints’ has many ministries that could be calling us. – Some of these ministries may not yet be in place because you haven’t stepped forward! We are being called to discern our gifts and put them to work for the well being of the church and God’s kingdom on earth in this place. How we respond will depend on our level of gratitude – and the priorities we set in our lives. Your response should not be spurred by guilt. If you respond out of guilt, it likely won’t last. If you respond out of guilt, or “duty”, you will eventually feel both angry and resentful, and likely leave. If you respond through the call of your spiritual gifts, you will be excited to serve when necessary. That’s been very true in my life.
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I want to move on to another part of stewardship, the third pillar, And that is money. A touchy subject.
If you set your priorities – what you value – first in your heart, then in your calendar and your checkbook, you are able to give God and the church a fair amount, and something magical will happen – you will be happier and more well balanced.
Back to my parents for a second. One of the things that I remember with a chuckle about my father was that he was probably the cheapest person I have ever met. He took wonderful care of our family, and we never went without. But he would…honestly…walk around the food court at the mall and find the fast food place that had the cheapest Cokes. I remember asking him during my high school years, “Dad, how much does it cost us to live in this house every month?”
His reply came quickly. “More than you can imagine. Almost $230 per month.” (It was 1986)
It wasn’t a few weeks before that I had watched my father place a check for almost two times that amount in the envelope to fulfill his monthly pledge to the church.
Now I’m not suggesting that twice your mortgage is a good amount to start with. Far from that. A good starting point for consideration is a tithe, or 10% of your salary.
I have always felt that no one has a right to ask you to give without sharing their own giving story – so I’ll tell you that I begin my financial pledge to All Saints’ this month. I look forward to writing the first check each month to the church. It’s because of God that I have a life. It’s because of God that my brain works reasonably well most of the time. It’s because of God’s grace that I have a family who loves me, and friends with whom I share things. So that “bill,” my gift to the church, will come first.
My wife was raised Catholic, and her family attends the Catholic church in Rogers. We are members there as well, and she stays active there with her parents. So when I talk about our gifts to the church, it is a gift split between her church and mine. We only recently began giving money to either church, and we give as much as we can afford monthly, and supplement that with as much time and service as our growing family will allow. As we continue to grow, we will try to bring it up to a true tithe of 10%. Right now, we give 4%. That may not amount to a huge sum, and there are certainly others that give more.
I know we should give more, and we plan to increase that amount as we move forward in our lives. My guess is, as I turn more of our money over to God, he will continue to provide more for us in terms of an enriching relationship and more spiritual gifts.
My point is – go home and pray about it. Think about it with a grateful heart – whether or not it’s stewardship season, set your priorities, and pick a percentage as a starting point. There’s a new phrase some churches are using – they call it the “modern tithe.” It means that you give 5% of your income a month in money, and give 5 days a month serving as a minister of the church in some capacity. It’s not a bad model. What would 5% of your income be?
What you hear from me is not intended to be preachy or to proclaim anything about me or my family – and I hope it’s not. It stems from my passion for All Saints’.
All Saints’ was seeded with a yearly budget of $150,000 from the diocese to begin the work of building a parish in Bentonville. So far, it looks as though our current giving and our ability to stretch resources will allow us to turn a good portion of that money back to the Diocese to do other work. We are in good shape, but it could be so much better for us, as well as those in other parts of the state.
Our stewardship campaign has two goals. First, We hope to attain 100% involvement from members of our parish. Simply put, it is of the utmost importance that we all commit to provide some of our time, talent, and treasure to the success of All Saints’. In that way, we deepen our relationship with God, and make this place our own. The second goal, which makes the first one even more important, is our desire for our church to be financially self-sustaining in 2008. That is a lofty goal, for sure. But we certainly feel it is attainable.
More so, we feel like it will release some money back to the diocese so that they can continue to do important work in building churches in areas of the state that are not as financially stable as NW Arkansas.
The church needs our money for any number of things. After all, we’re growing in a number of ways. We need money for salaries, so that someone can lead the important work of spreading the Gospel to us and our children. We need money for rent so that we can continue to meet in this holy space. We need money for programming so that we can all continue to learn about God and the blessings he brings us, as well as serve those less fortunate than ourselves. Money is important to the church, for sure.
But ultimately stewardship is about us and about our spiritual health, not about money or time. It’s the setting of God and the church as a priority that signals that formation is happening – that the feeling of gratitude and response has been planted in our hearts.
Already at All Saints’, there are people giving their resources to make this place go. Alter Guild, children’s chapel, small group sessions, yoga classes, and “Happy Hour” are but a few of the ways we are giving to make All Saints’ work. This stewardship drive is a way to involve even more people in the work of the church, and to formalize the process of financial support to make the budgeting and business process less of a burden and more of a way to measure how much more good work we can do.
During the next week, you will receive a letter and a pledge card in the mail. You will also receive a call from a member of the vestry of our church to remind you of the importance of the stewardship process we are going through and allow you to ask any questions. It is my hope that you prayerfully consider how you will share your time, talent and treasure with All Saints’ and respond by November 25, filling out the pledge card for time and talent, as well as contacting Suzi Freeman at St. Paul’s to pledge financially, if you haven’t already.
Completing our work on this timeframe will allow Fr. Roger to put together an accurate budget to submit to the diocese by the end of the year, and will allow us to add to the already long list of people sharing their time and talent to make All Saints’ into a growing, healthy parish.
I’d like to close with a prayer I hear regularly when I attend church with my mother in Florida. It speaks to how each of us are a part of this church family, and how important it is for each of us to take part in the effort of making it grow.
A Prayer for Stewardship
My Church is composed of people like me.
I help make it what it is.
It will be friendly, if I am.
Its pews will be filled, if I help fill them.
It will do great work, if I work.
It will make generous gifts to many causes,
if I am a generous giver.
It will bring other people into its worship and
fellowship, if I invite and bring them.
It will be a church of loyalty and love, of fearlessness and faith, and a church with a noble spirit, if I, who make it what it is, am filled with these same things.
Therefore, with the help of God, I shall dedicate myself to the task of being all the things that I want my church to be.
Amen.